**6. Background**

To make the argument of this study more sounding, the Freedom Charter of 1995, from which all the promises were made by the liberation movements particularly with regards to land and governance will shed very important light for the cause of the frustrations that South Africans are having today. Three specific statements in the Freedom Charter are:


The Land Audit Report of November 2017 continued to emphasize by quoting the Constitution of the Republic by saying: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity" [18]. The gist of this paper may be complicated for some readers without the knowledge of the Freedom Charter, which was a helping tool for the governing party and other liberal movements to gain the support of the majority in toppling the apartheid regime. It is on the background of these initial promises adopted in 1955 that the reactions of people on issues of land in South Africa can be attributed to.

There is a confirmation that the 2017 Land Audit Report stats on land reform were just a beginning of the long journey of redistributing the land by saying: "Finally, this exercise has revealed that we have just taken the first steps upon a long journey towards the goal of the sustainable relationship of South African citizens to one another through the effective management of land as a resource and nationbuilding"([19], p. 20).

According to ([20], p. 1) the land restitution programme which is based on Section 25(7) of the *Constitution,*<sup>1</sup> points that:

*Land Redistribution: A Thorny Issue towards Reconciliation in a Post Apartheid South Africa… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104380*

*"A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress." Some of the claims in this regard were attended to, but many are still outstanding and the landless are not aware of what the update is.*

The state of affairs according to "The Borgen Project report" with regards to land occupation as in 2021 indicates that: "White South Africans accounted for less than 10% of the population after the apartheid in South Africa ended in 1994. However, 90% of white South Africans owned the land. In addition, about 72% of white South Africans owned farmland in 2017. Meanwhile, black South Africans owned only 4% of land and Indian South Africans owned about 5%. As such, poverty and land reform in South Africa remain large issues ([21], p. 1). This audit is supported by Phaliso [22] who exactly have the same statistics in his/her report dated 2018. The audit shows that whites owned the majority of land at 72%, followed by coloured people at 15%, Indians at 5% and Africans at 4%.

Until today, South Africa is still one of the countries with the highest levels of inequalities, according to World Bank 2019 statistics [23]. The disparities that exist between the rich and the poor is incomparable to most of the countries. From then onwards, the ownership of the land in the country was transferred into White hands, that continued even during the apartheid period [24]. The Natives Land Act which is regarded as apartheid's original sin saw thousands of black families being forcefully removed from their land and since then onwards, black South African knew no peace with regards to those removals.

The continued removal of black people from the land went on even when homelands were formed in the late 1960s and became is a crack that has not yet mended even after close to three decades of democracy. The forceful removal of black ethnic groups aimed at giving some land for exclusive use had been and will always be blamed for the current inequalities. There is no doubt that the move to democracy in South Africa is challenged among others by the land reform process. This is because some effects of the apartheid regime were the historical unequal allocation of the land ([25], p. 1). These historical injustices should be dealt with for true reconciliation to surface. The truth which is undeniable, according to De Villiers [26] is that in four countries namely; Zimbabawe, Namibia, South Africa and Australia the historical land issues were characterised by the inequality, colonial dominance and discrimination which led to the indigenous inhabitants being forced off their land to the benefit of white settlers, even the ancestral lands where they buried their loved ones were forcefully taken from them. It is an undeniable fact that by whom and how the land is used has a very direct bearing on the growing unemployment as well as poverty statistics [27].

My background discussion starts with a quote by Butjwana Seokoma [28] who said:

*"South Africa's land reform programme, adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) led government in 1994, has a long way to go in redressing the historical injustice of land dispossession, denial of access to land and forced removals."*

It is evident that the problem about land redistribution in South Africa was caused by the attitude of the racial discrimination of the apartheid government, which most of us accept was inclusive of many policies that wronged our people to a great extent. This is when all tribal laws, tribal divisions and forceful removal of blacks from the areas designated for white use exclusively. The dispossession of land from black

South Africans was a key part of the colonial and apartheid strategy of entrenching superiority over the black population, it rendered the blacks unable to live on their land, forcing them to work for the colonial and apartheid powers. It removed people from ancestral land, disabling them from being able to perform cultural rites, visit graves, bury the umbilical cords of newborns and the deceased on ancestral land [29].

