Lesley’s Perspective: Let fear not colour our judgment

Ramaphosa is a clever man. He came into power on a wave of goodwill as “Mandela’s Choice” – the man of the hour to oust Zuma and root out corruption.

His weekly taking to the street for exercise and fresh air has made the president accessible once again, and we see photos of regular plonks like you and me sharing a hug or a friendly chat with the man himself. This would have been unheard of with Thabo Mbeki, who was more reserved and certainly with Jacob, who was always surrounded by a set of hefty bodyguards (guilt and fear are closely related cousins).

But I doubt it has been all sunshine and butterflies. Ramaphosa has also taken ownership of a badly fractured and limping ANC. How was he to reunite his squabbling children and quickly (elections are coming soon, baby)?

Using the rhetoric of land reform is in my opinion a shrewd strategy to renew the support of the masses and take away from Malema the growing perception that he alone cares for the poor. While this has got everyone’s (mostly whites) panties in a knot, I do not believe we have reason to panic just yet.

Certainly there is no need for white farmers to seek asylum in Oz. An excellent opinion piece in the Mail & Guardian by Greg Barns shed some interesting light on the matter for me. Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton is, like so many before him, using the race card to appeal to the right-wing voter base in his country.

Australian politics around immigration is heavily race-based as there is a large group that would prefer to limit newcomers to the white middle class. Asylum seekers from countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iran have been unwelcome since 2011 and Dutton has been known to label asylum seekers as “fake refugees”, accusing lawyers representing refugees as being “un-Australian” and has been blaming crime on “African gangs”.

Cyril is being increasingly cryptic on exactly how he plans to implement land expropriation without compensation, saying only that there will be “broad discussions” and that Parliament’s Constitution Review Committee will decide on whether the Constitution should be amended. This is delay tactic as clear as day. But he has also made it resoundingly clear that whatever plan is developed will take agriculture and food security into account.

That willy-nilly land grabs (like the EFF’s land grab operation in Centurion, Gauteng) will not be tolerated. “We cannot be in a situation where we allow land grabs because that is anarchy,” he said.

Fear of “going like Zimbabwe” needs to be put to bed. No one (at least not legally) is going to pitch a shack in your back garden and demand the keys to your SUV.

Yet the fact remains, land reform cannot be avoided. My uncle (a white farmer) has poured millions into helping raise up sustainable black farmers because, let’s face it, things do have to change. No one wants the poor majority to remain where they are, landless and shivering out in the cold.

He told me how many emerging farmers are being hamstrung by government because they are given land without training and without working capital. The land is also given on lease so it cannot be used as collateral for bank loans. Basically, people are being set up to fail.

Not all land reforms have been failures (research suggests that up to 50 percent of land reform projects have improved the livelihoods of beneficiaries to a degree) but the process is nevertheless fraught with challenges.

But land reform is not just about farming, its really about property tenure. And tenure is closely linked to dignity.

The majority of people living in urban and rural areas in SA do not have the security of owning the place where they lay their heads at night. This makes them vulnerable to eviction and holds them hostage to either the whims of the chief or to the government’s ability (or lack thereof) to provide them a house. The waiting lists are long and the anger is building (the regular violent protests just within KwaDukuza are testament to that).

But contrary to popular belief not all land is white owned. The Ingonyama Trust for example holds one third of all land in KZN for Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini. This prevents his subjects from having access to title deeds.

The Trust has come into the spotlight with the release of a report by a panel chaired by former President Kgalema Motlanthe that recommended that it either be repealed or drastically revised due to its “unconstitutional nature”.

The conversation over land reform is long from over but my suggestion is that we (black, white, royal and commoners) remain open minded and refuse to let fear colour our judgement and our dialogue.

The solution will not be found in pitting black against white or in using the volatility of the subject to garner political points.

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The midget fortune teller who kills his customers is a small medium at large.

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