So, the other day i tried to take a few steps back in this ongoing Race and Reconciliation conversation we’ve been having over here with this post trying to see if we could all agree that the incredibly out-of-proportion extreme gap between rich and poor in our country [and the world at large] is not okay.
Most people stayed away from engaging at all [maybe it’s cos of the busy time of the year, but questions like that also suggest follow-up questions and if those are engaged with deeply enough then there could be a cost involved so safer to just stay out of it for sure] but those who did largely agreed that we could start at that point, and then there were a number of, ‘Yes, but…’s, which should probably be filed as ‘No’ because the question was, ‘Can we all agree that this is not okay?’
So the next question becomes that of race, with some people emphatically suggesting that the problems in South Africa are economic or socio-economic class problems and not race related.
i beg to differ.
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA IS STILL A RACE THING
Wait, but you said, i thought, that economic inequality in South Africa is not a race thing?
Well, yes and no. i typically don’t believe that economic inequality in and of itself is a race thing, and i do believe that South Africa is moving more towards a time and a place [although this is going to take a while still] where the issues become more economic and socio-economic than race…
BUT, because of the history of apartheid and the debilitating and damaging effect it had on so many people, and the lingering consequences thereof, the wealthy in our country for the most part continue to be white and the poor continue to be black [and completely realise there are coloured and indian as well as asian and other-african stories that make up this equation as well and am eager to hear from people who can adequately represent those stories] and so at the moment it remains a race thing.
As one of the young leaders said to me on our recent trip to Robben Island, Mandela helped bring the people of South Africa over the bridge of Reconciliation, but he didn’t bring the economy over that bridge. A great injustice was done to a huge percentage of the people in our country and while we can all be friends now [to simplify it completely], that doesn’t mean that there is not some outstanding justice to be done.
THE ‘HOW’ OF TRUE RESTITUTION AND REPARATION IS THE GHOST CALLING OUT TO US
If you steal a car from someone and they catch you and you say that you are sorry, then there may be a way for that person to forgive you and to refuse to press charges. But you have to give the car back.
This seems to be the point a lot of white people i know are stumbling over. We get that apartheid was bad. We are really sorry and we hope that you can forgive us. But we would like to keep the car.
Now, what i think makes it tricky, is that land was stolen a generation or two ago. Figuring out who took what from whom and trying to get it back to them feels like a ridiculously complicated thing. i have spoken to a small number of black people who feel very strongly about this issue, but am yet to find someone who has some kind of practical solution.
i imagine even those who would go the more extreme route and take the land using violent means, practically would not easily be able to say how that works in terms of who gets what.
So that does seem to be a very big and daunting HOW. But that doesn’t mean that we can simply just shrug it off and “Let bygones be bygones. That is an easier thing to feel and say when you are now the one with the car.
Yes? So please hear me loud and clear on this one when i say i have more questions than answers. i don’t know how this all plays out well. The issue definitely seems to be blurred or obstacled by the mess that is Nkandla and corrupt government officials seemingly wasting a whole lot of taxpayers money on a lot of occasions and the corruption that exists at the top. But i don’t think that is directly related to the issue at hand and if we raise that, then i feel like we are missing some of the conversations and actions that need to happen.
i would love to hear your thoughts on this:
[1] Comment on my statement that while we are heading towards a time when the issues are more socio-economically defined, at the moment at least, there is still a huge amount of race-relatedness to that conversation [as the way our system is divided socio-economically is still so much related to race issues past]
[2] Your ideas concerning reparation and restitution – Do you think we have done all that is necessary with regards to our apartheid past and we all need to just move on and make the best of a bad situation? Or do you feel, like me, that there is still some work to be done in terms of economically making amends for some of the travesties that were committed.
[3] Play nice. The moment you make it personal, you lose your audience. You can be passionate and respectful.
[For other South Africa related posts and conversations, click here]
1) I completely agree that in SA the wealth gap is along racial lines still. It’s a problem in many countries, but in SA it definitely has a racial flavour.
2) I think their is still work to be done, and time alone won’t fix it. I don’t think though that it is necessary for the intervention to be at an economic level to sort the problem out in the long run. I think the focus really needs to be on education and health. Economic-related interventions would probably help speed things up. Any economic improvement without education and health would just result in money squandered through unwise use and through disease and death. So, my feeling is that education and health are the necessary interventions and economic interventions would just help speed things up.
In your analogy of the stolen car, I think things post-apartheid are not quite as simple. It feels to me more like parents or grandparents stole a car but I worked really hard for a car. Now the request/demand for the return of the car feels misplaced.
I totally understand the “you had a privileged opportunity to have worked for the car in the first place” idea, but it doesn’t take away the fact that many young white South Africans are working really hard for their belongings. At the same time I realise that many black South Africans don’t even have the opportunity to work for their own “cars”. (Frankly, with youth unemployment over 50%, few young people have the opportunity to work at all). To put it more succinctly, I think part of the tension is that people who have worked hard for what they have struggle with the idea of giving big chunks of it to people who haven’t worked for anything. I think this is true regardless of race actually.
Perhaps part of the underlying assumption for many is that poor people don’t work because they’re lazy, rather than because they haven’t had the opportunity.
The only equality is “equal opportunity”. One cannot receive the same income as a street sweeper or engineer or doctor. If you work 15 hours in surgery, surely you should receive a much higher income than a window washer?
The education level of today is for the most part worse than the “bantu” education of the past. Who is going to fund healthcare for all? Must we all work longer hours to pay for other people to make more babies? It is not sustainable. If it happens, then people will simply leave the country or work less. Eventually it will reach a point far worse than what we have now. It is a case of feeding a fire.
Privilege: When white people stepped off the ship in the 17th century, they were already at an advantage. Why didn’t blacks invent the wheel during those 2000 years before whites arrived? Why didn’t they invent sewage systems? An alphabet? It is not apartheid to blame as much as people say. Apartheid was the result of the inherent inequality that existed. A culture cannot catch up 2000 years overnight or over 300 years. If you had to take a black child and raise him in London for example, he would grow up just like a European, however the extended family still living in the past, tribal customs and that primitive mindset is what keeps the majority clinging to the mud-huts of the past.