Sol Plaatjie, the first secretary of ANC, was quoted reiterating what the colonial ideology was all about saying: "Where will we get servants if Kaffirs (Africans) are allowed to become skilled? A kaffir with a thousand bags of wheat? If they are inclined to her the pedigree stock, let them improve their masters (colonial settlers) cattle and cultivate for the owner of the land, not for themselves." (Motsoko [30]). Despite that the statement dealt a blow to the dignity and humanity of black people, this statement was manifested by ensuring that black people do not own land in this country; hence, the outcry today comes a long way.

For me the basic human right was violated just here and not much had been done to reverse it, particularly for ordinary people who lack even a small piece of land to erect a shack. On the other hand, "those who were favoured through legislation to acquire productive and at the expense of the disposed black majority were able to use that asset over a time as a leverage for wealth creation- to get ahead materially, to afford the comforts of life, to take their children to better schools, to build social resilience and to bequeath material legacy for future generations of their kin. The experience of the black majority was the complete opposite"(Daily Maverick, 14 August 2018).

It is the acknowledgement of all these wrongs that were supposed to be accompanied by a confession of guilt from those who intentionally benefited from this wrongdoing. From the inception of democratic government in 1994 this had been one of the slowest projects of transformation, since only a small percentage of land had been taken so far. The resistance and politicising of this aspect caused delays that see us loosing lives like in the apartheid regime, for instance people whose shacks are being washed away by floods due to lack of proper space to shelter themselves.

No one can deny that the dawn of the first democratic elections in 1994 was harnessed among others by the hope that the disadvantaged people of this country thought that it would change their lives, even in terms of having land to themselves. The honest response is that very little had been done and this, on its own, does not give courage that the ordinary citizens of this country will have land from the country of their birth. The dignity of the other is continuously delayed and denied.

Mr Petros Nkosi said:

*"The land, our purpose is the land: that is what we must achieve. The land is our whole lives: we plough it for food, we build our houses from the soil, we live on it, and we are buried on it. When the whites took our land away from us, we lost the dignity of our lives, we could no longer feed our children, we were forced to become servants, we are treated like animals. Our people have many problems, we are beaten and killed by farmers, the wages we earn are too little to buy even a bag of mealie meal. We must unite together to help each other and face boers. But in everything we do we must remember that there is only one aim and one solution and that is the land, the soil, our world." (18 May 2017), The constitutional court speaks about land and dignity). This is very similar to SAHRC's position on land reform when they said: "Land is dignity and the restitution of land rights equals to restoration of dignity."*

This is the kind of the enmity and hatred that had been sowed by the issue of land, among others. We cannot continue blinding ourselves to think Mr Nkosi's mind is

#### *Land Redistribution: A Thorny Issue towards Reconciliation in a Post Apartheid South Africa… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104380*

his alone, since many black landless people are singing the same tune although they might not be very vocal. The dignity of a human being is on the land issue from birth to death. The previous state president Jacob Zuma also sang the same song of saying that it will be very difficult if not impossible to achieve true reconciliation until the land question is resolved ([2], p. 2).

