MARSHALL DLAMINI
DURBAN - It is not an accident that today, 27 years after the attainment of political freedom, only less than 10% of the land has been transferred back to black people. This is so because it was designed to be so. The constitutional architecture was designed in a way that the rights of the dispossessor must reign supreme over the rights of the dispossessed. The Economic Freedom Fighters struggle for the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution must be viewed from this perspective.
The Constitution never intended for a radical transformation of society aimed at uprooting colonialism and apartheid, but rather, Section 25 of the Constitution seeks to balance the interests of both the settler and the native, the dispossessor and the dispossessed. This is a patently impossible mission to accomplish because the interests of the settler can never be common with the interests of the native. Uprooting colonialism essentially means replacing one form of power with another form of power.
In our instance, it ought to mean returning the land back to those from whom it was stolen, but not under the same conditions of private ownership of land. We argue that private ownership of land allows for those with property and resources to accumulate more land for themselves, leaving the vast majority of black people who do not have the money to buy land out in the cold. The principle of expropriation of land without compensation, and state custodianship of land, remain as guides for the reclamation of land and for eliminating class barriers for accessing land
It is for this reason that we argue vehemently that we must amend Section 25 of the Constitution as a matter of urgency, in order to correct this historical injustice embedded in the constitution. Today 25 years after the enactment of the Constitution, we have no comprehensive legislation for the protection of tenure rights of those whose tenure to land is perilous. As a result, many of those living and working on farms are evicted daily. Today, there is no comprehensive land redistribution policy or legislation. As a result, we have been limping from one redistribution policy to another, which have led to the enrichment of those in the leadership of the ruling party, more than the widespread redistribution of land.
As a consequence, land is still owned by a tiny minority, sprinkled with a few black faces who are beneficiaries of the ruling party’s patronage network. It is no surprise therefore that the ruling party has frustrated almost all attempts to amend the Constitution and allow for the changes necessary to radically transform landholding.
Radical land reform must be able to dismantle these systems of control. It is more than just the question of land, primary as that may be. It is essentially about restructuring the nature of our economy, of our geography and of our society as a whole. More fundamentally, the land question is about the creation of a new society based on values of humanity and freedom, and without land, there is no freedom.
As Fanon says in The Wretched of the Earth, “For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land; the land which will bring them bread and above all, dignity”
The talk on radical economic transformation by the current government is artificial, and it is not genuine, because there isn’t now, as there never was before, any commitment to uproot the vestiges of apartheid and colonialism embedded in our economy. Land inequality is the single most important of these vestiges.
While these questions need to be resolved through nationally enacted legislation and constitutional amendments, they have a direct impact on municipal governance and may limit progressive municipalities from implementing thoroughgoing land redistribution programmes.
Society must appreciate that whether at a national, provincial or local level of government, the ruling party has no intention of making land available to our people who are outside of their network of patronage. The very few who have been granted land have been frustrated by the lack of support to make any meaningful living off the land.
South Africa needs a new deal for the resolution of the land question, and that deal lies in stopping the obsession for pleasing the settler community. It is African people whose interests must count first. Our municipalities will demonstrate at a local level that it is possible to restructure land holing in this country, and support initiatives by young black people that are based on the utilization of the land.
Marshall Dlamini is the secretary-general of the Economic Freedom Fighters and is an EFF Member of Parliament
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