Let’s tread cautiously on sharing our land

Allow more say in staging Chats stadium activities

WHAT man wouldn’t want to have a piece of land to call his own? It gives him pride, fulfilment and security. It’s the bedrock of a family, society and a nation.

It is for this reason that so much blood has been shed throughout the ages all over the world.

In Europe, America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, atrocious conflicts have been waged over borders, land and territory.

It’s been no different in South Africa which has had a long, bloody and painful history of conflict over land.

Students of history will know that land has been the root of the problem in South Africa since colonisation.

The Frontier Wars in the Eastern Cape were caused by white settlers pushing further and further into the interior into tribal lands.

It was the same in former colonial Natal where Piet Retief and his men were tricked by Dingaan over land and made to pay dearly with their lives and where subsequently, in revenge, the river ran red and became known as the Blood River.

When these conflicts subsided and the white rulers became lords over the land, they dictated where one could live and whether one could own a piece of land.

The best, biggest and the most fertile tracts of land were occupied by the whites.

In the towns, whites lived on the hilltops and Indians lived down in the valley, often in marshy areas.

In Kings Rest where I grew up, the whites lived on the Bluff and we lived down in the mangroves.

I remember a gang of workers would come around regularly spraying insecticide on the stagnant water where mosquitoes bred, not for our health but for the comfort and safety of the whites on the Bluff.

Still the whites were not happy. They uprooted the Indians and sent them packing to Chatsworth.

But we mustn’t turn back the clock. While it’s true that the white minority owns a disproportionate amount of land, expropriation without compensation must not take us back to the evil days.

Most importantly, we should tread warily with the expropriation of farmland.

Farmers play a vital role in any nation. They feed the nation. There’s an interesting poster on the N3 which aptly describes the importance of the farmer in our lives: No farmer, no food, no nation.

While there must be equitable distribution of land in South Africa, we shouldn’t drive the farmer from his land the way they did in Zimbabwe, with disastrous consequences.

We would then be putting sand in our own mouths.

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN

Silverglen THE Chatsworth Stadium is centrally located to serve the needs of its community. Yet it is fast becoming a white elephant.

A memorandum of understanding between the Durban council and the SA Football Association (Safa) resulted in only PSL matches being played at the stadium, with the result that it’s now idle most of the time.

It has been years since any Premier Soccer League match was held at the stadium.

The only people using this facility are community members who exercise, mostly in the evenings.

Under the leadership of the Rising Sun Chatsworth Athletic Club, residents are encouraged to take up fun runs and marathon training, using the stadium as their clubhouse.

Schools in the neighbourhood also hold their sports day activities there. Besides these, nothing else takes place at the facility.

The groundsmen and stadium cleaners must be commended in keeping it clean and neat, but what is the point in doing so if hardly anybody uses the facility?

Safa should allow the city council to open the stadium to development soccer. Junior soccer clubs under the banner of Chatsworth and District Football Association, as well as lower divisions of soccer teams, should be permitted to use the stadium for soccer training and tournaments.

We have responsible leaders in Cadfa who would welcome such an undertaking.

Durban’s city council as well as the Sport Department should set aside funding for Cadfa to spearhead development soccer at the stadium.

Senior citizens’ clubs, religious organisations, cultural festival committees, boy scouts, girl guides, drum majorettes, cheerleading teams, breakdancers, line dancers, classic car show promoters and other organisations should be able to use the stadium for their activities.

It is a community facility, paid for with the rates of the Chatsworth community. Surely it makes sense that the community be given ownership of the facility for their sporting and cultural purposes?

What’s the point in keeping it only for PSL matches when the local community doesn’t even relate to these events? Due to crime, most local residents stay away when the PSL stages its matches.

People from outside Chatsworth flock to the stadium to watch the PSL match, but the residents are too scared of attending for fear of being mugged.

So why is the stadium being used only once every two years and only for soccer enthusiasts from outside Chatsworth, when there is a need for the local community to use it daily?

Come on Durban municipality and Safa. Let’s address the needs of our local communities first.

We are not saying we don’t want outsiders to use the stadium, but why deprive us of the full use of our own stadium?

It’s called Chatsworth Stadium because it’s supposed to serve the Chatsworth community.

DEVAN & MARY NAICKER Chatsworth