The reason was simple: the song in question, “Dubul’ Ibunu”, which was sung during the struggle against apartheid carried the powerful message of black people’s struggle against oppression chiefly carried out by people of European stock on African soil.
That the song could be relevant 17 years after the official end of apartheid, and for that matter unsettling to the oppressors means that oppression and struggle against the same are very much game on in South Africa.
By Tichaona Zindoga
When South Africa’s African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema was on trial last April for “hate speech” because he had publicly sung a revolutionary song, many Pan-Africanists felt it was actually Africa’s quest for total liberation that was on trial.
The reason was simple: the song in question, “Dubul’ Ibunu”, which was sung during the struggle against apartheid carried the powerful message of black people’s struggle against oppression chiefly carried out by people of European stock on African soil.
That the song could be relevant 17 years after the official end of apartheid, and for that matter unsettling to the oppressors means that oppression and struggle against the same are very much game on in South Africa.
And as the well-publicised trial at the curiously named Equality Court in Johannesburg eventually showed, the struggle in South Africa remains as poignant as ever.
It even showed that there was something more than singing of “Dubul’ Ibunu”, one of many revolutionary songs – after all the aggrieved parties, the farmers and Afrikaners have their own ‘Die Stem’ song.
With strong undercurrents lying in South Africa’s raison d’être, the song was like the tip of the iceberg.
In particular it had implications on racial inequalities in South Africa, specifically where land ownership is concerned.
It is little wonder then that during the trial the issue was brought up.
The lawyers representing pressure group Afriforum and farmer’s organisation, Tau-SA asked Malema if South African farmers would be put on trucks and driven away.
Malema replied in the negative but stated that a more radical policy was needed to address land ownership in South Africa.
He said the ANCYL wanted the law changed from the “willing buyer, willing seller” approach.
“We want policies which will make it possible for the land to be redistributed. We are in the struggle to redistribute the wealth of this country,” he said.
Currently, it is reported that although black people constitute 80 per cent of the population, they have 13 per cent of the land.
This mainly stems from the 1913 Native Land Act, although the history of dispossession of black people dates back to around 300 years.
At the end of apartheid in 1994, the new majority black Government sought to redistribute 30 percent of all agricultural land by 2014.
The country’s constitution provided for land restitution, the right to tenure security and the right to access to land for productive purposes.
These formed the backbone of current land reform policy.
The willing buyer/willing seller model, based on the World Bank's approach of market-led land reform with a reduced role for the state, which failed in Zimbabwe, was to be used.
The result has been a predictable failure with South African government admitting is impossible for it to meet its target.
Much of the only six percent pittance it has acquired has not been used for farming and has laid idle for years.
And funds have dried up too, in light of unrealistic charges on the land by white owners.
"We cannot raise 75 billion rand ($9.62 billion) by 2014 to acquire the 82 million hectares of land that we have targeted... we just don't have the money," Reuters quoted Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti as telling an agriculture conference early this year.
The 2014 deadline has tentatively been extended to 2025, while the government would also focus on refinancing those farms that it had taken over.
In light of this, the stage is set for a continuous struggle pitting on one hand marginalized blacks wanting a piece of the national cake and on the other beneficiaries of 300 years of marginalisation.
In a statement that appeared on Politicsweb during the trial of Malema, Tau SA seemed cognisant of the nub of the story.
“Those who thought 1994 was the end of the revolution have now realized it was just the beginning,” it said.
The group also indicated: “The crux of the case centred around respect for one's fellow South Africans, and in particular the "Boere" - specifically the farmers of this country, a minority group of 0.1 percent of the population…”
It related that all the ANC witnesses had “declared unambiguously that the revolution is not over because the goals of the Freedom Charter have not been attained.”
“The struggle must continue, and a revolution is the only way for the masses to get what they want,” inferred Tau SA.
The statement added: “Under oath Malema declared the Constitution will be changed so that land shall be expropriated without compensation if farmers do not make it ‘available’. “Zimbabwe is a democratic country, he says, and is an example of how his policy will run its course.
“From his evidence and his pronouncements it is clear that he and his ilk hold South Africa's white farmers responsible for everything that went wrong in the past and that it is the farmers who must be held responsible for solving today's problems!”
In conclusion, the statement was as scare mongering and snobbish as it was decidedly against a robust programme of land reform in South Africa.