It is the inertia of a mud-dwelling culture that keeps the black people in that mindset. It is them as a group that keeps themselves living in mud huts. It is the idea that “apartheid”, “privilege”, “inequality” are to blame that keeps them in the past.
This story of working hard I fail to understand, to who does this hard working compared to? Working harder than who? The problem we are having is the historical problem. The riches of the white youth are as a direct result of the past injustices for me not to say that I will be lying to myself and to you. There remains an unsolved past in South Afrika, and that is the land was stolen so it must be returned.
Yes Brett land is a racial problem, economy is a racial problem. Education I agree is a solution but to people with their own land, people who will define their own destiny. I love a statement I once heard from Trevor Noah when he was asked “How much money will ever satisfy him?” Trevor gave one of the most profound statements which Io think even David once said it he said “I just want to have enough money to be able to say yes or no”, black people can’t say yes or no and that is poverty right there. Their destiny is defined by other people who don’t care about them. Educations and health its true are very vital but let’s first return the land.
I think I agree a whole lot with Malema when he talks about Expropriation of the land with no compensation, meaning the government now has ownership of the land. Then people apply with details (kind of a business plan) of what they will do the land. And the best candidates wheather black or white be given land for the bennefit of the country not of the white stomarch as is currently happening. Nationalise mines so that the state money be used in funding for the education and health of the South Afrikans and that leading to free education and quality health care. Muamar Qadaffi who was killed by the West had already achieved that in his country Lybia.
When the nationalisation of mines and nationalisation of strategic institutions in the country occurs then commodify of education will stop, education will then be a service. I know we will all run to all kind of rhethoric from that of corruption of state officials to that of this will never work because of this and that, says who? Let’s try it and its what is wanted and believed to be a viable system. Nationalisation of mines will then lead to a copporate ownership of such mines and I will supply you with a document of Lybia on how did Qadaffi apply this system. But always the West will ever kill progressive leaders and Mandelise all their puppets. I also believe in Sankarism, the state officials using state provided resources. This will lead to high quality health, education, transportation and all the infrastructural resources to be of high quality.
“The riches of the white youth are as a direct result of the past injustices” – That’s just not true in general. For me and almost all the white people I know, our parents didn’t give us any money. What they gave us is a good education and the opportunity to work hard. So, it is an indirect result of past injustice, but it’s not like every white person just gets given a big pile of cash when they turn 18. Working hard doesn’t need a comparison. It’s putting in a good day’s effort and not slacking off.
You say “to people with their own land, people who will define their own destiny”. Why does owning land allow you to define your own destiny? Do you realise that educated people don’t need to start with land to achieve their goals? I know many young, educated black people who came from poor backgrounds and have worked hard, saved well and now own their own properties, just like many young white people I know. It was more difficult for some of the black people I know, having started in tougher circumstances, but the point is that land ownership doesn’t determine one’s success.
In terms of nationalisation, if we look at the other big state owned enterprises, Eskom, SAA, the Post Office, Telkom to name a few, none of them are really functioning all that efficiently. Surely increasing tax on mining companies would be preferable to nationalising. Then they can run with corporate efficiency but SA can still reap more benefit. I believe this is what they do in Scandinavia.
The whites have always had the advantage – since the first Europeans arrived in Africa they were at an advantage. It is not only because of apartheid. Apartheid was a result of this inequality and vast difference in cultures.
There will never be expropriation of land without compensation because where does it end? Will there be house invasions, taking wives from husbands? If this ever happened, we’ll have a civil war. Immediately AIDS medications will stop and millions will die from AIDS.
Once black people get the mentality of “inequality” and freebies out of their heads, only then will they move up in the world.
I am going to be completely unhelpful to the spirit of this post but I just want to say that any of the proposed economic solutions noted above will have a possibly irreparable impact on foreign investment, skilled workers (black, white, indian – anyone who sees the impact on the economy and has the means to go somewhere where they can do better with their skills) not to mention food production etc. Right or wrong (just like the too big to fail banks in America) these things are intertwined into the economy in a way that ripping them out will only hurt the very people these policies are purportedly aiming to help. Even if all of these can be executed without corruption, I believe that everyone, especially the poor, will be much worse off and the economy damaged, perhaps permanently. I don’t claim to know whether this has been done successfully elsewhere, but i can look a little north to Zimbabwe to see where it has failed to the decimation of the economy and the people it was supposed to lift.
Why so many with aids? Surely immorality is the cause of this? If we did not have to pay taxes, I would gladly try help, but because I feel like the majority who vote ANC are stealing from me, I kinda feel ripped off. So we have to be lectured to about giving money. Why aren’t you or other Christians lecturing them about going into neighbourhoods or other public areas and they clean up? It should be a two way thing, not always one sided. Yes there are past things, apartheid, this that, van Riebeek and more, but we can’t go back in time. If I saw volunteers from the townships coming to clean up and weed lawns and do things for free, I would gladly help them.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-884508
http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-state-under-gaddafi-to-failed-state-after-nato-intervention/5408740
The key in the above (aside from the fact that dictatorship rarely provides freedom and prosperity for the populace long term – whatever the West’s motives were (very likely not pure) the fact is that there was internal unrest in Libya that opened the door for them) is that Libya financed its prosperity through oil. That is how the nordic states manage to provide good standards of living under socialism. Unless the government can generate money like this (net new revenue, not taking over existing ventures as this adds no additional money to the economy and I would again argue, will cause much of it to leave SA, even if the government is able to run it as efficiently as private corporations, which I would argue is also not very likely – in any country) Libya is not, in my opinion, a viable analogy for SA.
When the Europeans first arrived in Southern Africa, they had ships, sewage systems, navigation equipment, an alphabet and many other inventions. They encountered Khoi-San people living in the Western Cape. Later, after inland travelling they encountered other tribes such as Xhosa and Zulu. All of these tribes had not even the invention of the wheel. It was a 17th century culture coming into contact with people in the iron age, many thousands of years in the past. These Xhosa and Zulu lived in the lands now known as Lesotho and Swaziland and other areas. They had originally, like the Europeans, come from other areas to South Africa. The only indigenous people being the Khoi-San.
