tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/1913-natives-land-act-50836/articles1913 Natives Land Act – The Conversation2020-06-03T13:37:31Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1393332020-06-03T13:37:31Z2020-06-03T13:37:31ZStudy shows land redistribution can create new jobs in agriculture in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338004/original/file-20200527-20255-w319yb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Land reform can assist in creating more employment-intensive farming systems
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gunter Fischer/-Universal Images Group via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the livelihoods of many South Africans, and highlighted <a href="https://www.plaas.org.za/food-in-the-time-of-the-coronavirus-why-we-should-be-very-very-afraid/">food insecurity as one key aspect</a>. Many now argue that reducing the vulnerability of the livelihoods of the poor, and associated food insecurity, must become <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/Voices/covid-19-food-security-and-wellness-are-likely-to-be-compromised-20200403">a key focus of policy</a>.</p>
<p>Some assert that structural reform, tackling these problems at their root, is required <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-03-23-sweeping-economic-interventions-called-for-in-sa-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/">more urgently than before</a>. Land reform has this potential. It is, in any case, a political necessity. If successful, it could play a significant role in reducing the vulnerability and food insecurity of the rural population, who are one third of the population, as well as some urban residents. Enhancing employment and thus incomes is one key thrust of pro-poor land reform.</p>
<p>Land reform is necessary in post-apartheid South Africa to help address inherited historical injustices, especially those resulting from <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">land dispossession</a> of the black majority. It involves the restitution of land to individuals and communities who lost their homes and land due to forced removals. It also creates secure rights to land held by the black majority. In addition, the process aims to create a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-01-land-reform-is-at-a-crossroads/">more equitable pattern of land ownership</a>.</p>
<p>Land reform since the end of apartheid in 1994 has encountered many difficulties, and progress has been slow. One problem is that elites have <a href="https://www.plaas.org.za/farai-mtero-elite-capture-in-land-redistribution-winners-and-losers/">captured many of the benefits</a>. Another is the limited impact thus far on poverty and unemployment.</p>
<p>A recent study commissioned by the government and funded by the European Union, and conducted by experts from different institutions, with me as the leader, focused on the <a href="https://assets.website-files.com/5e540242678f9f3ccb231a54/5ed1275e31b120a9c6b38c48_2020527%20GTAC%20FINAL%20LILR%20policy%20brief%20branded.pdf">potential contribution of redistributive land reform to employment creation</a>. </p>
<p>The key questions addressed in the study were: can land redistribution be undertaken in a manner that creates jobs? If so, through which commodity mix and and what kinds of farming systems, operating at what scales? And what is the potential of small-scale farming in particular?</p>
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<p>Despite its many limitations – such as the lack of a quantitative survey due to time constraints – the study breaks new ground by investigating the potential for employment creation in specific locations, focused on specific commodities and building on local knowledge. </p>
<p>The study revealed a considerable, unmet demand for land by both smallholders and small-scale commercial farmers.</p>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>The study found that land reform can assist in creating more employment-intensive farming systems by: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>reducing the size of farming units, while increasing their total numbers; </p></li>
<li><p>changing the mix and scale of farm commodities produced; and </p></li>
<li><p>changing farming systems so that they become more employment-intensive.</p></li>
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<p>A number of assumptions informed the study. “Employment” included both employment by others and self-employment. Potential gains are calculated in terms of net jobs – the total new jobs created after deducting the number of jobs “displaced” through redistribution of the land on which existing farms are located. These are estimated as “full time equivalents” – a job was assumed to involve working a 40 hour week.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/small-scale-farmers-should-be-at-the-centre-of-land-reform-in-south-africa-94546">Small-scale farmers should be at the centre of land reform in South Africa</a>
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<p>In estimating net job gains, the study assumes that 50% of the land under large-scale farming at present will be redistributed to small-scale black farmers. This illustrates the order of magnitude of potential impacts on employment. Costs to the state involve both land acquisition (at market prices) and set-up costs.</p>
<p>In the four municipalities in which the study took place, net job creation amounted to the equivalent of <a href="https://assets.website-files.com/5e540242678f9f3ccb231a54/5ed611838b992c39dd00bc6d_20200527%20GTAC%20FINAL_%20Research%20Summary%20branded.pdf">23 691 permanent jobs</a>. The commodities which land redistribution beneficiaries could begin to farm included subtropical fruit and nuts in Limpopo, grapes and lucerne in the Western Cape, maize and wool in the Eastern Cape, and extensive livestock (goats and cattle) in KwaZulu-Natal. Vegetables with high levels of labour intensity are key in all four municipalities. </p>
