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A response to a column titled “SA ignorant about its land struggle” by Shula Marks.

Who really owns the land in South Africa?

In the 2nd of March, 2013 Shula Marks, a professor at University of London’s school of oriental and African studies, published a column about the ‘misunderstanding’ which still exists about the history of land in South Africa. She talked about its struggles and gave bit information about its history, in order to react to the statement made by a leader of the Freedom Front Plus and the deputy minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, Pieter Mulder. She basically said that South Africa is ‘ignorant’ about its land struggle, which is precisely not true.

The arrival of Dutch people in the mid-17th century in Southern Africa at Cape has always been, and still is, a contentious issue. It is highly contentious issue because it is the very same issue which has been debated upon, not only by history scholars, but also by an ordinary resent South Africans. It is this issue which raised questions such as of whether an aboriginal people of Southern Africa occupied the land before the upcoming of the Dutch and or not. Kevin Shillington, one of the narrators of African history, have averred in his book History of Africa, in chapter 15 that before the year 1650, most of Southern African societies were already living in the area with their small different chiefdoms, and there was always a certain amount of inter-regional trade. It has been agreed upon by most historians that during the sixteenth century, the Dutch territories In Europe traded with India, South-east Asia and Indonesia.

If semi-desert were not attractive to those who occupied it during the times of Native’s Land Act (no 27 0f 1913), such as in Karoo and Namaqualand, then no one could have went there and plant crops or build farms. One of the Act`s sections decreed that ‘...General shall appoint a commission whose functions shall be to inquire and report a) what areas should be set apart as areas within which natives shall not be permitted to acquire or hire land or interests in land, b) what areas should be set apart as areas within which persons other than natives shall not be permitted to acquire or hire land or interests in land.’

To interpret and summarise the sections, people of Union of South Africa imposed such restrictive laws to favour the minority and exclude the majority. The minority, in that case, are what the Act referred to as ‘persons other than natives’ under subsection (b), who were the ‘whites’, whereas the ‘non-whites’ were regarded as natives. This support the point that it was not by ‘coincidence’ that people who still occupied the semi-desert have rushed there, besides there were crops which were suitable to be planted in hot weather conditions such as grapes, of which the area is still today used for such plantations.

The previous unjust laws such as the Act already mentioned, the Natives (Urban Areas) Act, number 21 of 1923, the Native Trust and Land Act, number 18 of 1936 are the major reasons among others that have sparsely populated what is today Northern Cape province, not only ‘precisely’ because of the environmental conditions.

Most of the Historians would of course disagree with the notion that the present-day African inhabitants who passed through the Limpopo River during the times of Iron Age and agro-pastoralist and the Europeans (Dutch) at the Capes of Good Hope arrived at almost the same time. I totally agree with the column that the Africans ‘were therefore purported to be as recent in arrival as the whites’, although there are others who still believe in that notion.

Most of historical scholars such as Shillington, agree on the fact that there were Africans residing in the area especially across the Limpopo River and throughout the entire Southern-West and North of Africa. Shillington (2013) also asserted that there were later Iron Age development between 1000 and 1400 CE ‘which saw the gradual emergence of chiefdoms in the region. This was about three (3) centuries ago before even Jan Van Riebeeck could lend at the Cape in April 1652. The man has been considered to be a very first European to permanently settle in Southern part of Africa at the Cape. Probably before the time, no ‘white’ person had settled in the territory which is today called South Africa.

The Southern African part has always been fought for by both the precursors of today`s South African black and white communities. This is evident from the battles that were fought during the arrival of the Dutch at the Cape such as the battle of Khoikhoi-Dutch wars between 1650 to 1680, Anglo-Dutch rivalry of 1664-1804, Cape of Good Hope war, Xhosa wars or Cape Frontier Wars, Ndwandwe-Zulu war of 1817-1819, the battle between Voortekkers and Zulus between1838-1840 and more others. This is to emphasise the fact that African communities also fought for the land among them even before they could fight the Europeans for the same issue of land.

It is not by mistake that the government of South Africa after apartheid era have attempted to address the legacy of colonial and apartheid land laws which formed a critical area of focus during the negotiations for a democratic dispensation and new constitution. It was agreed during the negotiations that only dispossessions from 1913 onward would be considered for redistribution. The Restitution of Land Rights Act, no 22 of 1994 established a commission on the Redistribution of Land Rights to receive, investigate and seek to negotiate the settlement of land claims. Also, the Claims Court was established to adjudicate as and where necessary.

In 2007 the Nama community celebrated the settlement of their claim to a large portion of the diamond-rich land after a decade long legal battle. As a matter of South African consciousness about its land struggle which even increase further, in February 2013 minister of Rural Development and Land Reform announced that Restitution Land Rights Act of 1994 was to be amended to accommodate claims that had previously been excluded. It is only Pieter Mulder and his SAFM audience who might be so ‘ignorant’, but not the country itself. They perhaps might be fulfilled with the past apartheid believes and ideas when it comes to the issue of land and its struggle in South Africa.

Bibliography Native`s Land Act (No. 27, 1913.) Shillington, K. 2012. History of Africa. 3rd edition. New York City: Palgrave Macmillan.

Omphile Mohutsiwa, 23264462 is a final year student in Political Science and International Relations at North West University-Mafikeng campus, South Africa.