It has basically been catch-up ever since then. The Europeans created an alphabet to replace the cave paintings, taught them English and Dutch/Afrikaans and even learnt their Xhosa and Zulu languages. 300 years is not a very long time for an iron age culture to catch up.
The inequality has always been there – since the first European stepped off the ship.
It is time that black people decided whether to return to the iron age, or to embrace the modern times and give thanks to the Europeans for advancing them out of history. I am tired of always having to work so hard to feed freeloaders who only seem to want to make babies they cannot feed. What if we all just stopped working and expected a handout? Everyone would starve.
People really need to stop with this inequality nonsense. Work and you will receive. Don’t expect a handout.
There is a common belief in South Africa that the Natives Land Act of 1913 shoved blacks on reserves (7% of the land) and prohibited them from buying land in white areas. That whites forcibly removed them to these reserves and that these reserves were on the worst land in the country with no mineral riches and that whites kept all the best land and minerals for themselves.
Now if I was a black man, I would probably also want to believe that myth, because it would ensure me eternal victimhood status and compensation for generations to come.
Unfortunately, it is a blatant lie and can be attributed to the lack of reading ability or legal comprehension of the journalists and historians of our time.
First of all the biggest Platinum reserves in the world runs through the former Black homeland of Bophuthatswana. The former Nationalist government had no problem allocating this area to the Tswanas for self rule, although they already had a massive country called Botswana given to them by the British. It was originally part of South Africa, called Bechuanaland. Blacks further got another two massive countries from the British called Lesotho and Swaziland. There goes their 7%.
Lie number two corrected. Black homelands were on the worst land in South Africa.
When one compares the rainfall map of South Africa and anybody with elementary knowledge of South Africa will tell you that the largest part of South Africa is called the Karoo. It is a semi dessert comparable to Arizona or Nevada in the USA. Blacks never even entered this area let alone settle it. Whites made it blossom and created successful sheep farms producing meat of world quality.
Black “Settlements” are found on the north and east coast of South Africa. The East Coast having a sub tropical climate and the north a prairie-like climate with summer rainfall and thunder storms. An exception to this is the Western Cape with a Mediterranean climate and winter rainfall.
The northern and eastern part of South Africa with its beautiful green grasslands and fertile soil is where the blacks eventually coalesced and this is the land they chose for themselves. Their eventual homelands were found on the land they inhabited out of their own free will. The Afrikaners even have a song praising the greenness of Natal, called “ Groen is die land van Natal” ( Green is the land of Natal).It was perfect grazing area for the cattle herding blacks.
Lie number three, Blacks are indigenous to South Africa and first settled it.
Today Blacks in South Africa often tell Afrikaners and other minorities such as the Coloureds, Indians, Chinese or Jews to adapt to their misrule and corruption or “Go Home”…implying that we, who have been born here, who holds legal citizenship through successive birthrights should emigrate to Europe, Malaysia, India or Israel. That the only ones who have a legal claim to South Africa, all of it, are the blacks.
Blacks believe that they are indigenous to South Africa when they are not and this has been proven by DNA research.
We are ALL settlers in South Africa. All South Africans are settlers, regardless of their skin colour, and their DNA carries the proof.
So says Dr Wilmot James, head of the African Genome Project, a distinguished academic, sociologist and, more recently, honorary professor of human genetics at the University of Cape Town.
Apart from a few scattered archeological remains found of black culture in the far northern Transvaal prior to 1652, it is generally agreed that Blacks and Whites were contemporary settlers of South Africa. I use the term “Settler” loosely, because blacks never settled South Africa, their presence was nomadic. Blacks were mere itinerants who traveled from place to place with no fixed home. Whole capital “cities” of grass huts could be moved if grazing was exhausted.
They had no demarcated areas, no fences, no borders, no maps, no title deeds to proof ownership of any land apart from a verbal claim and mutual understanding that their temporary presence in a certain area in a certain period of time constituted “ownership” of the land.
They left behind no foundations of buildings, no statues, no roads, no rock paintings, not a single proof of “settlement” of the land, prior to the Whites settling South Africa. The only rock paintings were made by the Bushmen and the Hottentots (Khoi-Khoi and San) in the caves they temporarily occupied.
Blacks were pastoral-nomads and the Bushmen/Hottentots were hunter-gatherer-nomads. Whites on the other hand built cities, railroads, dams and a first world country comparable to the best in Europe and the new world…their legacy speaks of a people who intended to live there for a thousand years, if not eternity.
To claim that the whole of Africa belongs to Blacks is absurd. It is like an Italian claiming the whole of Europe belongs to Italians, including Norway.
In fact, the pyramids of Egypt is proof of white settlement going back thousands of years, so is that of the Phoenicians settling in Carthage and the Greeks settling in Alexandria. The Arabs settled North Africa soon after the Prophet Mohammed died and the whites settled Southern Africa from 1652 onwards.
Today there are three Africa’s as Dr. Eschel Rhoodie calls it in his book “The Third Africa” (1968)…Arabic up north, Black in the centre and Whites at the south.
The White settlers of the Cape first came face to face with the Bantu around 1770 on the banks of the Great Fish River, 120 years after Van Riebeeck came to the Cape and 1000 km east of Cape Town.
Lie number four, Whites created black reserves and homelands.
The TruthBlacks created the homelands themselves, thanks to Shaka.
The common belief is that the black tribes at the time were all living peacefully and in the spirit of Ubuntu with each other in a virtual liberal paradise. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Zulu tyrant, Shaka, at the time was committing genocide against other tribes. Wiping out an estimated 2 million people in what is now known as the Defecane (great scattering). The Swazis and the Ndebeles fled back north in the direction of central Africa where they migrated from. The Sotho’s fled into the mountains of what is today, Lesotho. The rest of the smaller tribes huddled together trying to find strength in coalescing.
That is the history of black South Africans that blacks prefer to ignore…that blacks drove other blacks of their land, not whites.