<p>The cost per net job varies from R325 425 in KwaZulu-Natal to R685 311 in the Western Cape. </p>
<p>The findings have major implications for the targeting and selection of beneficiaries, commodities and farming systems. </p>
<p>It shows that that extensive livestock production, including wool, offers key opportunities. The bulk of the land surface of South Africa is not suitable for cropping, and livestock production is likely be the dominant land use on redistributed farms. Net gains in its employment intensity are thus significant at the national scale, if modest at farm level. This can be enhanced if new and more employment-intensive value chains are created (as shown clearly in the KwaZulu-Natal case).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337982/original/file-20200527-20241-14031t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Small scale farmers struggle to find markets for their products.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Halden Krog</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Given expanding market demand for fresh vegetables, these crops offer important opportunities for small-scale black producers. Their potential for employment creation is particularly significant.</p>
<h2>Challenges and recommendations</h2>
<p>Key challenges for land reform projects include improved access to irrigation water, formal and informal markets, and effective extension and advisory services. High-value subtropical fruit, nuts and grapes by small-scale producers have great potential, but this must be balanced against their high capital and running costs, and technically demanding character.</p>
<p>A key consideration is how to enhance access to markets and value chains (including agro-processing). Climate change is also likely to have highly negative impacts on all scales and forms of agriculture, even though its precise nature and timing remain uncertain.</p>
<p>The study also considers a number of policy issues, such as the allocation of farm production units of appropriate sizes, land tenure options, and the <a href="https://assets.website-files.com/5e540242678f9f3ccb231a54/5ed1275e31b120a9c6b38c48_2020527%20GTAC%20FINAL%20LILR%20policy%20brief%20branded.pdf">design of effective support services</a>.</p>
<p>It recommends the decentralised implementation of land reform and discusses the need for complementary policies in relation to support for informal agricultural markets, water allocation reform, environmental management and climate change, state procurement, and improved data collection.</p>
<h2>Trade-offs</h2>
<p>Land policy always involves difficult trade-offs, in this case between capital intensity and employment intensity, and between creating more jobs and paying decent wages. These have to be carefully weighed up and steered in a practical manner.</p>
<p>Clearly, finding the funds for land reform will not be easy. But if significant reductions in unemployment through land reform focused on small-scale farming are indeed feasible, as argued in this study, then it might well be worth the effort to find the requisite funds.</p>
<p>When South Africa eventually emerges from the fog of the COVID-19 crisis, structural reform, including land reform, will be high on the political agenda as never before. A key question is: will policy makers be ready to grasp the nettle of farm scale, and promote the large-scale redistribution of land to small-scale producers?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins has received funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>When South Africa eventually emerges from the fog of the COVID-19 crisis, structural reform, including land reform, will be high on the political agenda as never before.Ben Cousins, Emeritus Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263582019-11-11T14:10:11Z2019-11-11T14:10:11ZParty’s woes signify historical dilemma of South Africa’s liberals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300847/original/file-20191108-194675-amzxe3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Helen Zille's return to the top echelons of the Democratic Alliance has been slammed as an attempt to make the party white again.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-10-20-helen-zille-wins-vote-top-da-job/">return of Helen Zille</a>, the former leader of South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), to active politics as chair of the party’s federal executive led to many allegations that the party is dominated by a shadowy kitchen cabinet of <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2195945/maimane-was-an-ethically-upright-man-forced-to-leave-da-because-of-white-people-eff/">white people</a>.</p>
<p>Zille’s election to head the DA’s highest decision-making body in between national congresses was soon followed by the <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/double-whammy-for-da-as-maimane-and-trollip-resign-20191023">resignations</a> of Herman Mashaba, the DA mayor of Johannesburg; Mmusi Maimane, the party’s national leader; and Athol Trollip, its national chairman. Mashaba had charged that Zille’s return set the party on a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-10-21-joburg-mayor-herman-mashaba-resigns/">rightwing path</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, rather than focusing on personalities to understand the DA’s problems, it is better to return to the dilemmas of liberals in South Africa’s tragic history of the politicisation of race. This tendency persisted even after the country became a democracy in 1994. In essence, liberalism has always been reluctant to grant black people equality unless they achieve certain designated standards.</p>
