WHETHER to expropriate land with or without compensation is no longer the issue. It is now about “modalities”.
With the ANC and the EFF standing together for this historic, highly symbolic, and scary for some, moment in Parliament, South Africa this week truly entered a new era.
These political parties together possess the power and determination to change the constitution to accommodate land expropriation without compensation
As President Cyril Ramaphosa put it, this would help correct the “original sin” of land dispossession and the subjugation of black people.
This gets under way as every political party is gearing up for the 2019 general elections, at a time when poverty, unemployment and inequality are on the rise and the masses, particularly the youth, who are descended from the dispossessed communities, are growing ever more restless.
If nothing else, at least the narrative and tactics changed radically this week, setting the tone and stage for the electioneering to come.
Having opposed the EFF’s similar motion almost a year ago out of respect for the constitution, the ANC has now decided property rights and transformation imperatives such as land redistribution are not mutually exclusive.
There has been such radical talk from the ANC as far back as its Polokwane national conference of 2012. The next year, the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Native Land Act, was supposed to be all about land but not much action resulted.
This week marks a new beginning, which will see words put into action. Now there has been decisive action, in adopting a motion to amend the constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation.
What does this mean for South Africa? Ramaphosa provided an answer in his reference to resolving the original sin. It is also a challenge to opponents to provide an alternative approach to a pressing issue that has been deferred for almost 24 years.
No right-thinking South African can argue that the current land ownership patterns are unconscionable and unsustainable. Land redistribution, carried out carefully and without delay, can boost our economy and alleviate poverty.
Skirting this issue, paying lip service to it or pointing to the ANC government’s poor delivery will help no one. The time for action has come, with all its attendant dangers and opportunities.