Land Reform
I would like to begin this post with the caveat that this is an outsider’s perspective on the issue and although I have listened to South Africans discuss land reform and have read numerous articles on the topic; I do not draw any conclusions in this post merely because I still do not have a complete understanding of the issue.
Before coming to South Africa, news spread about both the water crisis and farm murders. Many right-leaning news outlets reported on farm attacks, specifically on white farmers, and the headlines made it seem like the attacks were racially motivated. I do not read nor do I respect many of the “news” outlets that were reporting on the matter, but unfortunately some in my family do. I knew that farm killings would not affect me in Cape Town, but noted that I should learn more about the issue once I was in South Africa and could ask locals about the alleged problem.
While in South Africa, I heard land reform being discussed on the radio, saw headlines about a prominent strawberry farmer being murdered, and discussed the land reform issue with both Afrikaners (part of the eight percent of the white population in South Africa and descendants of the colonizers of South Africa) friends and uber drivers. I also watched a documentary called Farmlands on YouTube about the issue, but it was so clearly far-right and poorly contextualized that I would not recommend it if you are looking for a comprehensive look into the issue. For example, the journalist visited a poor white village and drew sympathy from viewers to their situation, but failed to address reasons that could motivate the farm attacks such as a high unemployment rate and a history of apartheid. The documentary did demonstrate, however, how the media can be used to focus on an issue and not contextualize the situation.
Now that my sources for the information are established, I will talk about what the ANC, or African National Congress, has referred to as “expropriation without compensation.” The goal of this effort is to place farm land, seventy-two percent of which is owned by white people (down from eighty-two percent during the apartheid years) back in the hands of Black South Africans. Locals had mixed reviews on the matter. Many considered it a waste of resources because they feared that the land would be put into the hands of people who would not know how to utilize it for farming. Others were angry that the ANC could afford to give compensation and would not do so. For me, it was a jarring proposition because of the United State’s emphasis on the importance of individual property rights. I can only imagine the amount of backlash if our government tried to implement a similar land reform strategy.
According to The Guardian, farm killings are the lowest they have been in twenty years. That fact does not suggest that farm killings are not an issue, as seventy-three farmers have been killed this year, but that the emphasis on the farm killings as a new development or political uprising may not be accurate. A confusing aspect to these murders is the excessive violence. There are reports of the members of the family being tortured, raped, and drowned in bath tubs. This grabs the attention of the media and makes people believe that these attacks could be racially motivated, though that, again is a very tricky claim given a distinct lack of evidence. There are many more components to this complex issue, but I just wanted to give a brief overview of a complex issue made even more complicated by distrust in the government and media and a lack of contextualized facts and analysis available to the public.