"Buh-bye."
Posted on 07/23/2008 7:47:56 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Land reform in South Africa is a key ANC policy but it is going badly wrong. Rosie Goldsmith, Reporter for Radio 4 Crossing Continents, met black claimants and white farmers who are caught in the struggle over land.
Bernhard Mojapelo is university educated, with a good job in the city. But his main passion in life is for a vast stretch of barren rural scrubland.
Thanks to South Africa's land reform, he and his tribe have been able to lodge a claim for it.
"Land is a source of life," Bernhard says. "When we were dispossessed and driven away from the land we felt shame and our children looked down on us. Land reform is a victory for us Africans in terms of social prestige and dignity."
Land is an emotional issue in South Africa. Millions of blacks were made landless under colonial rule and apartheid. When the ANC took over in 1994, a minority white population - about 10% - owned nearly 90% of the land.
The transfer of land to black hands became an ANC priority. But, as land reform approaches its deadline there are signs that for rural and farming communities it has failed.
Inefficient
Once a loyal ANC supporter, Bernhard now feels cheated.
"The government was very ambitious with its land reform. But it had no blueprint or master plan," he complains. "It was only a political goal. They didn't monitor it or work out what people really need."
Bernhard Mojapelo The government was very ambitious with its land reform. But it had no blueprint, it was only a political goal. Bernhard Mojapelo land claimant Down the dirt track from Bernhard's house lives another land claimant from his tribe - Patrick Mojapelo.
They are claiming ancestral land from before 1913, when the colonial Land Act forced blacks off their historical land.
Patrick has lived though colonialism and apartheid: "My land is my home. This is where I was born and grew up," he says. "This feeling is stronger among blacks than whites. It's part of myself. It's where we have our graves."
It was promised that 30% of agricultural land would be transferred to black claimants by the official deadline of 2014. So far it's just over 4%.
Transfer has been slow and inefficient. And in the successful cases the complaints are that there's too little money or training to support the new farmers.
Patrick and Bernhard live near Polokwane, the capital city of Limpopo - South Africa's most northerly province, bordering Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Zimbabwe's disastrous land reform - with farm invasions and racial violence - are close and constant reminders to South Africans.
Travelling north through Limpopo, the dry flat scrubland gives way to deep valleys and green hills covered in tall blue gum trees and farms growing macadamias, guavas, avocados and mangoes.
Abandoned
Theo De Jager If we want to feed 50 million people in this country, then we need to think differently about land. Theo De Jager farmer Limpopo is the most productive fruit and vegetable-growing region in South Africa and nearly the whole province is under land claim.
For decades agriculture here has been dominated by successful white farmers, like Theo De Jager, who is also regional president of the largest farmers' lobby group, Agri SA.
Originally an enthusiastic supporter of land reform, he sold his first farm two years ago under the government's "willing buyer, willing seller" scheme, where cooperating farmers are paid market price for their land, which is then transferred to the black claimants.
But Theo's former farm now lies in ruins - dead cattle, dead crops, abandoned by the new owners. All the buildings, including the grand family home, have been ripped apart and pillaged for cables, glass and wood.
Most of the transferred farms have failed and there is mounting concern over food productivity. Theo's new farm is also under claim but this time he will not be a "willing seller":
"If we want to feed 50 million people in this country," he says, "then we need to think differently about land. People will die of hunger if we keep saying we must give land back to those people who roamed here 150 years ago. They're not farmers today."
Abandoned and gutted farm house Theo's former farm has been stripped bare in the past two years Since 1994 about 15,000 white farmers have sold up and many have left South Africa. Theo de Jager speaks for many when he says:
"We have three options: to stay and risk losing everything; to pack our bags and go to Canada or New Zealand, or stay and try to convince the government that they're wrong."
Theo and his friends voice some of their other fears:
"I don't farm any more," says one, "out of fear, seeing what happened to family in Zimbabwe. It could happen here."
"We've already had over 2,000 murders of white farmers on their land," Theo adds.
"Most are due to the general crime situation in South Africa," he admits, "but some have been linked in court to claimants who killed farmers who were not "willing sellers". And that adds to the fear."
Theo's struggle for his land has only just begun.
The ANC has decided to introduce a new Expropriation Bill, a controversial move which, if passed, will give the government greater powers to expropriate land and property from existing owners.
Revenge
For many, this Bill conjures up visions of Zimbabwe. For others, like Bernhard and Patrick, it is a welcome move to speed up land reform. It is farmers like Theo, they say, who are obstructing the process: they are no longer willing to sell and are asking too much money for their land.
Doors Le Roux This is delayed revenge. It's revenge, black on white Doors Le Roux Afrikaner guava grower Doors Le Roux, an Afrikaner guava grower in the Levubu Valley and a member of the Transvaal Agricultural Union, says if the claimants come to take his farm he will defend it by force.
"This is delayed revenge. It's revenge, black on white. The Expropriation Law is a short-cut to stealing our land."
