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Let me say first and foremost that I agree that all land in South Africa must be under the custodianship of the State.
If you do not read the “State” to mean the “people”, you are at this point probably swearing at me.
But to worry about that is a tangent.
This State custodianship is important for a variety of simple but strategic reasons.
The one that’s key for me is that a responsible State will give one a piece of land to farm because one has proven that she in fact can farm, or that she has undergone training to carry out productive farming.
This custodianship is important because it is an appropriate forum to which one can apply for a piece of land if she wants to start that butchery.
This custodianship is important because we do not want to consult and negotiate with an unpatriotic, stubborn and avaricious Phepheng when there is a school or a hospital or a library or a railway to build.
This custodianship will ensure that, unlike the black majority who are presently pariahs in the land of their birth (apologies to the legendary Sol Plaatje), conceded to posterity is neither hunger nor squalor, but land to work.
I am not naïve. I know there are problems already with some entities owned and run by the State.
If at any time the problem with State custodianship (of the land or any other entity) is determined to be a function of mismanagement by the governing party of the day, the solution is not to give ownership of the land to individuals (who may then find irresistible the sweet overtures of Capital, resulting in land being owned by rapacious Corporates and the rich).
There is a democratic solution, and that is to remove that governing party and to replace it with one the voter believes will manage and run the affairs of the State to the benefit of all.
But do we really need the current land debate? Could this matter be handled differently?
I think the way in which the debate is framed today – the drive for a constitutional amendment, that is – is a direct function of a lost opportunity by the rich minority who together own vast tracts of land, the very same rich minority who control the economy in our country.
Every Sunday some of us go to church with the rich and selfish minority who own vast tracts of land, the ones who control the economy.
We sing together. We read from the same Bible. Together we praise the same God.
This rich and selfish minority is fully aware that blacks are hungry and landless.
It appears imprisoned, this rich and selfish minority, by its own private desires, and equally private affection for a few persons nearest to them because on Sunday right after church, they swimmingly switch over to heartlessness as they proceed back to their retreats of opulence, while their fellow black worshippers return to the other side of town, where their shacks, squalor and hunger await.
These are the same people who, instead of taking the first Godly step to share, instead proceed to instruct the poor to “avoid a Zimbabwe.”
How else will their privilege persist, otherwise?
There is also talk of the risk of investors being terrified and walking away with their purses, should the amendment of the constitution be proceeded with.
But should these investors not be encouraging, even – where possible, actually penalising the rich minority to share simply because sharing is the right thing to do?
If they don’t, it will be difficult to understand how these investors’ posture on this sensitive matter does not favour the rich and privileged minority, while further entrenching hunger and poverty of the landless majority.
Ultimately, it is unavoidable to wonder why the rich minority has as yet not voluntarily come forward to offer to share.
How come this rich minority is so comfortable in their lavishness while the vast majority in South African is landless and hungry?
There is a section among the rich minority who claim to be with the poor majority. What has this section given up that has sought to equalise the playing field?
Have they perhaps moved to disown and reject those among them who see nothing wrong with black squalor and poverty?
What moral justification is there that satisfies the rich minority that the poor majority is so subhuman that it is undeserving of ownership of land in their own country of birth?
Why don’t we just share, people – even if it is merely to “avoid a Zimbabwe”?
• Maruping Phepheng is an author and doctoral candidate at the University of the Western Cape