It is into this Maelstrom of black chaos that the Boers trekked in 1838. As far as they went they found large open sections of country uninhabited by anyone.
Black tribes fleeing Shaka’s carnage grouped themselves into areas finding protection in concentrated numbers. This is how Sir Theophilus Shepstone later found them huddled together on self created reserves. He just demarcated it in order to protect them from each other.
The creators of the Bantustans were not the Boers or the Whites, it was a black man called Shaka.
Did Whites simply take over black land? The answer is no. The elaborate answer can be found in a letter written by the congregation of the short lived Boer Republic of Lydenburg in the name of Dominee A, Smith from Uitenhage in 1860 after continuous accusations by the Cape Government and the Dutch Reform Church that the Voortrekkers were stealing black land and not converting the indigenous people to Christianity. It is documented in the book, “Kerkverraad” by François Richter and Dr X on page 98.
The letter was first published on Tuesday, 3rd of April 1860 in “De Oude Emigrant” Potchefstroom.
I will freely translate (and not verbatim) the sections of importance.
Start of quote…
“We are are members of a “Volk” (nation) that is attacked and despised by you today. You attacked our rights and our dignity. We are the people who gave up all our belongings in a search of a country of our own where we can govern ourselves, just like you want to govern yourselves.
You refer to us leaving the Cape Colony as if we wanted to withdraw ourselves from civilization. You accuse us that we do not act as missionaries and force Christianity on a people who do not wishes it upon themselves.
You ask, “Did the Almighty tell our Commandant general to stand up and take ownership of the land?”
Our answer is that the largest area of the current British Colony, Natal and the Free State were legally bought by by the Dutch immigrants from the former legal “Kaffir tribes” (sic) who lived on it. A section was taken over by legally fought wars, wars that were caused by the Natives.
When the Dutch Immigrants found themselves in 1836 landless between the Vet and Vaal River, they bought the land from the natives.
While peace were established with the “Kaffir tribes” surrounding them, Mozilikatze and the Zulus or Matabeles attacked us without warning killing defenseless women and children on land we already bought from them and stole everything they could find.
When Chief Commandant Potgieter arrived back from his trip to Delagoa Bay and saw the murdered families he did what you and I and every other person would have done, he annihilated the enemy.
Under Piet Retief a large section of Natal was bought from the Zulu King, Dingane, who without warning killed 70 men. They then proceeded to kill (at Bloukrans) every white man woman and child they could find.
Under a small group of Kommandant General Pretorius the Zulus were defeated (At Blood River). In 1845 a large section of land in the area of Ohrigstad was bought from the natives and in 1846 they bought another section of land from the “Kaffir King” “Omswaas”.
In 1854 another section of land between the Buffels and Pongola Rivers now Utrecht, was bought from the Panda and a year later they bought another section of land from Omswaas north of the Pongola River.
And with this, the question of how we, the “Despicable Dutchmen”, took ownership of our land is answered”.
End of Quote
The Shocking Truth about the Native Land Act of 1913
Most credible historical sources and journalistic contributions such as Allister Spark’s book, “The mind of South Africa, The story of the rise and fall of Apartheid” selectively omits the truth about the Natives Land Act of 1913. I will now expose and reveal the truth.
This law is often quoted by pseudo historians and liberal propagandists to “prove” how “Whites” in South Africa dispossessed “blacks” of their land.
…until one takes this law under the loop.
From the start when one researches the 1913 Native Land Act one is confronted with several ironies.
The act was brought in by Minister J.W. Sauer, a Cape Liberal and Minister of Native Affairs who opposed disenfranchisement of blacks and was widely considered a friend of the Blacks.
John Tengo Jabavu, a prominent “educated African” and editor since 1876 of the first Xhosa newspaper Isigidimi Sama Xosa (“The Xhosa Messenger”) welcomed the Act.
How then can this act today be considered as “The original Apartheid Sin”?
It is largely through the writings of Sol Plaatje.
Despite his Coloured or Dutch sounding name, Solomon Tshekiso Plaatje (1876-1932) was a Tswana. He was a black intellectual and writer who could speak seven languages including Dutch and German and who translated Shakespeare into Tswana. He was editor and part-owner of Koranta ea Becoana (Bechuana Gazette) in Mafikeng, and in Kimberley, Tsala ea Becoana (Bechuana Friend) and Tsala ea Batho (The Friend of the People). Plaatje was the first black South African to write a novel in English – Mhudi, (1919).
In 1914 he wrote a book called, “Native Life in South Africa”, full of anecdotal “evidence” of black dispossession in South Africa. Hardly any real evidence that would stand up in a court of law today.
It is this work that is used by one-eyed academics, liberals and historians to prove their case of how whites dispossessed blacks of their land and the origin of the “Whites-stole-black-land” myth perpetuated by ANC propagandists and more recently by Nobel Laureate for Woodwork and un-distinguished academic, Julias Malema.
Prior to this act, in 1906, the various black tribes complained to the British Government that whites and Indians and other Black tribes, but most importantly Companies, bought land on their reserves and fearing this encroachment, they rioted.
Because of this, a young black lawyer educated at Oxford and Columbia Universities, named Pixley Seme called various African Chiefs together and started in 1912, the African National Congress or the ANC.
The government of the day appointed a commission to investigate the situation, called the Lagden Commission. It is on the recommendations of this commission that the Native Lands Act of 1913 was founded.
The original Act…The Native Lands Act of 1913 can be viewed Here. Please download it before it disappears down the Orwellian “memory hole”.
It starts off with, “To make further provision as to the purchase and leasing of Land by Natives and other Persons in the several parts of the Union and for other purposes in connection with the ownership and occupation of Land by Natives and other Persons.”
At the time, the word “Native” was probably used for Blacks and “Other Persons” probably referred to Whites, Indians, Coloureds, etc, but that is pure speculation. The act says…quite clearly… “native” shall mean any person, male or female, who is a member of an aboriginal race or tribe of Africa”.
By that definition, Afrikaners definitely qualify, seeing that the group, their language and their culture originated in South Africa.