"We could move to a land grab situation - we're already moving towards it. The government says people will get their land and they're not. The claimants are getting restless. I will fight with all possible means. It could get very ugly."
The Expropriation Bill has already been through tempestuous Public Hearings across the country. It will be voted on in parliament when MPs return after their winter recess. Despite the criticisms, the ANC is committed to making it work.
Their line is clear: the legacy of apartheid and colonization are still hard realities in South Africa today and land reform will help overcome that legacy.
With a general election early next year this showcase policy will be displayed in all its glory. For Bernhard, Patrick and thousands of other black South Africans, when they get their promised land it will be a dream come true.
It was only a question of when, not if.
How many years would you give South Africa?
But Theo's former farm now lies in ruins - dead cattle, dead crops, abandoned by the new owners. All the buildings, including the grand family home, have been ripped apart and pillaged for cables, glass and wood.
The looters have come and gone, and the losers aren't just the former owners, but the people they were feeding. It will take some time before South Africa turns out as Zimbabwe. It's a much larger economy and there's still a great deal left to steal. But informed by the same principles of racism and resentment, the end is inevitable.
Years to what?
I give it 12 years. In 12 years, the whites will be deprived of rights, driven out of their positions in the economy, and will be getting murdered out in the countryside. They will be fleeing as fast as they can get out.
The economy will see rampant inflation, stagnant growth, and massive unemployment.
Why so long? Unlike Zimbabwe, there are still millions of whites in the country, and large urban areas. It’s a little harder to hide the genocide than in Zimbabwe. However, having starting in the countryside, it will gain inexorable momentum.
2020, and South Africa will be just another African wasteland.
ping
Most of the British have already left because they have a British passport.
Yeah, one million percent inflation rates. That MUST be a good thing!
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New Zealand, Australia, US, UK, and Canada.
At least that is where many of the Afrikaners I know have emigrated, including myself.
Most of the people left are fools for not seeing the writing on the wall. Many of my family are finally seeing it when we saw it in the 70’s and got the hell out in 78.
It was clear what the future held then, and has become 100% irrefutably crystal clear today. If you fall asleep on train tracks, and get killed when the train comes, who is to blame?
In the early 80's I met a South African woman in Australia who was really something.I was smitten with her...but I doubt that she reciprocated.Some time afterward I traveled to South Africa to see if I could get something started with her.The effort was a failure.However,she did offer me $$$ to marry her so she could get a Green Card.I was tempted to say yes...and not for the $$$...but I declined in the end.She was of British stock but somehow didn't qualify for a British passport.I found that kind of curious but,not being well schooled in SA's history,I just chalked it up to lack of knowledge on my part.
"Buh-bye."
If the native folks think whites are bad news, wait till they meet the Arabs pushing thier way south.
It is actually the Chinese that are moving in. There are countless Chinese factories already set up in South Africa. They don’t give a damn what happens to either the whites or the blacks, and the quicker they kill each other off the better in the eyes of China (Arms shipment to Mugabe as an example). They want southern Africa’s resources.
I don’t see Africa as the Afrikaners adopted continent. It’s their home. Most of the Afrikaners settled the Cape Colony in the 1600’s, and at that time the area we know today as South Africa was empty except for a few aborigine Bushmen. The Zulus and other tribes migrated to South Africa after the Cape Colony was established, and in my mind have less claim to Cape Colony lands than do the Afrikaners. It was after the British seized the Cape Colony that the Afrikaners began their “Great Trek” that established the Boer Republic and Orange Free State, both of which were extinguished by the British in the Boer War.
No, it is sad that the Afrikaners will have to leave their South African homeland or be exterminated. But, that sort of thing has been happening since biblical times.
Many Afrikaners who have the economic resources have already fled the country..
However, there are some poor Whites who would not go anywhere.
Both the Afrikaner and the native African share the blame for the problems in South Africa. The Afrikaners had 350 years to build a just and fair society.
They did not.
They built a society based on racism (a caste system of ‘whites’, ‘coloreds’ and ‘blacks’). They had 350 years to provide equal opportunities to every South African.
They did not.
There is no where in the world where actions don’t have consequences. The Irish problem (IRA and all) had its Genesis in the 17th Century, the Yugoslavian crisis had its genesis in the Ottoman Empire.
The list is endless.
The Blacks are also to blame because they are squandering a great opportunity. Most of their leaders were trained by Marxists in Eastern Europe or by Fabian Socialists in Britain. They were trained by Marxists and Socialists because at that time Western Conservatives were busy supporting Apartheid, Jonas Savimbi, Mobutu and Buthelezi.
The miracle of South Africa is that the transition of power from Afrikanners to Blacks occured without major bloodshed. Mandela should be commended for that.
But the Afrikaners only have themselves to blame. They were the last "Western" nation to keep the institutation of racism alive all so they could have ready access to cheap labor.
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