The land must return to blacks

It was a cold Saturday of 20 July, 1985 – the funeral of the Cradock Four, Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli.

Among a group of local and foreign journalists, we descended on the dusty township of Lingelihle in Cradock for the burial of the four anti-apartheid activists brutally killed by apartheid securocrats at the height of repression, which hit the Eastern Cape the hardest.

Not only was the funeral a show of strength by anti-apartheid activists – clench fists, chants of “Amandla awethu” (power to the people), singing of freedom songs and fiery speeches – it was a show of defiance against PW Botha’s declaration of a state of emergency.

Among the speakers was Dr Beyers Naudé, a leading Afrikaner theologian and anti-apartheid activist, who called for an end to apartheid and the release of political prisoners.

The 1960 Sharpeville massacre had marked a political turning for Naudé, who ended his support for his church, beginning to question the biblical justification of apartheid by the Dutch Reformed Church.

Amid much hullabaloo made by the reactionary right-wing grouping, led by Solidarity and AfriForum, having convinced US President Donald Trump that SA laws and policies sought to oppress Afrikaners, nothing is further from the truth.

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While Trump has been quick at buying into their narrative – even going to the extent of offering US refugee status to Afrikaners unhappy about the country’s progressive policies and laws aimed at redressing decades of apartheid, it should be pointed out that Jaco Kleynhans, Flip Buys, Dirk Hermann and Kallie Kriel do not speak for the entire volk.

Not all Afrikaners agree with what is espoused by AfriForum and Solidarity.

If one looks at the role played by progressive Afrikaners in the anti-apartheid struggle – the likes of Naudé, Bram Fischer, Breyten Breytenbach, André Brink, Dieter Gerhardt, Ingrid Jonker, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, Derek Hanekom and Carl Niehaus – you get to understand that you are not dealing with a politically homogeneous group.

There are those who were in the fight for freedom in South Africa – risking being isolated by family, friends and foe – against a brutal state, with a preoccupation of oppressing of the black majority in the land of their birth.

The return of land to its original owners, should be non-negotiable.

We come from a history marked by a myriad of apartheid laws, one of the most remembered being the 1913 Native Land Act, which restricted black people from buying or occupying land – except as employees of a white master.

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Another was the Group Areas Act of 1950, which assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas, enforcing urban apartheid – leading to forced removals and destruction of communities.

While there has been much backlash about President Cyril Ramaphosa having signed the Expropriation Bill into law – providing for the expropriation of land with nil compensation in some instances, blacks do not have much to celebrate.

After more than 30 years since democracy, black people only own a small fraction of farmland nationwide.

It should be understood that nil compensation refers to instances when government may need land for infrastructure projects, like the building of roads and railway lines.

Much still needs to be done to redress the impact of apartheid on black people, having led to socioeconomic imbalances.

To apartheid beneficiaries like Kriel, the status quo should remain.

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