<h2>Segregation frames the liberal dilemma</h2>
<p>Following the country’s formation in 1910 as a union of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/union-south-africa-1910">four territories </a> (historically, two British colonies and two Boer republics), it was accepted among white people, including those of more liberal persuasions, that people of different “races” should live separately to preserve white people’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">culture and languages</a>.</p>
<p>This was used to justify the grossly unequal division of land which resulted in the black majority being left with just 7% of the land. This was confirmed by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">1913 Land Act</a>. </p>
<p>The assumption which went with this was that black people were destined to remain in rural areas, and that any movement (such as migration for work on white mines, factories or farms) would be temporary. </p>
<p>But, by the end of the 1920s, liberals were beginning to get uneasy. It was becoming increasingly clear that the fates of black people and white people were irrevocably entangled, economically and politically.</p>
<p>The fundamental dilemma for “liberal segregationists” was that they based their politics on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/179767?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Cape qualified franchise</a>. Its basic supposition was that black people (and only men) were worthy of the vote – only if they achieved a certain level of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/segregation-fallacy-and-other-papers-disfranchisement-cape-native">“civilisation”</a>. In practice, this meant ownership of property and or educational qualifications. </p>
<p>But this presented the problem that the few black people who acquired education showed that black people were equal to whites. If black equality was accepted, the white minority would be <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/segregation-fallacy-and-other-papers-disfranchisement-cape-native">“swamped”</a>. </p>
<p>Assuming power in 1948, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> formalised apartheid. It sought to negate this danger by arguing that potential equality between people of different races was irrelevant. It argued that black people and white people were culturally different, cultural mixing would cause cultural conflict. </p>
<p>This led to a number of targeted policies. To avert the dangers of racial mixing, the flow of black people to urban areas should be averted, the entry of black people into the white polity should be blocked off completely, and black politics should be diverted to black <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“homelands”</a>. These were ten mainly rural areas where black people were required to live, along ethnic group lines. </p>
<p>It was only the tiny <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberal-party-south-africa-lpsa">Liberal Party</a> which had by now fully accepted the political implications of racial equality, and argued for a universal franchise. The majority liberal response, elaborated by the DA’s forerunners (from the Progressive Party onwards), was to retain the notion of black people having to attain a certain level of “civilisation” to qualify for the vote.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberalism-in-south-africa-isnt-only-for-white-people-or-black-people-who-want-to-be-white-125236">Liberalism in South Africa isn't only for white people -- or black people who want to be white</a>
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<p>One reason was that any attempt to sell the idea of the universal franchise to the white electorate was doomed to failure. When universal franchise eventually arrived, in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-africas-first-democratic-elections">election of 1994</a>, the then Democratic Party, albeit now advocating votes for all, secured a mere 2% of the vote. The National Party – fighting for “group rights” – swept up 20%.</p>
<p>Subsequently, in 1999, under Tony Leon, the DA, then known as the Democratic Party, adopted the ambiguously phrased <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/das-history-of-identity-crises-1611459">“fight back”</a> campaign slogan. It argued that the governing ANC was embarking on implementing apartheid in reverse through affirmative action policies. It captured the major portion of the National Party’s white vote. Thus the party of apartheid was condemned to a deserved, albeit lingering death.</p>
<h2>Maimane’s burden</h2>
<p>Under Zille, the DA embarked on an electoral expansion programme, recognising that if it was going to grow and become a serious competitor for power, it would have to capture a sizeable portion of the overwhelming majority black vote. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mmusi Maimane grew the DA’s support among the majority black voters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
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<p>This realisation eventually led to the selection of Maimane as the DA’s national leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-black-leader-breathes-life-into-south-african-opposition-41275">in 2015</a>. He saw his task as rendering the DA’s liberalism more appealing to black voters by taking it in what he saw as a more inclusive direction. This would be through recognising <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/we-believe-race-is-a-proxy-for-disadvantage--mmusi">race as an indicator of disadvantage</a>. </p>
<p>It didn’t go down well with the DA’s established base, which saw it as an assault upon the party’s professedly nonracial values. It was therefore Maimane who, as leader, was to be blamed for the <a href="https://www.biznews.com/leadership/2019/05/09/elections2019-national-vote-da-ff">DA’s loss of votes</a>, for the first time since 1994, in the 2019 election.</p>
