[South Africa Think Piece]~ White Genocide? A Black Perspective (My Personal Investigation Part 2)
#SouthAfrica Breakdown [Part 2]
The subject of South Africa is very complex and my think piece will need many parts to it. In Part 1, I scratched the surface of the problems regarding the white South African farm murders. Reading back, my opinion seems a little harsh and insensitive to the actual murders taking place. I guess me as a black man, I'm use to seeing, hearing, and experiencing violence and racism in normal life. When I hear about murders, its just another day as a man in the color of my skin. This should not be normal and I should show greater respect for the lives lost. In respect to those who have lost their lives, I want to dive deeper into the governmental roll of the situation and provide a less bias piece and opinion of the matter.
#Zimbabwe's Land Reform. Success or Failure?
Zimbabwe is a perfect reflection for South Africa. In many ways South Africa is poised to go through the same experiences. Its important to note that the two economies are much different and the outcome of land reform could have extremely different outcomes.
The Zimbabwean government began its land reforms in the 1980s to address the imbalances in land access ownership and use that had existed in the country before independence. A number of reforms were implemented over the years, with corresponding modifications to the law and redistribution targets. The most recent initiative, the fast track land reform programme (FTLRP), was introduced in 2001 to speed up the redistribution of land.However, the reform has not delivered the outcomes the government intended. It has resulted instead in violence, a lack of legitimacy in land ownership, and a chronic weakening of the country’s agricultural infrastructure, all of which have contributed to Zimbabwe’s deteriorating social and economic conditions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-11764004
It is important to understand that all this conflict is relatively recent. People who are in their 40s and 50s still remember their houses and land being taken unjustly in South Africa. Now that society has caught up with the injustice of the past, new problems arise. It seems that South Africa is afraid of being the next Zimbabwe in terms of its hyper inflated currency and the overall process of land reform. Many feel the inflation was due to the land reform, but lets not forget that Zimbabwe was engulfed in a domestic war and spending seemingly limitless dollars on defense and military budgets. That pilled with poverty, debt from foreign aid and government corruption, it tanked the economy and South Africa is afraid of being next.
Its a saying that one must "Break yourself down to rebuild yourself". Think of this in terms of a country. Yes there will be a massive disruption in the economy because you are literally changing the economy. The goal is to change the economic proportions of wealth and prosperity. The expected result is that the breakdown will level the playing field and the rebuild will strengthen everyone as a whole. The problem I saw with Mugabe's hostile land takeover was that there was little to no transition and the objective could've been carried out with no violence. The Mugabe supporters forced white farmer off their land and many times through violence. Without proper land management, the land went to waste.
It Wasn't All Bad
Through the past decade there has been a lot of progress on the ground level for the improvement of black lives in Zimbabwe. It shows that given the opportunity, people do want to work and run respectable farms that turn profit. Recently with government help, one can see the possibility of a prosperous Zimbabwe future.
Ian Scoones from the UK's Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University, told BBC News he was "genuinely surprised" to see how much activity was happening on the farms visited during the 10-year study. "What we have observed on the ground does not represent the political and media stereotypes of abject failure; but nor indeed are we observing universal, roaring success," says the study - Zimbabwe's Land Reform, Myths and Realities. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-11764004
Zimbabwe produced more maize in 2017 than was ever grown by white farmers, who have repeatedly been praised for making the country into the bread basket of Africa. Maize production in 2017 was 2.2m tonnes, the highest in two decades.Good rains helped, but even the United States Department of Agriculture said the huge increase in maize production was “mainly due to favourable weather conditions and a special program for import substitution, commonly termed as "Command Agriculture”. That programme was implemented last year by Mnangagwa, when he was vice president.
Under the programme, land reform farmers signed contracts for a certain number of hectares and agreed to sell at least five tonnes of maize per hectare to the Grain Marketing Board. The government provided seed, fertiliser, and, if needed, tractors and fuel for ploughing, and the cost was deducted from the sale price of the maize. Compared to 2011, another good rainfall year, maize production jumped 700,000 tonnes – more than half of which was due to the Command Agriculture programme. https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/land-reform-is-a-zim-success-story-itll-be-the-basis-for-economic-recovery-under-mnangagwa-20171202
What Does This Mean For South Africa
Disrupting the status-quo is never easy and always has its ups and down. Is this the beginning of Zimbabwe on the rise? Is South Africa destine to follow in the same footsteps?
If South Africa can find a way to bridge the gap between the black and the white farmers and implement structure in land reform, I personally believe it could work. We cant forget that this land was forcibly taken from the black population during my parents generation. People must frown upon repeating violent history and work towards a more bi-partisan agreement.
The ANC's proposed legislation would clarify the constitutional provisions that already provide for the government to take ownership of land, but not expand them. Ramaphosa and the ANC acknowledge that the constitution’s property clause already “enables the state to effect expropriation of land with just and equitable compensation and also expropriation without compensation in the public interest.” State President Cyril Ramaphosa had opposed a constitutional amendment as unnecessary. It is likely that the ANC has adopted the proposal for a constitutional amendment that will do little or nothing to outflank the left opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on the land question in the run-up to the 2019 national elections. https://www.cfr.org/blog/despite-land-reform-south-africa-not-becoming-zimbabwe-or-venezuela
As I continue to write about South Africa, new stories develop. After the ANC lost their governmental foothold in the past election and the left, pro-land reclamation members are now amassing in government, they seem to be following the exact footsteps of Zimbabwe. It looks as if the situation is destine to be as violent as Zimbabwe. The government does seem to turn a blind eye to the current murders that are taking place, or that murders aren't on the ANC's priority list. I like to listen to what governments says, but take it with a grain of salt. There needs to be a way to determine who, how, and why people are gifted land and for how long and under what conditions the land needs to be maintained. The focus doesn't seem to be about how to make this process work, its more of how to start the process and figure it out as they go. Zimbabwe should be a lesson and not the role model.
