Land redistribution is not just a numbers game

Exproriation is a liberation agenda

It is ideological bankruptcy to believe that land restoration and redistribution can be done through liberal democracy institutions, processes and systems.

The failure by the governing ANC to secure a two-thirds majority to effect changes to section 25 of the constitution to enable land expropriation without compensation manifests what South Africa’s liberal democracy is all about: a conservative system to sustain apartheid’s socio-economic patterns.

It also manifests something else: the ANC’S inability to play the system in favour of the masses it ought to represent.

The ANC has chosen, either consciously or subconsciously, to rule by the liberal book, rather than as a liberation movement.

Even when the ANC had secured an electoral two-thirds majority from the 2004 elections, it made no use of this political leverage.

It may also be the case that it fears tackling the establishment head on.

Increasingly, the ANC itself is becoming a conservative rather than a progressive government. That is, it is more concerned with the peace, order, and stability rather than confronting the dominant classes in society with a redistribution ageda. Liberal democracy is not designed to enable the realisation of liberation goals such as land restoration and redistribution. Liberal democracy institutions, systems and processes are designed to sustain the liberal-controlled free market order.

In the South African context, liberal democracy exists to legitimise the apartheid socio-economic patterns in the post ’94 period. Hence, placing the issue of expropriation of land without compensation to a vote is subjecting the crucial land redistribution to a matter of chance – a numbers game.

In essence, South Africa’s liberation movements have lost the struggle for land.

They have abdicated the liberation agenda. From their Codesa capitulation, they have failed to redetermine how they would sustain the struggle within a constitution and governance system designed to sustain apartheid post ’94.

There are several reasons liberation movements failed to sustain the struggle against apartheid post ’94: moving into apartheid government structures and being absorbed into its value system through its systems and processes; the absorption of senior and influential leaders into the white corporate South Africa; and a corporate sector-driven black middle-class agenda that over time has become a buffer between the masses.

This collective middle class is now part of the system.

Rather than changing the system to advance the liberation goals, they in turn have been changed by the system to advance its goals. Even those who, within the government push the rhetoric of change, do so with the priority of not upsetting the current economic patterns.

President Cyril Ramaphosa frequently states that the land programme must be done in a way that does not negatively affect food production and economic growth.

In fact, a progressive liberation agenda would ensure heightened food production and economic growth by expanding access to land.

Now the ANC has the perfect excuse in its failure to redistribute land – it can blame other political parties for not supporting the bill.