‘We were sold a dummy’
THE commemoration of 28 years of freedom in our country gives one an opportunity to reflect and draw perspective of what the future would have looked like, especially for the previously disadvantaged masses.
This year also marks the 55th National Congress of the ANC, which will also be the precursor to the national elections in 2024.
While it is also important to acknowledge our sovereignty by exercising our own domestic obligations as a country, thought must be given to the fact that our sovereignty is also fragile, though not to the extent of Russia-Ukraine proportions, but in terms of how our freedom might be decayed by instances of corruption and not prioritising the process of renewal and social compact.
The process of renewal and social compact will go a long way in dealing with the undesirable state of what our country is currently dealing with.
A thorough national introspection is needed among all South Africans to reflect on the past and present and map a collective way that will be ideal for the country’s future survival because as the cliché says, our past will shape our future.
Having said that, it is unfortunate to find ourselves as a nation in this present future because the seed was sown in the past, which promised to break the shackles of apartheid and colonialism for us to live in a prosperous non-racial and non-sexist society where everyone lives in harmony, united in our diversity and living in the agreement that the wealth of the country is shared among the citizens.
This documented all the prospects for the kind of South Africa the people wished to live in.
All the desirable futures were also well pronounced and documented in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa in the past, but quoting these documents today is like trying to touch a mirage that is shining on the horizon.
Our people have been sold a dummy; the future we anticipated as a nation has not yet been realised. Freedom is more than the right to vote and the repealing of pass laws. Today the right to vote is like an empty shell.
In 1994, many people were enthusiastic about voting and if we look at the public mood today, the fallacy of voting with its democratic ideals and anticipated trappings has not solved the problems of equality and prosperity as was envisaged by the Freedom Charter and the Constitution.
For people to be free, they need land. Government must fast-track land redistribution programmes not only by expropriating land, but by also prioritising post-settlement support because it will complete the land reform process and speed up wealth creation.
Though the government is doing something, more impetus is needed to speed up the process of land reform, especially the land tenure reform in order to preserve the rights of farm dwellers and labour tenants.
The Constitution of the Republic says that a person or community whose tenure of land is legally insecure as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practice is entitled to the extent that provided by an Act of Parliament, either to tenure which is legally secure or to comparable redress.
Furthermore, the Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Act 2 of 2018 has significantly helped to resolve tenure-rights disputes between farmers and farm dwellers.
The amendment of the act closed the loopholes of the initial act because the initial Extension of Security of Tenure Act had a number of confines that made it easier for farm dwellers to be evicted. The description of the occupier of land by the act was too broadly defined and it was susceptible to wrong interpretations.
The act categorises some farm dwellers as the main or primary occupiers, while others such as wives and children as secondary occupiers. But categorising them as such opens them up to some degree of vulnerability, which leads to some kind of unwarranted evictions.
A pat on the back goes straight to the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development for amending the act because it has strengthened the initial act in order to put an end to arbitrary evictions that are happening on farms.