South Africa has announced that it will miss a self-imposed deadline of 2014 to redistribute a third of the country’s land from white to black farmers. There is much to lament in this decision. Land reform is necessary, many of the black masses have not seen the benefits of the New South Africa that have been enjoyed by a slowly growing few, and this news provides grist for the mill of the ANC’s critics from the left.
And yet if the nightmare of land reform in Zimbabwe has taught us anything it is that it is better to do land reform right than to do it fast. Even as we lament the delay — 2014, after all, will mark two decades since Nelson Mandela’s election symbolized a new dawn in the country’s history — we should celebrate the way in which South African officials have not used land reform as a weapon. Consider Robert Mugabe: In the years prior to 2000 Mugabe and his ZANU-PF used the threat of land reform as a Damocles sword hanging over the head of the country’s whites without at the same time developing a coherent, structured, equitable plan for redistribution. Thus when the dam broke in 2000 and Mugabe let land “reform” go forward, chaos and violence reigned. Redistribution became a form of delayed retribution against white farmers. Those who took the land over often had no clue how to utilize it and what was once the breadbasket of Africa became nearly useless agriculturally. These disastrous policies are almost certainly the single biggest cause of the country’s economic calamity over the last decade.
A bad land reform policy, and especially one that is so brazenly used as a political weapon, is worse than no reform at all. If delay in South Africa means that there will be an equitable, coherent plan, perhaps we can live with delay. At the same time, to steal and paraphrase a quotation from the American Civil Rights Movement, land reform delayed is land reform denied. The purpose of this delay needs to be to ensure that when redistribution does happen, South Africa has all of the resources to ensure its success. The lesson of Zimbabwe looms large. Let’s hope that the South African government is drawing the right lessons from Zimbabwe’s shame.
4 Comments So Far»
Will the white farmers be paid for the land, or will it be nationalized?
It’s funny how these things work. At one time, Angola was actively recruiting white farmers from Zimbabwe and South Africa to come there and set up ‘plantations’ for lack of a better word. Basically, free land - and lots of it - in return for the white farmers spending their money to finance everything.
It all fell apart when dos Santos wouldn’t provide any guarantees that the farms wouldn’t be ‘nationalized’ at a later date. It’s a shame, as Angola is in desperate need of farmers with money to get the land going, but even there, the lessons of Zimbabwe have stopped any progress.
Ron –
Ironies abound with these situations, of course. But in the South Africa case the delay is precisely because the state does not have the money to buy the farms from white farmers — no talk of nationalization at this point (thank goodness, from my vantage point).
Uganda is one of several states that has welcomes white Zimbabwean farmers with open arms, as has Zambia to some degree.
Thanks -
dc
Do you really believe what you are saying - do you think the whites will ever give the land. Some say you should never sell land I know the whites will never give up the land. Yes it will have to be taken. It is sad but true.
Maria –
How’s about we not start off conversations with questions like “do you really believe what you are saying.” Because there are two possible answers: Yes, I do. Which is why I wrote what I wrote. Or: No, I don’t, this is all a ploy to confuse Maria Moyo. If you want to establish a tone of hostility, it isn’t going to do either of us any good. More to the point, I suspect that’s not a fight you’re going to win.
Yes, I believe land reform can work. That’s why I wrote as much (see how this works?) Even in Zimbabwe a program of serious reform that was not motivated by political demagoguery might have worked. Indeed, in trickles it was working. Some farmers were voluntarily selling the land. And in South Africa, the same process is playing out. But it has to be done right. There is lots of room for it to go wrong, that’s for sure.
dc
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