Right past wrongs with land reform

Martin Luther King once said: “The tensions are not between the races, but between the forces of justice and injustice; between the forces of light and darkness”.

Dr King goes further and says: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice”.

And justice has to prevail. We must not be scared and passive when we have to confront the truth, pains and injustices of the past . . . neither must we be scared, unreceptive and alarmed when we have to apply corrective measures.

I note the above as I stand firm on the quest of the Khoi and San people to achieve our emancipation, recognition and restoration to our rightful place in SA and the return of our rich heritage and inheritance.

As the Khoi and San people of the Eastern Cape, we stand firm behind President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC when it pronounces and pushes for land expropriation without compensation.

We have to forge ahead and heal the wounds that had been inflicted on our people by colonial conquest.

As Ramaphosa said: “It is 210 years since the 1808 rebellion of slaves in the Cape seeking a free state and freedom for all slaves.

“The rebellion, which was quashed by the colonial authorities, was one of the earliest instances of organised multi-racial resistance to tyranny and injustice in SA.

“It is 105 years since the 1913 Land Act and 95 years since the Native Urban Areas Act, two pieces of legislation that were central to the deprivation of black South Africans of their land.”

And it is now time to balances the forces, weigh our options and as our president puts it – “work out a win-win situation” and navigate our way forward to a stabilised, developmental-orientated mindset and peaceful transition process pertaining to the issue of land and expropriation without compensation.

It is in the same voice that I want to silent our critics, doom masters and those still wanting to cling to rich resources and keep retaining the status quo beneficial to only a certain few and say that we are not moved by your threats of embargoes, sanctions, as well as other economic threats.

In this instance I am referring to British Prime Minister Theresa May’s threat levelled at our state president, that the UK, EU, US and Australia had agreed to impose embargoes and sanctions on SA, should the country go ahead with “their evil plan”.

Why is May regarding land expropriation without compensation an “evil plan and a crime against humanity”?

How is land expropriation without compensation going to affect May or am I missing the knowledge or information that she has family in SA who benefited from the robbery, forceful land grabbing, legalised and justified by the 1913 Land Act and the Native Urban Areas Act?

Donald Trump on the other hand is true to his character by wildly and foolishly regarding our democratic process as “land and farm seizures” and accuse our country of “largescale farm killings”.

He further tweets that the South African government “is now seizing land from white farmers”.

As the Khoi and San people, we want to remind May and her counterpart Trump to be cautious with their ill-conceived threats which are not genuinely motivated and hidden by self-protected economic reasons lacking all human empathy.

These are the same sentiments and principles that was portrayed by their predecessors Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

During her tenure as prime minister, Thatcher had refused to support hard-line actions against SA’s racist apartheid regime in 1984.

She declared: “The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation”.

It was wildly reported that she opposed apartheid more on the grounds that it was a sin against economic liberalism rather than a crime against humanity.

Reagan, on the other hand, totally opposed The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which was a law enacted by the US Congress.

The act was initiated in reaction to the plight of blacks in SA who demanded the end of apartheid.

Reagan viewed the act as an intrusion on his authority to conduct foreign policy and issued his own set of sanctions.

Reagan prohibited the compromised bill on September 26, calling it “economic warfare”.

Republicans voted to override Reagan’s veto.

So the behaviour, utterances and threats of Prime Minister May and President Trump is nothing more than stepping in the footsteps of their predecessors and holding on to the concept of the “minority possession” of wealth and resources and global relations and practices beneficial to a few.

As South Africans, we hold dear to our valued constitution, entrenched by a Bill of Rights and guided by the Freedom Charter, we will expropriate land without compensation and this we will attain through public parliamentary hearings, democratic processes and the rule of law.

We will always be cognisant of international opinion, national and international legislation on human rights, good governance and prioritising peace, development and stability – not allowing the Mays, Trumps or anyone to detract us from our noble cause.

As Klaas Stuurman once said: “Give our land back; that’s all we ask . . .”

Christian Martin, ANC MPL-EC

BHISHO

‘The tensions are not between the races, but between the forces of justice and injustice; between light and darkness’