<p>The recent internal party inquest, headed by Leon, decided that it was imperative for Maimane to go, arguing that under his watch, in a bid to attract black voters, the DA <a href="https://www.news24.com/Analysis/analysis-leadership-and-race-da-review-panel-a-devastating-blow-for-mmusi-maimane-20191022">had strayed from its liberal principles</a>. </p>
<p>The DA should, therefore, return to its liberal foundations and confirm its attachment to policies which would effect redress of historical racial inequalities without using race as a proxy for disadvantage. Yet South Africa’s black voters are unlikely to dissociate disadvantage from the colour of their skin.</p>
<h2>Difficult choices</h2>
<p>It is unsurprising that this turn of events should lead to Maimane’s resignation. If the party wants to return to growth, then its analysis is almost certainly wrong. Stronger emphasis on a “non-racial liberalism” is unlikely to appeal to rightwing white voters. It is equally unlikely to appeal to black voters, who view forms of racial redress as the only sure route to greater racial equality. </p>
<p>Black aversion to the DA is likely to increase even more if the party replaces its former black leader with someone, however talented and principled, who is white. The DA is having to struggle with South Africa’s toxic history of black oppression. Yet it remains the case that that history has left it with the dilemma that liberals in South Africa have never been able to solve: how to deal with “the native question” if the natives in question doubt the capacity of liberalism to bring about substantive racial equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall has received funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The Democratic Alliance’s problems can be traced back to the politicisation of race, which has persisted even after the dawn of democracy in 1994.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254372019-11-09T18:51:55Z2019-11-09T18:51:55ZMining activities continue to dispossess black families in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299694/original/file-20191031-187894-g9tc9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A cemetery in Phola, a black residential area near Witbank, to which some graves were relocated to make way for coal mining</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dispossession in South Africa is associated with the period of colonialism and apartheid. As a result, not much consideration is given to how previously marginalised black communities continue to be dispossessed by coal-mining activities in democratic South Africa.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/de7bea_3030b7a84f674c838fb58b7f3f8c8eca.pdf">paper</a> that formed part of my PhD research, I investigated what communities lose because of coal mining. The research was conducted in Ogies, a town that lies 29km south-west of Witbank (Emalahleni), in Mpumalanga province.</p>
<p>I found that the relocations continue as a result of coal mining companies buying up land owned by white farmers. Black farm dwellers and labour tenants are given short shrift because the mining companies see houses – and graves – as mere movable structures and, therefore, replaceable.</p>
<p>Dispossession is historically thought about only in relation to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">land</a>. But this framework is limited, given that relocation affects more than people’s homes. It happens to the graves of their families too. In my research I refer to this as loss of the intangible – families lose their spiritual security, identity, heritage and belonging. Household and grave relocations feature as an aspect of dispossession in my work. </p>
<h2>Household and grave relocations</h2>
<p>In my paper I traced the relocation of 120 families between 2012 and 2016 from Goedgevonden farm, Tweefontein farm and other farms in the vicinity of Ogies, 112km east of Johannesburg. Families were moved to make way for the Goedgevonden open-cast colliery mine, which is owned by the global mining giant Glencore. </p>
<p>As part of the relocation, at least 1,000 graves were relocated from Tweefontein farm. The graves belonged to former migrant labourers and labour tenants who came from various parts of South Africa and from other countries such as Mozambique and Swaziland. Most of the deceased people’s relatives live in the surrounding black townships such as Phola and Witbank. Others left a long time ago. This meant that some graves were claimed and others were not. </p>
<p>The study found that graves are subject to contestation because of contradictions in South Africa’s laws. On the one hand, the National Heritage Resource Act (1999) protects graves. But the South African Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (2002) allows land to be used for mining purposes. </p>
<p>The result is that the laws undermine government’s stated objective of protecting previously marginalised communities. </p>
<p>Importantly the study also found that graves are material evidence of a history that is entangled with narratives of land dispossession and restoration – even today. Graves matter because they validate citizenship for African communities that were previously denied such status. </p>
<p>Relocating graves for mining activities removes the material obstacles to a company’s desire to make profit. For the affected families, though, the relocation erases the evidence of their historical ties to a place and, above all, disrespects their ancestors. </p>
<p>The relocations at Ogies left the families feeling spiritually vulnerable and disconnected from their ancestors.</p>
<h2>Contradictions in the laws</h2>
