Source: South African confusions over land reform | zimbabweland As followers of this blog will know, I have recently been in South Africa where debates about land reform provoke strong reactions, particular when Zimbabwe is mentioned. At the end of August, President Ramaphosa offered some remarks at the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show on the importance of land reform. […]
As followers of this blog will know, I have recently been in South Africa where debates about land reform provoke strong reactions, particular when Zimbabwe is mentioned.
At the end of August, President Ramaphosa offered some remarks at the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show on the importance of land reform. The comments seemed unremarkable. He said that land reform was necessary to address historical injustices, and that land reform can deliver important benefits for those who have been excluded. He argued that investment in technology and infrastructure to support agriculture is important. Nothing remotely controversial there, surely?
A commitment to land reform is of course central to national policy in South Africa, as was again highlighted in a speech by Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso of Land Reform and Rural Development at the recent Land, Life and Society conference in Cape Town. He noted how “land reform is part of climate justice, food justice, and social justice,” noting that “We must ensure that land reform is not reduced to narrow market transfers but is about the redistribution of power, resources, and dignity.” He committed to carrying the debates in the conference forward to the forthcoming G20 discussions in South Africa. This is vitally important given that land reform is so central to the summit themes of solidarity, equality and sustainability.
However, as soon as the comments were uttered in Harare in August all hell broke loose in South Africa, with all sorts of people – mostly associated with large-scale farming lobbies – objecting. The spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance, Willie Aucamp, notionally part of the government of national unity, was outraged. The FW De Klerk Foundation put out a statement cautioning against praising Zimbabwe. A prominent agricultural economist, and a great supporter of large-scale commercial farming, argued that Zimbabwe’s land reform was a failure and no model for South Africa. And academic Twitter commentators from the UK even weighed in. The reactions were nothing short of hysterical. The idea that Zimbabwe had anything to offer South Africa was abhorrent!
Myths and realities
Nowhere in this ‘debate’ were the facts about Zimbabwe’s land reform put forward. A close colleague was invited onto South African TV to offer some perspectives from our research, but his interview was never broadcast. It didn’t fit the narrative. We of course remember all this from the early 2000s in Zimbabwe when the reactions to Zimbabwe’s land reform were roundly condemned by liberal elites both in South Africa and elsewhere, particularly the UK. Emotion overtook facts, and in the early days there was limited research information to counter these well-trodden narratives about the ‘catastrophe’ of land reform. In Zimbabwe, this has happily changed, and the contributions of the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies amongst many others, including our own work and the 2010 book Zimbabwe’s Land Reform: Myths and Realities, has provided a more balanced picture. Not all positive by any means, but with important lessons – including for South Africa.
The reaction to the 2024 Expropriation Act in South Africa has elicited so many similar responses, with people arguing that South Africa will surely follow the (assumed) terrible fate of Zimbabwe if it is followed. The humiliating dressing down that President Ramaphosa and team got on their visit to the White House was focused on the land expropriation, channelling the ire of Elon Musk and his white relatives and friends in South Africa. The bizarre talk of ‘white genocide’ and the summary removal of whites from their land had no relation to facts and the photos offered to the visiting South Africans included ones that had nothing to do with South Africa. Facts don’t matter in these emotive situations, and even the assembled golfers who joined the visiting mission were unable to offset the Trump tirade.
As more sane commentators have pointed out, the Act offers only a limited set of options for expropriation without compensation, and that these are unlikely to be applied in any case. Expropriation by the state for public purposes and in the public interest is a standard route in all countries and does not undermine the supposed sanctity of private property. As long as effectively governed by land law and associated land administration measures, then such an approach can be important as part of wider state planning of land use.
Compensation at appropriate levels should always be part of a land redistribution programme. Zimbabwe for example has this enshrined in the 2013 Constitution and compensation for ‘improvements’ (not land) has been agreed and indeed has been paid since the early days of the land reform under President Mugabe, although at inadequate levels. Since the signing of the Global Compensation Deed in July 2020, in Zimbabwe a total amount has been agreed and payments are being made, although mechanisms of payment are still be wrangled over.
Why the confusion?
So why these reactions? What is behind them, and how can they be countered? The first and most obvious reason is that political interests are at play. Large-scale white farming is an important lobby in South Africa as it was in Zimbabwe, with significant capital behind it and with strong political connections, stretching to international capitals and legislatures. The forcefulness of some who argue against Zimbabwe’s land reform in the UK parliament, for example, reflects strong connections dating back to colonial land ownership.
Second, these lobby groups reflect racial differences and the legacy of apartheid and colonialism – even if sometimes they are covered by black faces; those Jacob Zuma called the ‘clever blacks.’ That land, race and colonial history are deeply entwined in the former settler economies of southern Africa is undeniable. That its resonances exist today is clearly apparent in these debates.
Third, there are certain assumptions so deeply embedded in cultural psyches that they are difficult to dislodge. The most prominent of these is the idea of the primacy of private property rights with freehold title as the only route to tenure security, investment and economic growth. And, in a linked equally strong narrative, that large-scale farms are the only ones that are viable. That such assumptions have been debunked by international research over so many decades doesn’t seem to matter; it is an article of faith. In South Africa, the ‘property rights clause’ is like the Second Amendment in the US, and the right to bear arms.
Why evidence-based research remains important
Can we ever get over these blockages to progressive land reform? I sometimes wonder, when you encounter these occasional outbursts. My commitment – along with many, many others – is to continue to do research to challenge the myths, to develop evidence-based alternative narratives and provide policymakers and others the tools to make different arguments. Not easy and frequently frustrating, but ‘aluta continua’ as the saying goes!
