Abstract
The Conference on ‘Land, Race and Nation in South Africa’ was held at the University of Cape Town from 19 to 22 June 2013. It was organized under the auspices of the Centre for African Studies at the University and sponsored by the South Africa Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD).
On the afternoon of the 19 June, opening comments were given by Professor Crain Soudien, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University, after which Dr David Woods spoke on behalf of SANPAD about the programme’s activities and Professor Fred Hendricks, Dean of Humanities at Rhodes University, South Africa, outlined the SANPAD-funded international research project which led to the conference. A new book was then launched, edited by Fred Hendricks, Lungisile Ntsebeza and Kirk Helliker, entitled The Promise of Land: Undoing a Century of Dispossession in South Africa (Jacana Press, 2013). The Promise of Land focuses on unresolved land questions in contemporary South Africa and argues that the colonial condition persists in the country, because dispossession of land along racial lines has yet to be addressed by the post-apartheid state. In examining questions of dispossession, marginalization, and exclusion, the book focuses on three different socio-territorial spaces, namely, the communal areas (the former bantustans of apartheid South Africa), the commercial farm sector still dominated by white agrarian capital, and urban land challenges as expressed in struggles around housing. It also brings to bear on the South African situation a broader analysis of global and regional trends (including the international food regime) and a number of comparative studies based on India, the Netherlands, and Zimbabwe. It highlights the significance of rural mobilization and movements in trying to resolve the ongoing land questions. In this light, struggles from below are crucial for rethinking purely statist efforts at land reform, and the book grapples with the interplay between oppositional campaigns of social movements and the land policies and programmes of the state. The conference was organized along the same lines as the book, with sessions on urban land, commercial agriculture and the communal areas. Similarly, there was a photographic exhibition curated, which also followed the same spatial logic.
The following morning (on 20 June), a keynote speech was given by Dumisa Ntsebeza, a political activist and advocate, in which he stressed that ‘it is an irony that we have a constitution that gives so many rights, but recognises and legitimises colonial dispossession of the people’. He related this to the earlier Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC was meant to be the glue that held South Africa together through a Mandela-inspired process of post-apartheid reconciliation. But a crucial aspect of that reconciliation failed, specifically compensation for the victims of apartheid, and thus the entire edifice of seeking reconciliation fell and crumbled. Likewise, the mass of dispossessed people have not been compensated adequately for enduring land inequality within the confines of the new constitution. Both the targets set for compensation for the victims of gross violations of human rights and those set for land reform have not been met. Land reform has effectively run aground, as The Promise of Land clearly demonstrates.
On the 21 June, another keynote talk was given, by internationally-renowned Professor Utsa Patnaik of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She recollected how she had discussed the land question in South Africa in the early 1990s (the post-apartheid transition period) with a leading figure from the South African Community Party, Joe Slovo. In arguing for a problematic two-stage theory of transformation, Slovo spoke about the need to first concentrate on developing and consolidating the political franchise for all, before even considering land dispossession, which was to be tackled in a later, second stage. Given that this so-called second stage has yet to be addressed in South Africa, Patnaik went on to indicate how ‘your government has turned its back on you [the dispossessed] in much the same way as the Indian government had turned its back on the mass of the poor in my own country’. Her presentation also focused on the international trend towards neo-liberalism and how it filtered, through the World Bank, into the market-based land reform programme adopted in South Africa.
The main attendees at the conference were social movement activists. The social movements represented a diverse range of social groups, including residents in communal lands, first nations people (such as the Khoisan), workers and dwellers on white commercial farms, shack dwellers in urban areas, farmers on current land redistribution projects, women, youth, and fisherfolk. The movements included: Tshintsha Amakhaya, Food Sovereignty Campaign, Makukhanye, Mawubuye Land Rights Forum, Coastal Links, Siyazakha, Ilizwi Lamafama, Urban Food and Farming, iThemba Farmers, Mopani Farmers’ Union, and Rural People’s Movement. These movements work in many different parts of the country. In addition there were NGOs such as the Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), the Surplus People Project (SPP) and Khanyisa at the conference, which work closely with rural movements.
On 20 and 21 June, land questions in South Africa were discussed under forums relating to urban land, communal areas, commercial farms, and mission stations and marine resources. During these sessions, dispossessed people and social movement activists spoke about their everyday experiences and challenges in pursing livelihoods, as well as their current and future strategies for ensuring far-reaching land change in contemporary South Africa.
For instance, Craig Jonkers from iThemba Farmers, in speaking to urban agriculture and food security, said that ‘we are the urban farmers and wherever we try to farm, we are pushed off from our farms. In 2006, we were told we were illegal on our land. It’s our land. It belongs to us… [W]e try to farm in the cities and we are kicked off…There’s lots of land not being used. We must take the land.’ Magrieta Pieterse, a farm worker on a commercial farm, referred to the recent strike on wine farms in the Western Cape, and asserted: ‘The farm worker strike was a real inspiration, for farm workers and even for people who are not farm workers—these are people who don’t have food, and cannot send their children to school because we can’t afford the clothes. Every farm worker must be organised’. Nora Mlondobezi, a small-scale farmer from a communal area, claimed: ‘Government does not recognise small-scale farmers. They do not believe we are really farmers. But we are the ones who are producing and giving food to our children and making the local economy active’. She went on to outline an experience of hers: ‘[O]ne [agricultural] extension officer came to my farm with a bakkie full of citrus trees. I asked him, what is this for? And he said I am coming to distribute them to the people to relieve hunger. I asked him, how can you relieve hunger with a citrus tree? When a poor child is hungry, can we feed him by a citrus tree? We need land to be able to produce food for our children’. Henry Michaels of Mawubuye Land Rights Forum went to the heart of the colonial nature of the land question in South Africa when he said, ‘when Jan van Riebeck came here he did not bring any land with him’. These are just a few of the many comments made by social movement activists. Though there are significant differences in experiences in terms of communal, urban and commercial farm residents, they face shared problems because of the unresolved land questions, and they all highlight the need to mobilize and organize because of the state’s intransigence in tackling land dispossession.
After the forum discussions, split-away groups were formed based on urban, communal and commercial farm spaces. These groups thoroughly discussed their specific land-based challenges and the way forward. On this basis, a declaration was crafted and passed which incorporated the thoughts of all the groups—it was thoroughly discussed at an open session before being adopted. After passing the declaration, there was a one-hour march to Parliament in Cape Town, where the declaration was read and presented to three state officials. The declaration ends by saying: ‘We direct this declaration to the Presidency because our needs and demands cannot be met by any single department of government. We want a meeting with the Presidency, bringing on board the relevant ministries, by the latest Friday 30 August 2013.’ On inquiring in October about a response to the declaration, the conference organisers were told by the state official contacted that the declaration had been lost and another copy was needed!