Where English settlers always held on to their European roots, Afrikaners cut their ties to Europe. They even named themselves and their language after the continent.
The law further distinguishes native companies…
“…and shall further include any company or other body of persons, corporate or unincorporate, if the persons who have a controlling interest therein are natives”…
That means any company founded on South African soil by Afrikaners or any other natives, including banks or mines could buy land from each other.
Nowhere in this Law does it specifically refer to Blacks and Whites. Nowhere does it say that Blacks could not buy White land or vice versa.
It then carries on and says,
“1. (1) From and after the commencement of this Act, land outside the scheduled native areas shall, until Parliament, acting upon the report of the commission appointed under this Act, shall have made other provision, be subjected to the following provisions, that is to say: —
Except with the approval of the Governor-General —
a. a native shall not enter into any agreement or transaction for the purchase, hire, or other acquisition from a person other than a native, of any such land or of any right thereto, interest therein, or servitude thereover; and
b. a person other than a native shall not enter into any agreement or transaction for the purchase, hire, or other acquisition from a native of any such land or of any right thereto, interest therein, or servitude thereover. “
Here one has to understand already that the law, just like all Apartheid laws, use to cut both ways. It was perfectly fair.
Further that the law never specifically referred to Whites or Blacks. It only refers to “Natives” and “A person other than a native”.
Not only could “other persons” not buy “Native Land”, but also that, “Natives” could not buy “Other Person’s” land…
As I have said. The act was 100% fair.
But right in the beginning it says, “Except with the approval of the Governor-General…”
That means that there was an escape clause. The law stipulates that Black tribes could still buy white land subject to evaluation of a committee and the approval of the Governor General… And boy did the blacks buy land…
Recently a study has been made by two distinguished academics, Professors Feinberg and Horn, that totally blows this theory about black land dispossession by whites apart. It is called:
SOUTH AFRICAN TERRITORIAL SEGREGATION: NEW DATA ON AFRICAN FARM PURCHASES, 1913–1936
I suggest you download this data from the PDF link provided for future reference before it disappears off the internet and down the memory hole.
* Harvey Feinberg is Professor Emeritus of History, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, and Research Collaborator, Department of History, University of Pretoria.
* André Horn is Associate Professor of Geography, University of Pretoria.
A reference to this study can also be found at the following link, written by a black journalist called Jacob Dlamini of Bussiness Day, Was Natives Land Act SA’s original political sin?
This study proves that contrary to common belief, the 1913 Lands Act resulted in MORE land for blacks not LESS. The act resulted in Blacks increasing their land ownership by 65%. This is conveniently ignored and omitted from contemporary history.
It proves that at the time Black tribes were farming right next to Whites. It proves that whites were renting land from blacks and vice versa.
Sometimes Whites and Blacks were farming on the same land in total symbioses without interference from government, taking care of each other and their shared livestock. Liberal journalist Allister Sparks also acknowledges this in his book, “The Mind of South Africa”.
The study by Feinberg and Horn further proves that the Nationalist government of Barry Hertzog allotted far more white land to blacks than the liberal government of Louis Botha and Jan Smuts. Today, it is believed that the Nationalists brought nothing constructive to South Africa. The Nationalists are vilified to kingdom come by journalists and historians alike. The truth is rather different.
Quoting from Dlamini’s article…
“Between 1913 and 1936, for example, Africans bought about 3200 farms and lots outside of native areas. What’s more, the 1913 act was not retroactive, meaning that Africans who already owned land outside of the native reserves could not have it taken away from them. Feinberg and Horn say that between 1913 and 1924, under the governments of Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, there were 302 exemptions granted, amounting to 35% of the total. Between 1924 and 1936, when JB Hertzog was in power, there were 565 exemptions granted, amounting to 65% of the total. “
In effect what happened is that blacks could congregate into a group and call themselves a tribe, appoint a “headman” and thus buy white land on a “willing buyer willing seller basis”. Was this legal? Was it ethical? Was it mafia-like conspiracy to steal and encroach on White land? Who stole the land from whom…or was there no stealing whatsoever?
It is this age old system of “Willing buyer; Willing seller” created by whites and black South Africans themselves that the ANC and Julias Malema want to do away with today. The ANC wants to steal all the land.
It is this interference with the lives of the citizens of the country that we have a problem with; black and white alike. The further the ANC or any government for that matter stays away from us the better. We will solve our own problems.
That includes the United Nations, The Common Wealth and The African Union. Stuff them all. We South Africans will find the solutions to our own problems.
What this study proves, is that White South Africans especially Afrikaners and Blacks, sorted out their issues with each other decades ago. They were enemies; they fought bitter wars against each other.
Then they became friends. They lived and farmed side by side with each other, respecting each other. They came to common agreements of “Live and let live” and “Each to his own”…until the internationalist and their Communist agitators with their self interest and view on self enrichment by stealing the mineral wealth from all South Africans played the one off against the other.
South Africa is at the moment at a crossroads. There is the rough road and there is the smooth road.
We as the reasonable whites and blacks of South Africa can choose to co-exist with each other as we have done for the last four hundred years and as we have decided in 1994 or we can choose to go to war with each other.
Fact is that the Afrikaners can take a lot, but sooner or later they also reach the “Gatvol” stage. Sooner or later even the strongest ox gets tired.
When the Afrikaners are fed-up, they have never backed down when it comes to a fight for their existence and their place in the sun… and they have always produced a good account of themselves.
Whether it was the Mighty Zulu Empire at Blood River, the Mighty British Empire in the Anglo-Boer War or the Mighty Communist Empire in Angola…one thing is for sure, you do not scratch the balls of a sleeping lion with a thorny twig. When he wakes, do not beg for mercy.
Fact is that, when all the historical facts, truths and lies have been laid bare in front of reasonable people, it still means nothing. The ANC do not even hold themselves by their own Freedom Charter that says “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” Or that “The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex”…
The ANC today practices unequal laws of Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment, quotas in university entrance and sport…How in God’s name do they expect us to take them seriously when they preach “Equality” but practices Inequality?
