The battles in the EC went on to shape the rest of SA
The National Democratic Revolution seeks to redress racial oppression
The ANC in the Eastern Cape calls on all progressive forces to meaningfully participate in the public hearings on the review of Section 25 of the Constitution. The hearings convened by the Constitutional Review Committee are taking place in the Eastern Cape until Saturday.
The hearings are being held shortly after we celebrated the birthday of Tat’ uMandela, who would have turned 100 if he were still alive. President Nelson Mandela dedicated his life to the liberation struggle in South Africa. He joined millions of South Africans who fought against the colonial and apartheid system that violently robbed African people of land in their birthplace. Addressing the court on the witness stand in the Rivonia trial, uTata stated: “In my youth in the Transkei, I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland.”
In honour of the sacrifices that were paid by the likes of uTat’ uMandela, we should use the public hearings to carry on the work done in ensuring we live in a democratic South Africa. The political freedom we enjoy today allows us the space to redress the injustices of the past and build a united, nonracial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
The ANC was formed in 1912 to unite the African people and spearhead the struggle for fundamental political, social and economic change. A year after it was formed, the colonial government introduced the most severe law – the 1913 land Act, which prevented Africans from buying, renting or using land, except in the reserves. Many communities or families lost their land because of the Land Act. For millions of other black people it became very difficult to live off the land. The Land Act caused overcrowding, land hunger, poverty and starvation. Some 105 years later , the majority of people are still without land. Our people live in overcrowded spaces while 87% of the land is in the hands of a white section of the population.
This reality cannot be allowed to continue in a democratic South Africa and as the ANC in the Eastern Cape we applaud the delegates at the 54th ANC National Conference where it was resolved land must be redistributed without compensation.
As the Home Legends we have a responsibility to continue to provide solutions to the problems that we face as a country. The land question is a historical and class question. Our province saw the most wars of resistance against land dispossession. Delivering the annual Raymond Mhlaba memorial lecture, the former general secretary of our ally the SACP, Charles Nqakula explained: “The Xhosas fought nine wars against the colonialists over a period of a hundred years. The first war was in 1779 and ended in 1781”.
In his book titled The Land is Ours, advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi explained: “In an era that might be called the age of paradoxes, the Eastern Cape was the site where the paradoxes of Empire – the explosive battles ‘for sun and light’ – were first played out in South Africa. It was on the eastern frontier that the British exercised their imperial ambitions, the effects of which would irrevocably shape modern South Africa. By 1878, the Xhosa had lost their land. This was to be a blueprint for the country as a whole”.
Given this context, we have a responsibility to shape the national discourse on the land question.
All ANC members are required to make meaningful contributions at the public hearings. The ANC’s guiding policy document, the Freedom Charter, states “the land shall be shared among those who work it”. This is the framework within which submissions by ANC members must be made. The land, like our mineral resources and seas, belongs to the people. No individual has a birthright entitlement to the land. This includes traditional leaders and we commend the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa for affirming our understanding they too as traditional leaders belong to the people. While the focus remains on the 87% of the land that was violently grabbed during the colonial times, all land must belong to the people and as such the land redistribution process must speak to that as well.
In this context the ANC in the Eastern Cape is advocating the promotion of public ownership and control of the land.
This will go a long way to ensuring that we advance our National Democratic Revolution (NDR) of overcoming racial oppression, class super exploitation, and patriarchal relations of power.
A key component of our shared NDR is the democratisation of the economy and the land as a factor of production falls in this category that must be democratised.
We saw the first democratically elected government in 1994. This was followed by the adoption of the most progressive constitution in the world which in its preamble declares: “We the people of South Africa … adopt this constitution as the supreme law of the republic so as to heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”.
The land question must be taken in this context, not as an act of revenge but an act of redressing the injustices of the past.
“Together we have fought for our land, against low wages, high rents and the dompas.
“We have fought against bantu education, and for the right to vote for a government of our choice.
This history is about our struggle for freedom and justice. It tells the story of the ANC”.
Together let us fight for the restoration of land in the hands of the people!!