Perhaps the most fundamental reason for the focus on “expropriation without compensation” is the intractable reality of black poverty. The social and economic realities for the black majority in South Africa have changed little since apartheid, while the gulf between white wealth and that of other racial groups has probably increased. The causes of black poverty range from the ongoing consequences of hundreds of years of exclusion of black Africans from much of the economy to the persistent failure of primary and secondary education for blacks since the end of apartheid. There are many other factors, including the fact that South Africa has eleven legal languages, and English—the language of the international economy—is the first language of less than 10 percent of the population. But, “expropriation without compensation” presents itself as a solution to poverty. That is a more attractive alternative explanation for poverty that more abstract discussions around economic policy or the shortcomings of the educational system. https://www.cfr.org/blog/despite-land-reform-south-africa-not-becoming-zimbabwe-or-venezuela
Im writing for those who actually want to learn more about the South African conflict and for those who want to understand the facts and get to the bottom of the issues. I express my opinion as facts come to light. Im not always right and am always willing to learn more. I still have no idea where this investigation is taking me, but there are so many areas of interest that tie into one another. I welcome outside opinions and knowledge. If you have any information that I've missed or have wrong, please send me a message and we'll talk.
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Ive been in the process of ending my job, finding a new job, and getting everything ready for my trip back to the States. I'll only be in the U.S for about a month, then its back to traveling. Lost my phone with only 3 days left of my trip 🤦🏾♂️
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Great post, I'm sorry I only found it now!
One contribution from my fact file:
This is also largely a government fed line of propaganda. I'm afraid that the truth is far more complex.
Under the Group Areas Act the Apartheid government did indeed appropriate large areas of black, coloured (South African coloured) and even Asian (mainly Indian) owned land. But the government fed story of whites arriving and stealing black land is a fallacy. Blacks and whites arrived in SA at similar times, the whites arrived in the South West (in the vicinity of Cape Town and later Port Elizabeth, while the blacks migrated through the Zimbabwe area into the North East of modern day South Africa. English whites remained near the coast while Afrikaans whites "trekked" (long journeys of large groups who travelled by ox cart) into the interior. Where blacks and whites clashed frontiers were formed. this was approximately half way between the two starting points. Equipped with better weapons, whites eventually dominated militarily, with Afrikaners settling in the North West and English remaining to the South. (Later on these two groups fought each other fiercely during the Anglo-Boer wars - won by the English but only after heavy losses to superior Afrikaner tactics
and the most terrible wartime atrocities committed by the English). The blacks remained largely to the North and East, with Xhosa tribes spreading to the South East. Blacks and whites were fairly separated and lived in relative peace, though through the usual process of colonialism it would be fair to say that blacks were probably regarded as "second-class citizens", even if laws to that effect did not exist.
This is the starting point that was established when the Apartheid Government (the National Party) took the reigns. Apartheid was all about separation, with the government of the day seeking to group all blacks into independent "homelands". The idea is not a terrible one if one looks at the strength of nation states, but the way it was carried out was truly horrible. Aside from the fact that the whites kept all the prime areas (gold reefs, diamond mines etc), blacks that lived peacefully next door to whites were pushed out of those areas with only a token of compensation.
This however does not apply to the majority of modern farmland, which in those days was really just completely empty and undeveloped space in the middle of the country. Most modern farms are not built on the former lands of black tribes, despite government hype to the contrary. This creates massive tension in the country as frustrated black youths are fed misinformation and led to believe that modern farms are now built on land which was once owned by their forefathers. Obviously this leave the farmers feeling upset and betrayed by the government and uncertain of the future. This insecurity is crippling to the country; farmers now won't take out loans for fear that their farms may be stolen. Instead land is starting to go to waste and food security is becoming a problem.
Zimbabwe 2.0.
I don't have an easy solution for South Africa, but I do know that it lies in being open and working together, not in being divisive, which seems to be the ruling party's go-to card, lest the population discover how corrupt and inept the government is.
Worst of all is the plight of the coloured people. Too black to have benefits under apartheid and now too white to have benefits under the ANC government, the true native South Africans have been marginalised ever since blacks and whites first set foot in their land. Most continue to live in poverty, earning a small living working on farms or fishing (often illegally in rather well equipped crime syndicates!)
The question of who rightfully owns land is never an easy one, especially when you have a painful past like South Africa. But the reality of the situation is that land changes hands over and over again. Look at the history of Europe and you will see an continent that continually changed ownership as nation after nation after nation conquered parts of it. You can never just revert back to some sort of "Starting point" and say "this land is ours". In a multi-cultural society the very definition of "ours" makes no sense anyway. My own forefathers probably come from about 10 different countries if I go back only 4 generations or so.
I hope that SA can sort out their issues in a fair and amicable manner. I will continue to watch them with interest and attempt to combat their harmful government misinformation wherever I can.
Im just seeing this! Great response! Its always nice to hear what you got.