In the study of revolution, Crane Briton was a master who wrote the book “Anatomy of a Revolution”. He analyzed the various stages of revolution based on various case studies. All revolutions passes through these stages from the “Old Order” to a “Moderate Regime” to a “Radical regime”, to “Thermidorian reaction” which is a reaction to the brutality and the excesses of the revolution.
In the light of the current ANC acknowledged “National Democratic Revolution” I will leave it up to the reader to decide in which faze we are in.
Crane Briton says in his book that it is the “Great Haters”, the single-minded men of heroic emotions, who eventually rides revolutions to their successful conclusions.
It is the focused minds of young tigers who are not distracted from their ultimate goal, who are willing to kill en masse, who are willing to risk their lives and who are willing to die for their cause who will eventually rule the land. Fortunately we are not that far yet, but we are close…
When the Blacks sing, “Hamba kahleUmkhonto”…
Go, go well, Umkhonto,
Umkhonto, Umkhonto we Sizwe.
We,we the people of Umkhonto,
Are ready to kill the Boers…
Are they talking reconciliation? Are they willing to work towards a commonly shared country by all South Africans? I do not think so.
When Jacob Zuma sings “Bring me my machine gun” does he intend to use that machine gun on Blacks? Obviously not. When Julias Malema regurgitate the words of Peter Mokaba and sings “Kill the Boer; Kill the Farmer” and millions of blacks laud him…what do they think goes through the minds of the young Afrikaners?
I can tell Malema what the Afrikaners think and how they behave.
The ANC is shit scared of the right wing Afrikaners, the AWB…they see them as their greatest threat. They are wrong.
Let me tell you how it goes at an Afrikaner social gathering or braai.
Obviously there are the Rightwing fanatics who want to shoot everything and who want to blow up everything to do with the ANC and “Kaffirs”.
They are the ones who wants to take it to the streets in mass action and want to Toi-Toi ala Kaffir and go and demonstrate in front of the Union Buildings with pickets in their hands.
Then there are the “New Liberal Afrikaners” who make up the biggest part of the Afrikaners today. These are the youngsters and housewives brainwashed by liberal bullshit radio and tellevision who praise Mandela as a demi-god and who believe in the “Rainbow Nation Bullshit…and who listens to Jack Parrow and “Die Antwoord”….They are zeros on a contract.
Then right at the back you will see a quiet “Old Ballie” who does not say a word. In fact he only listens and looks somewhat bored, yawning and checking out his finger nails. When prompted for an opinion he dislodges an old liberal Greek philosophical quote that no-one has heard of or can comprehend before reverting back to his quiet observing state… reservedly smiling at the audience, drinking in their ignorance and stupidity.
This is the man the ANC should actually be scared of, because he is an “Old Liberal”…one who has been around the block and knows that bullshit baffles brains. What goes on in his mind, nobody knows and he won’t share with anybody else. He is the man who slowly and quietly chips away at the block and if needs be has a lifetime of education and experience to make a decisive difference when the time comes.
He is the one who knows that survival of the species do not rest on a few Recce Special forces who can survive for two weeks on eating grasshoppers and Mopani worms. He is the one who knows that survival does not depend on success in a few glorious battles such as Blood River, Majuba, Spioen-Kop or the Lomba river…No.
He is the one who knows that survival takes a long term view. A view of a chess player thinking eight moves ahead all the time…A vision of seeing your nation in fifty years from now…two hundred years from now.
In ancient Rome, when a glorious General returned from battle, The Romans had a massive parade down the main street. The General would ride in on a chariot to the thunderous applause of the citizens…to his side would be a subject, whispering in his ear…”You are only human, You are only human…”
Certain people in the ANC have forgotten that they are only human. That the same people who have put them into power can take that power away at the drop of a hat.
Many years ago I watched the sitcom, “The Cosby-show” where Dr. Huxtable’s son gave him uphill. In the end he lost it and told his son, “Remember that I gave you life, I brought you into this world and that I can take it away”.
This is the lesson Julias Malema and the ANC still needs to learn.
But when all is said and done, “Might is right”…Africa taught us that lesson. Shaka did not care about political debates or philosophy.
Alexander the Great might have listened on occasion to Aristotle of Stagira, but when it came to the crunch, Alexander was the first man over the wall of an enemy city thrusting a blade between the ribs of an enemy soldier while the philosophers were pondering back home about the existence of life.
Whether it was Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, Napoleon or Shaka…the ones who eventually conquer the land are the ones who are willing to take it by force. Holding on to that land for a thousand years is the realm of the philosophers and the warrior poets.
At the moment things are really hotting up in South Africa. All the whites have a feeling of the time is near now. The situation is almost unbearable at the moment…like a cyst waiting to explode, whites are bracing themselves for the onslaught to come. Whatever Malema hoped his rhetoric would achieve is having the counter effect. Whites are uniting like never before. They are finally starting to recognize a common enemy.
For his sake I hope he has the will and dedication to pull through what he wants to start, this time it will be all or nothing, there will be no half measures. No mercy.
Julias Malema last week made his offer quite clear when he put it on the table. Here is our offer. Go for it! We stop at the equator. Do with it what you want, Julias.
[…] on from the post and conversation relating to inequality at the moment still being a race thing in South Africa, what might be a […]
I have followed Brett’s writings for a while, and finally have the time to respond to a post.
While I have been wanting to respond on many things, I will start with what I think the main issue that bothers a lot of white people: how to deal with the fact of multiple sets of people having to occupy the same physical (and consequently economic and political space) when they have different levels of technological and economic advancement historically.
My first point I want to make is that no one nation owns technological or economic advancement, at least not forever. Chris’s argument that Europeans are the present day guardians of technology against the black savage in Africa is outdated, and its only effect will be to polarise our nation and take away from its chance of success.
First a quick history lesson: most of modern day agriculture originated in the Persian Gulf with many of the technologies invented there: agriculture, basic engineering and mathematical principles, architecture and structural concepts like arches, bridges and levers. At that time, most of the tribes that are the precursors of modern day Europeans were as primitive as African tribes at that time.