<p>Mining companies have to provide heritage impact assessment reports when they apply for mining rights, in line with the <a href="http://www.energy.gov.za/files/esources/pdfs/energy/liquidfuels/act28r.pdf">Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act</a> and the <a href="http://www.dac.gov.za/sites/default/files/Legislations%20Files/a25-99.pdf">National Heritage Resources Act</a>. The reports often detail the structures which will be impacted during development. </p>
<p>In section 36 of the Heritage Act, graves are classified and protected according to their age and spatial location (for example, inside or outside a formal cemetery). But these measures, which are meant to reduce any possible adverse effects of mining on communities, aren’t enough. </p>
<p>The Minerals Act trumps the Heritage Act in most cases. This is evident in that no mining right or development has been denied because of the existence of graves on the site. Moreover, mining houses, and to some extent heritage consultants who are hired by mines to facilitate the relocations, don’t understand people’s attachment to their homes, and the sacredness attached to ancestral remains, as well as the meaning of land in African communities. </p>
<p>The intricate meanings of land in African communities were best
described by an anthropology professor, Peter Geschiere. He <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo6017282.html">noted that</a>
when a child is born in most African communities, her umbilical cord is buried in the soil to mark the space to which she shall be returned when she dies. Essentially, the piece of land becomes sacred at the birth – and in death. </p>
<p>During the interviews with the families whose graves were relocated, it was evident that death only marked a disconnection with the physical body. The interviewees believe that the spirits of ancestors continue to live. They bring about good omens, but also bad luck if violated. Hence, the relocated families complained that the treatment of their ancestral remains – such as putting them in plastic garbage bags during the relocations and using child-like coffins for the reburial – caused them and the ancestors distress. </p>
<h2>Intangible loss</h2>
<p>The people’s stories reveal a continued violation of the previously marginalised black majority. Even in death, the colonial and apartheid era experiences remain very much a part of post-apartheid South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dineo Skosana receives funding from The Ford Foundation.</span></em></p>Mining companies and some heritage consultants don’t understand the sacredness attached to ancestral remains, and the meaning of land in African communities.Dineo Skosana, Researcher, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929402018-03-08T14:17:17Z2018-03-08T14:17:17ZCan Ramaphosa centre the ANC and quell opposition parties?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209526/original/file-20180308-30979-kg74rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brenton Geach/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>These are early days for the new <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-03-01-ramaphosa-plays-the-hand-he-was-dealt">Cyril Ramaphosa-led government</a> in South Africa. Two crucial and inter-related strategic challenges face the new President: to consolidate support within the African National Congress (ANC), and to consolidate the ANC’s position as the dominant party in time for the 2019 national elections, seeking to reverse the decline it had experienced under Jacob Zuma.</p>
<p>Dealing with internal ANC issues is the most difficult and the foundation for the others. Zuma is <a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-time-is-up-but-what-does-it-mean-for-south-africa-91873">out of power</a>, and will not be back. Even though his departure will weaken their capacity to work as a coherent force, it will <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-zuma-regime-is-dead-but-its-consequences-will-linger-for-a-long-time-92066">take time</a> to dismantle the alliance that made up disparate elements he built around him. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa has started the job by <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-26-cyril-ramaphosa-cabinet-reshuffle-reaction-anc-da-eff-ifp">removing</a> the most obvious symbols of Zuma’s alliance with the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">Gupta family</a> who stand accused of being the major perpetrators of <a href="https://qz.com/825789/state-capture-jacob-zuma-the-guptas-and-corruption-in-south-africa/">state capture</a>. These include former ministers such as <a href="http://ewn.co.za/Topic/Communications-Minister-Faith-Muthambi">Faith Muthambi</a> who ran public administration and <a href="http://ewn.co.za/Topic/Mosebenzi-Zwane">Mosebenzi Zwane</a> who had been given the minerals portfolio. Both became notorious through combining incompetence and corruption, and have no independent power based within the ANC. </p>
<p>Others who had some internal support were demoted into less prestigious and powerful positions – <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/02/26/bathabile-dlamini-for-women-what-the-actual-hell-say-tweeters_a_23371557/">Bathabile Dlamini</a> who has been made minister of women and children and <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/malusi-gigaba">Malusi Gigaba</a> who is back at home affairs come to mind. </p>
<p>Picking fights carefully so as not to tackle all adversaries simultaneously is a wise political strategy. Having won with a small margin does not allow him to go ahead with massive purges, an unwise course of action in any event.</p>