If lack of land affects the dignity of the majority of this country, it means that by delaying and trying to avoid a quick movement towards it is also to deny that these people's dignity must be returned to them. Justice delayed is justice denied. Therefore, how do we expect of the landowner to be reconciled to someone who does not even own a space where his/her shack is situated. It is the dignity of our people that is being tarnished by red ants who are evicting them from one place to the next on a daily basis. If my shack cannot give me enough privacy because there is no space between it and those of my neighbours , while the white farmer has enough space even for his dogs, cats and mice to play around, then the dignity of the one living in the shack cannot be equated to the dignity that the dogs and cats have. How is reconciliation possible? Parker ([31], p. 3) is very correct to mention that returning the land means restoring the dignity of the people. It should however be commended that one of the first steps towards land restitution began after the unbanning of liberation movements during the last days of the National Party's rule in which FW De Klerk 's government abolished the Racially Based Land Measures Act 108 of 1991 where in a commission on land allocation was established ([26], p. 47). The situation as at 2019 according to [11] indicates that only 13% of South African is owned by black people while 87% of it is owned by whites.

We have two camps with regards to land issue in South Africa, those who have the land and the landless. Their walks of life, worldviews and life experiences still remain the same as it was more than twenty-five years ago; very opposed to each other and the question is: How do they join 16 December annual celebrations in the same fashion, while they remain in this situation? I am of the opinion that the reconciliation of people must not ignore the life world and levels of lives each person comes from. Some will people will argue that there are rich black people that own the houses that are on the first and second pictures, but I am fully aware that the majority of our people are still in the life indicated in the pictures below and yet they are not excluded from the discussions of reconciliation. To deal with and overcome the historical injustices of the past, where the land was seized under apartheid it is just imperative not to avoid addressing a land issue. That is what Gibson [24] in his book entitled Övercoming Historical injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa" is trying to argue. The land issue is undoubtedly at the heart of South African politics since it is an important cornerstone towards reconciling the nation that is haunted by racial divisions amongst others.

The first two pictures are of white farmers while the rest portray the living places for most black people living in South Africa.

The safety of the first two houses to natural disasters compared to the shacks in which one lives in fear, should high rainfalls come. This fear has been normalised to be a lived experience in which one is forced to create happiness despite circumstances.


in which most blacks spend four to five hours to reach and have their happiness there. An area that cannot have any resource at all, but life goes on as usual.


The above pictures confirm what Siviwe Feketa mentioned in his article entitled: South Africa world's most unequal society report' when he reported:

*The government has expressed disappointment with its track record of transforming the country after a World Bank report showed that inequality has deepened since the dawn of democracy, with the country being the most unequal society. The results of the probe, which assessed poverty and inequality from 1994 to 2015, revealed that only one in four South Africans could currently be stably considered as either middle class or upwards in terms of means [32].*

In Collins' article entitled: "No vacant land in Joburg is safe from occupation," he quoted one landless person in Alexander Township saying: "The empty stand represents an opportunity for dignity, privacy and a home she can finally call her own. It also represents a waste of something she has never had and is ready to fight for." [33]. This is one example out of many or even the majority of the people in South Africa, whose dreams to have a land of their own in which they can build houses is a dream not coming true. It is difficult to imagine that for almost three decades after the democratic government which had one of its pillars in the freedom charter as to ensure that all people will access the land.

Many other issues can be raised by just comparing these pictures, but for reconciliation's sake, there are many issues that would have to be attended to before we embark on the language of reconciling the two groups of people, unless the word reconciliation is only on our lips**.** Even though it is not the focus of this article, it is important to note that there are also squatter camps where white people are living, for instance, Munsieville in Krugersdorp. But it should however be known that this has been and

*Land Redistribution: A Thorny Issue towards Reconciliation in a Post Apartheid South Africa… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104380*

is still a home for the majority of black South Africans. This has been part of the long history of inequality that was orchestrated by the elements of injustice and racism, among others. Recently, the very hot land debate was revived between the ruling party (ANC) and EFF where the bone of contention was that the government must be a custodian of the whole land while the ANC believed that they want to be custodians only of certain portions of the land in the country [34]. This of course have a close relationship with the argument of appropriation of land without compensation, which has been a headache for the government for a long time now. Of course, this very long debate is not of much interest in this study, but it is touched upon just to shed light as to where we are in terms of land ownership in South Africa, which has serious and should seriously continue to be one of the determining factors towards reconciling this very divided country.