While it is too long to go into the history of the spread of civilisation into Europe from the Middle East, I rather want to focus on the two basic mechanisms cultures have interacted: fair trade versus exploitation.
Basically when a person (or group of people) wants something another person has it can do one of two things: take it, or trade for it fairly. What makes things stable and peaceful is when we strengthen the latter and limit the former.
The complication comes when something was taken unfairly, creating an advantage for the taker that cannot be easily corrected by just renormalising things to trade. It is a simple fact that Europe’s technological advancement caused its population to “breed like flies” and it started to run out of land to feed its people. By and large, most European colonisation started as an attempt to get extra land or other resources to support its rapidly growing population.
No matter how much White people like Chris try to justify things, most of this expansion was through practices which would never be condoned by any civilised society today. I could take Chris’s “myths” piece by piece and dissect them (I may do so if I have the time), but I would rather focus on how to try and solve this.
South Africa is not unique in having to deal with moving disparate groups in its society, marred by previous acts of exploitation, into a coherent functional economic community: South Korea, Malaysia, Brazil and Turkey are perhaps the closest examples to our South African situation. One of the ways I occupy my time is to read through what worked and what did not through these countries journeys. Here are my four key observations:
(1) It is difficult: Countries that have had spectacular growth rates like South Korea and Brazil have also had a reasonable share of political and social pain getting there. Tough choices have to be made, and it is not going to be without protest on both sides of the economic and racial divide.
(2) Land redistribution is key: Each of these countries have had to make some really deep difficult choices when it came to creating equal access to land. It is the area where the haves protest the loudest. Yet it can be successful if done correctly: read this article on how South Korea managed it: http://newint.org/features/1979/11/01/land-reform/
(3) Industrialisation is also key: In a country like South Africa, rich in natural resources, we must not miss the opportunity to take advantage of this. To do this we will need to seriously have to make a compact with unions to have a period where the country allows low wages rather than have unemployment. It is interesting that many of the countries that went through rapid industrialisation had to seriously clamp down on labour movements (and often consequently on democratic freedoms).
(4) Social Benefits are needed too: South Africa has done well actually to create a social benefit package through social grants like the child grant and other social support systems like the National School Feeding Scheme. It is important that the haves realise that the higher taxes we have to pay to afford these systems will serve us in the long run, especially if they create the gap for governments to take on unions to achieve the rapid industrialisation the country needs. Since social benefits are a particular interest of mine, I will write an article (which I hope Brett will consider publishing) in the not so distant future that will give some surprising insights on the social grant system (for example, South Africa’s birth rate declined significantly after the child grant was introduced, contrary to the myth that young women have babies to get a grant).
I won’t comment much more on this thread, just to say the problem is complex, and a focus on learning from countries that made progress with similar problems is one good way for those on the priviledge side to get educated on.
Wow, thankx David, much appreciated, you put into clear words stuff i know or am aware of but have struggled to say well… shot for the time and energy and shared research,
love brett fish
Please show us this proof. I know of many who have kids to receive the grant.
Chris, I can’t help myself with one clarification you can help me with:
On one hand you say about blacks in South Africa:
They had no demarcated areas, no fences, no borders, no maps, no title deeds to proof ownership of any land apart from a verbal claim and mutual understanding that their temporary presence in a certain area in a certain period of time constituted “ownership” of the land.
Then later, you quote as historical fact:
Under Piet Retief a large section of Natal was bought from the Zulu King, Dingane, who without warning killed 70 men.
Surely there is a contradiction between the two statements?
Perhaps you could do well do read Alistair Spark’s look at both oral history of Zulu people together with a broader reading of the records of Afrikaner history to get a true sense of how land was viewed by the Zulu people, before dimissing him as a bleeding heart liberal and making yourself foolish by arguing with such clear contradictory clap-trap.
Can I ask how much equality should we have, and what you mean by it? If I work hard, surely I should be allowed to keep the fruits of my work for my own family? Much of it is taken away to feed other families and also corrupt government. The poor majority vote ANC which perpetuates this cycle of poverty. The ANC like an uneducated and poor voter base as its easy votes to keep them in power. Shouldn’t donating be voluntary? What have it taken in taxes? Education standards are dropping, the poor are having more kids and it cannot continue like this. I know many who stay here but move business overseas for example manufacturing. If the poor vote ANC and life gets tough, maybe they will change to something else. In the Western Cape, refugees from the failed ANC run areas flock here and make demands. There is not enough and they complain. I think most working people of all races are tired of working to support the poor and the lazy. Many of the poor are lazy. It’s like that in the UK, where you can earn more on the dole than a secretary for example. Too many parasites off the working people. Nobody cares anymore about the past or reasons or who did what when. Many educated middle class people are so tired of all these parasites taking, demanding, having kids they can’t afford and using apartheid as an excuse. Nobody cares really. I tell them off at the traffic lights. The only way forward is sterilization of these losers. They don’t contribute. I give them money as someone suggested. It sounds harsh, but it’s the only way.
I won’t give them money. I give old food i don’t need. When I see these losers voluntarily cleaning up litter and making themselves useful, I’ll donate, but they just stand there like a baby making demands. Why don’t they offer a service? Why don’t they do anything? Clean up streets, beaches, offer to weed for free. They don’t because they expect, are lazy and that is the mindset that makes them losers. Lecture to them. When I first got a job, I offered to work for free just to learn. When I walk on the beach, I take a bag with me to clean up some litter. Why can’t these lazy poor people do this? It would go a long way to helping their plight.