<p>As far as trying to forge the ANC into a cohesive force again, Ramaphosa’s real challenge remains closer to the ground. Among local ANC members and representatives an entrenched ethos sees positions of power as key to material benefit and jobs for relatives, friends and political allies. Tackling this is not going to be easy and it’s not clear that Ramaphosa will be able to do it – certainly not in the immediate term.</p>
<h2>ANC as the dominant party?</h2>
<p>His urgent task is to address the <a href="https://theconversation.com/jacob-zumas-demise-is-bad-news-for-south-africas-opposition-parties-91771">electoral challenges</a> posed by the two main opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Both cater to different constituencies disillusioned. </p>
<p>The DA’s main policy platform focuses on good governance and rational management. The EFF’s on <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Opinion/is-julius-malemas-eff-a-nation-builder-or-a-wrecking-ball-20180307">radical social change</a>. Their shared opposition to the ANC has made them strange bedfellows in a number of key municipalities, thus removing the ANC from power. But this has already begun to unravel in the wake of Ramaphosa’s ascendancy. In <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-03-04-nelson-mandela-bay-effs-attempt-to-remove-trollip-ushers-in-a-new-unstable-era-for-coalition-politics/#.WqEhVWpubIU">Nelson Mandela Bay</a> the EFF has withdrawn support for the DA, its dominant coalition partner. More political shifts like this may take place in preparation for the next elections.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa can undercut the DA threat by his (re-)appointment of reputable and fiscally-responsible people. He has already done so in the National Treasury with <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-has-chosen-a-team-that-will-help-him-assert-his-authority-92538">Nhlanhla Nene</a> and at public enterprises with <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/pravin-gordhan-back-this-time-as-minister-of-public-enterprises-20180226">Pravin Gordhan</a>. And eliminating blatant cases of nepotism and corruption will also <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2018-03-01-why-a-complacent-da-could-lose-cape-town-to-anc/">steal DA votes</a> for the ANC.</p>
<p>But tackling the EFF is a more complicated task, as illustrated by the recent reemergence of the land issue, which is now the <a href="https://m.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/if-you-see-a-beautiful-piece-of-land-take-it-malema-20170228">its clarion call</a>. Can this issue affect the ANC’s electoral prospects? What seems to be Ramaphosa’s strategy in the face of this potential threat? </p>
<p>Land isn’t a new issue, having been a material and symbolic <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/land-act-dispossession-segregation-and-restitution">concern for centuries</a>. Colonial conquest and settlement centred on the acquisition of land by force, which played a crucial role in driving indigenous people into the labour market in the 19th and 20th centuries. Addressing the consequences of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/natives-land-act-1913">1913 Natives Land Act</a> was a formative experience for the ANC, which had been <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/anc-origins-and-background">created</a> in the previous year, and remains a challenge to this day. </p>
<p>Land dispossession entrenched the distinctive feature of the South African economy: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/the-migrant-labour-system">migrant labour</a> as the foundation for black deprivation and white prosperity. </p>
<p>In 1994 a <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/land-restitution-south-africa-1994">land restitution process</a> was put in place by the newly elected ANC government. But it hasn’t met the intended targets for a number of reasons. These have included bureaucratic inefficiency, inadequate support structures for small-scale farmers (in financing, marketing, skill development), conflicts among beneficiaries, corruption and limited interest due to the meagre political weight of claimants.</p>
<p>While it is clear that the cost of land due to the need to offer compensation is not the main problem hampering land reform, it has become symbolic of the obstacles facing the process. When the ANC <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-02-27-parliament-adopts-effs-land-claims-motion-but-anc-seeks-amendments/">joined</a> the EFF in parliament in referring the compensation clause for review, it recognised that opposing the motion would be risky, allowing the EFF to speak on behalf of land-hungry people. </p>
<p>It showed that the land conundrum is <a href="https://m.news24.com/Columnists/MaxduPreez/real-action-on-land-needed-to-counter-extreme-eff-rhetoric-20180306">electorally dangerous</a> for the ANC.</p>
<p>On the other hand, supporting the motion but amending it to conform to other imperatives (stable economy, increased agricultural production, food security) could keep the ANC ahead of the political challenge while retaining its ability to shape the outcome of the review to suit its general policy direction. </p>
<p>Meeting the challenges from the opposition parties will strengthen the ANC’s dominance and Ramaphosa’s control internally. The internal and external challenges could therefore be met in an integrated way. In a sense, this would allow it to return to the position it had enjoyed during Nelson Mandela’s tenure, exercising hegemony over state and society. </p>
<p>But the road is still long and full of obstacles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ran Greenstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Meeting the challenges from the opposition will strengthen the ANC’s dominance. How well its new leadership copes will become clearer over the next few months.Ran Greenstein, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.