Back to rule by the strong

If Cyril Ramaphosa fails to distance himself from taking back the land without payment, he will find himself in an impossible position.

The ANC conference decision is pure emotion. Yes, it is correct that whites have most of the land and it must have been taken or acquired in some form from the black inhabitants.

We in SA are no different to anywhere else in the world, over the large sweep of history. Land has always changed hands forcefully from time to time in favour of the strong. A nation either lives according to the rule of law (central to which are personal and property rights) or rule by the strong.

We in SA had hoped to have moved from rule by the strong to the rule of law. If the ANC is now to ignore property law, the country will revert to the rule of the strong man. The result will be chaos. The economy will collapse. If white-owned land can simply be seized, it is illogical to restrict this to so-called farm land. Most commercial farms are now essentially factories with a residential component. They only differ from say, Houghton or Isando in degree.

Most farms have been improved beyond recognition from the bare land of centuries ago. A maize farm is a grain factory in the same way as a chicken farm or a piggery. A cattle farm is a livestock factory. A sheep farm is a wool factory. If farms can be simply taken, so can houses in cities. So can any industrial area, office complex, residential complex or mine.

If rural land now owned by whites must be restored to blacks, the same must apply to urban land and everything thereon. The original urban and industrial land was also taken from the black inhabitants at some stage in our history.

However, in so doing, we will have gone back to rule by the strong. We will have gone back to conflict. We will have undone all we achieved to avoid conflict in the run-up to 1994. Is this the legacy Ramaphosa wants?

Willem Cronje

Via e-mail