Wow Tony, some sweeping generalisations there. Firstly, when you talk about how hard you walk and all that it would be interesting to know your background and how easy it was for you to be educated and then to have access to work because for a lot of the people in the townships it’s just not that easy. Their playing field is not level with everyone else’s – if you are a 14 year old looking after your three younger siblings because a parent died of AIds and the other one is working crazy hours to make ends meet, it’s just probably not the same as what you went through [it might be – i don’t know you] it certainly wasn’t for me… to label them all losers and people who are lazy and people who make babies is just unfair and not true and suggests to me you may not have spent too much time in the townships – i lived in one for 18 months and saw so much entrepreneurship from people who struggled with nothing [not all of them, there are some lazy ones and ones who drink or do drugs as there are in the white community and i imagine would be more of if they were raised with the same challenges] and a lot of people who travel crazy long distances for work and some who sit for hours in the sun waiting for the hope of a job from people who drive by looking for day labourers every day.
i would be interested to know where you were living and how you were eating and all that when you had the opportunity with your first job of working for free – parents house perhaps?
i really encourage you to meet and befriend some people from the townships – you will find amazing spirit, perseverance, passion and gifting there – and a lot of hope even in the midst of horrible conditions. i don’t expect us to give all our ‘hard-earned’ money away but it would be great if every South African who is wealthy [which includes you and me] takes time to start hearing stories or maybe helping one family out or a community and see the change it can bring to the whole nation.
if you’re not interested in helping the poor, rather go somewhere else. A successful South Africa will be made up of people who walk the long journey side by side, helping each other along.
love brett fish
Why so many with aids? Surely immorality is the cause of this? If we did not have to pay taxes, I would gladly try help, but because I feel like the majority who vote ANC are stealing from me, I kinda feel ripped off. So we have to be lectured to about giving money. Why aren’t you or other Christians lecturing them about going into neighbourhoods or other public areas and they clean up? It should be a two way thing, not always one sided. Yes there are past things, apartheid, this that, van Riebeek and more, but we can’t go back in time. If I saw volunteers from the townships coming to clean up and weed lawns and do things for free, I would gladly help them.
I do think that a voluntary sterilization is the way to go. Whoever wants to, goes in for that and gets paid for having it done. To make it fair, only people with 2 kids already or more qualify. I wouldn’t want people to do it and then never be able to have kids. They must already have to be eligible. Thoughts?
I will gladly help if the poor also do the same. They should offer their time and come clean streets, beaches, run errands and so on. My money is also from spending time at work. If some poor complain about apartheid and keep on blaming and expecting and thinking it’s my duty to help them, then that is not on. It must be a two way street. What do you think?
Why invest in so called long term? Why should I sacrifice my cricket watching and go out and make soup for poor? Why should I not buy new jeans and go use it for buying presents for poor kids? The poor seem to like being poor as they vote ANC.
How about for not being selfish? For caring about others? Maybe it is even possible to watch cricket and have an interest in the less fortunate…
An interest is different from actually getting out there and helping. I used to work at a soup kitchen in town, and they would come in there to have the food, and keep their money to buy cigarettes and alcohol. Its almost as if it helped them with their habit.
Say I earn R20k per month. I pay say R5k tax, plus vat etc… Can you give me figures of how much is normal? How many hours should I work or contribute? Put numbers on it. Why should I pay for others? Do you? How much do you earn? Pay? Let’s get into numbers.
I don’t think it is so much about numbers as heart. It’s not how much you are giving so you can ease your conscience. Is how much are you prepared to invest in others for the betterment of the whole country. I don’t get that much per month but we try at the very least to give ten percent towards people typically or groups that we believe are doing a good thing and then try to be fairly free with our finances beyond that when we see a need. We prefer to give through relationship though so it can be about building friendships with people or fortunate than yourselves.
After rent and car, I am probably more poor than a beggar anyway.
Maybe time for cheaper rent and car? Hard to say when i don’t know what you have but the choices we make define the possibilities we have in some ways which is pertinent to my wife and i at the moment as we are looking to rent in a lower economy area and live in an area with people who don’t look like us for the dual reasons of being hopefully able to afford it and also to build cross-cultural relationships which feel like a good thing to have in this diverse land of ours…
I don’t think there are many places in Cape Town that have low rent. Like Tony, I am also pretty much broke after all the monthly expenses. I don’t have anything to give away to poor (besides my tax and vat).
If one rents in a lower economy area, generally the crime is higher and your kids will be exposed to gangsterism or drugs. Not that it won’t happen in upmarket areas (especially the drugs part), but the chance of falling prey to violent crime is higher.
I think it really comes down to how hard you work for your money, what your salary is, expenses such as car, rent, medical aid, security, insurance etc… There really is no time or money left over to help the poor.
Living in lower economy areas is also a bit of a problem when it comes to peace and quiet – which is really needed after a long week. I woudn’t want to be kept up all night with loud neighbours – there is more chance of this happening as I’d have many more neighbours than if I were in a wealthier area with fewer neighbours.
I like to drive a fairly safe car as I have children to consider. I woudn’t want to break down in a bad area. I also would want the car to meet or exceed safety regulations in case I were in an accident. Its not just about driving a 1980 golf to get from point A to B. I want to be safe and it must be reliable.
I sometimes wonder if some people get to a point where you just cant help them further. Especially ones who are hard druggers or drinkers. Is their mind too far gone to help them? Is it worth spending time and money on them? Difficult questions. I am all for helping children and those who wish to help themselves – when there is money to spare and I am not servicing my credit card debt.
Hey I like to aim higher not lower. Work hard and play hard. How about moving to the squatter camp? It may be a diverse land, but you still look after your own family first.
I lived in a township for eighteen months before i got married so would totally be open to that. I think living for others is aiming higher not lower.
Township VA squatter camp. Big difference. Why always the lowest aims? What did you do on the Township anyway? Feed the poor?
I lived there and got to meet and hang out with some people who had very different lives from me and tried to learn a little bit about life. I have hugely high aims which tend to focus on seeing everyone taking a step forward rather than just focusing on me and what feels fun and comfortable and safe for me.
You get paid how? Donations? Charity groups? Until you get a real job like the rest of us and actually earn a salary, you are in no position to tell us how to spend. You seem to be on the receiving end of charity and hence this view. Be honest here and stop the spin talk.
I’m
Well, i have just come off a year and a half of working two jobs and at the moment am working part-time while i get my book published, so i feel like i have a right to a voice. Be careful of making assumptions when it seems like all you are doing is making random guesses. Why not ask some questions and get to know me a little before you pass judgment. But i also don’t think only people with his and salaries should be the only ones whose voice are legitimate. Everyone had a story worth listening to and with the potential to learn from.