Land reform will help put right ugly past
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa’s powerful quote during the presidential land restitution ceremony in Moretele Park recently laid bare the atrocities black people suffered during the enactment of the 1913 Natives Land Act.
The ceremony was to restore land to the descendants of the Mahlangu and Malobola, whose land was dispossessed in the aftermath of the 1913 Land Act.
The president quoted Sol Plaatje, who told a story about an African family who buried a child undercover because they had no right or title to the land from which they were evicted.
Plaatje’s words were: “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. Fortunately, I have taken cues from the remnants of apartheid and colonial rule whose might is also felt by the current generation.
I echo the sentiments of Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Nkoana-Mashabane, who said the oppressive regime that made black South Africans landless produced inequality, sowed division and fertilised poverty. I concur with those who say land reform is the only recourse that will bring redress to our disenfranchised souls.
And as I watched R203 million being restituted to the 10 families in Mamelodi who opted for financial compensation due to developments on the land occupied by their ancestors, I rejoiced in the positive ramifications this would have.
The land reform process through restitution, acquisition and tenure security has the potential to calibrate the process of economic and social value of land for productive use and a secure place. This will correct matters of asset inequality, poverty reduction and food security.