The land issue is just the tip of the iceberg

IREAD with interest Yolanda Mhlungu’s letter titled “Restore dignity with land”. Her contention is that removing land from South Africans of African origin eroded the family value system. This, coupled with forced removals, the migrant labour system and various pieces of wicked and discriminatory legislation, turned South Africans into squatters.

I also premise my contribution on a good letter by Mothole Motshekga, who kindly reminded us of the true status of the total land mass of this Earth – where the rulers of our forefathers regarded land as a common wealth from God that they held in trust for their subjects.

Unfortunately, upholding a legacy like this needs leaders of impeccable conduct who cannot be bribed or tempted by promises of personal wealth.

Motshekga quoted a British MP, who travelled from Cape Town to Cairo in 1885 and reported that he “never met a single beggar or thief and had never met people of such high ethical and moral character”.

Europeans also come from a background of oppression and superstition in a land where you were, largely, either a peasant or an aristocrat and, if the former, you were subjected to a life of bitter poverty and hardship.

These were mostly the people who were desperate to risk their lives to be shipped to the new lands, with the hope of a new dawn free from oppression.

The fact remains that even now, in a country like the United Kingdom, the majority of land (80%) is owned by a tiny minority of titled landowners dating back to the 10th century in the reign of William the Conqueror (refer the publication Who Owns Britain).

But at least their government has the wherewithal to support indigent (and lazy) people with a fairly good social security system that enables most to live a fairly dignified life.

Mhlungu also points to another serious problem in most societies: single parents. Ever since World War I and before, the family unit has been imploding. According to Gibbon in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the first factor in this decline was a loss of religion caused largely by barbarian attacks, a loss of virtue and the breakdown of the family unit.

Mhlungu correctly pinpoints the biggest factor in the decline, namely the breakdown of the traditional family unit, where the village were the parents of all children and the tribe was ruled strictly but fairly by the chief.

There was no poverty and no extreme wealth and, when times were bad, all suffered. But at the heart of all tribes is ethical and just leadership and it is thus when the leaders start the decline (and leaders always begin this) that the decline of the tribe is assured.

There are countless pointers to the efficacy of good leadership with the most telling related in the Hindi classic, the Ramayana, where the mythical city of Ayodha is decribed. It is spoken of as a city where no-one lives in a mean abode, where all are bedecked in jewellery and none live in want of any kind. They are ruled justly by their benevolent king who follows the supreme law at all times.

We also have The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, a series of three fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, between February 1338 and May 1339.

The paintings are in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico – specifically in the Sala dei Nove (“Salon of Nine”), the council hall of the Republic of Siena’s nine executive magistrates or elected officials who performed executive and judicial functions.

They have been construed as “designed to remind the nine (magistrates) of how much was at stake as they made their decisions”.

I am no expert in these matters and acknowledge that they are complex but we cannot escape the results of centuries of corrupt and evil leadership, and the effect this has had on nations.

The land issue is important but it is by no means the primary problem. We can already see how the inflammatory statements of the EFF (Everything For Free) and BFLF movements have had a physical impact on places like Hermanus.

Those of us who share fake news on social media, designed to further inflame sectors of society, are equally dangerous.

We constantly harp on about poverty but very little is done to solve this dire problem. Note that the World Bank has rated SA the most unequal society on earth.

The government and business need to urgently create jobs on a large scale even if it costs taxpayers. They need to fix education in public schools instead of trying to close private ones. They need to fix public healthcare and not force a national system on us.

Most importantly, we all need to govern ourselves in a way that embodies the injunction “live honestly, harm no-one and render under each man his due”, which is at the core of just law.

PETER WORMAN

Bluff