Land reform will bring redress to the disenfranchised

THE powerful quote by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the land restitution ceremony that took place in Moretele Park recently laid bare the atrocities black people suffered following the enactment of the 1913 Natives Land Act.

The ceremony was held to restore land to the descendants of the Mahlangu and Malobola, whose land was dispossessed in the aftermath of the act.

The president quoted Sol Plaatje, who told a story of an African family evicted from their land who had to bury a child in secret because they had no right or title to the land from which they had been evicted.

The quote from Sol Plaatje read, “Even criminals dropping straight from the gallows have an undisputed claim to six feet of ground on which to rest their criminal remains, but under the cruel operation of the Natives Land Act, little children whose only crime is that God did not make them white are sometimes denied that right in their ancestral home.”

The quote sent chills down my spine as a I pondered how life must have been then.

However, fortunately today I have taken cues from the remnants of apartheid and colonial rule, that transcended all throughout the ages and whose might is also felt by the current generation.

I echo the sentiment of Minister Nkoana-Mashabane, who said the oppressive regime that made black South Africans landless produced inequality, sowed division and fertilised poverty.

As a result, I concur with those who say land reform is the only recourse that will bring redress to our disenfranchised souls.

As I watched during the ceremony in Mamelodi, a total of R203 million was restored to nine individual families who opted for financial compensation due to developments on the land previously occupied by their ancestors, and I rejoiced about the positive ramifications of this.

The land reform process, through restitution, acquisition and tenure security, has the potential to calibrate the process of productive land use, which will automatically correct matters of asset inequality, reduce poverty and create food security.

THEMBA MZULA HLEKO | Pretoria