It said: “If South African whites ignore Julius Malema, they do so at their peril. His threats to the plaintiffs that if they gave the ANC 80 percent of South Africa's land, he would withdraw his defence and ‘the killing will stop’ reveal an agitator of the first order. He is dangerous not because he knows nothing about governance or world affairs, but because his ignorance and vindictiveness mask a militancy and aggressiveness containing the kernel of another African catastrophe.”
Malema and his ilk might, to use Tau SA’s words, know nothing about governance or world affairs, but they certainly know poverty that abounds around them which is a result of racial inequalities.
Lawyer and academic Dr Motsoko Pheko who is an advocate of land reform in South Africa says “land is the trophy over which the national liberation was fought.”
In an article he wrote reflecting on the significance of the so-called Freedom Day April 27, last year, he said: Land is the national asset without which there can be no economic liberation of the majority poor.”
He highlighted the condition of the poor in the following way: “In South Africa the most unemployed people are Africans. People who live in squalid inhuman settlements are Africans…The least equipped hospitals and clinics are those that serve Africans. The worst or no roads are where Africans live. The least educated and skilled people are Africans. People who have no money for education and are being educated in lowest numbers are Africans. People who have the shortest life expectancy are Africans. People with the highest child mortality are Africans. Yet billions of Rand are buying land and servicing the apartheid debt.”
However, efforts to rehumanise black people by giving them land will not be an easy task.
The minority white farmers hold on to their land ostensibly to give it away at market prices.
They even argue that expropriation laws will have an impact on the international financial confidence in the South Africa as happened in Zimbabwe.
Needless to point out, they have the backing of the law and courts, which they can trust to protect their often apartheid-gotten gains.
The journal TradeInvest South Africa wrote in April last year of the legal hurdle that land reform faces.
It stated: “Despite concern from certain parties, property rights are enshrined in South Africa’s constitution and it states within section 25 that: 'No one may be deprived of property except in terms of law of general application, and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property.'
“In terms of expropriation, this is also clearly only to be done with fair compensation for those affected… 'Property may be expropriated only in terms of law of general application: (a.) for a public purpose or in the public interest; and (b.)subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.'”
It further stated: “This is not just idle talk but is recognised as a prominent document internationally.
“The 2010 International Property Rights Index lists South Africa at 24 out of the 125 countries included in the report. South Africa ranks even higher (22 out of 125) in the physical property rights sub-index.”
One can only imagine the extent to which opposition to land reform by those enjoying the skewed status quo can go.
Udo Froese, South African journalist says “the colonial-apartheid Caucasian Boers (white minorities and their paid up minions) thoroughly exploit a perceived loophole in the constitution – that of ‘minority rights’” to hold onto land.
“And they win their days in the courts against historic popular war-songs of the ANC,” he wrote in an article recently.
In apparent reference to the now defunct Sadc Tribunal which was widely perceived to have been set up to reverse land reform in Zimbabwe and set a precedent against the same in Southern Africa, he said: “They also interfere in basic human rights, such as land in sovereign, independent neighbouring African countries, using the country’s judiciary.”
He added: “Those unashamedly proud heirs of colonial-apartheid formed a host of active institutions throughout the country. They have openly declared their war against everything African, claiming their ‘democratic rights to defend minority rights’.”
South Africa’s northern neighbour, Zimbabwe faced similar challenges in an effort to break inequalities in land ownership.
Land was one of the reasons why the liberation war was fought in Zimbabwe.
Before the fast track land reform programme in 2000 a minority 4 000 farmers held around 80 percent of all arable land in the country of about 14 million citizens.
The 1979 Lancaster House Agreement which paved way for independence in April 1980, nearly failed as Zimbabwean parties failed to agree with Britain over the issue of land.
It only moved on after Britain and America pledged to fund land reform in the country.
It set a 10-year moratorium on acquisition and thereafter a system of willing buyer/willing seller would be instituted with the two western powers supporting the programme financially.
Land reform moved at a painfully slow pace, with the willing buyer willing seller model, which was supported by Britain failing because of high prices of land and lack of adequate support from overseas partners.
In 1992 Government enacted the Land Acquisition Act to speed up the land reform process by removing the "willing seller, willing buyer" clause, limiting the size of farms and introducing a land tax.
The Act also empowered Government to buy land compulsorily for redistribution, and pay fair compensation land acquired. Landowners could challenge in court the price set by the acquiring authority.
However, white farmers were against the move.
Then the British government declared in 1997 that it had no obligation to fund land reform in the country.
In 1998 a major donor conference on land reform in Harare, admitted the necessity of land reform but no support was extended for that purpose.
A constitutional requirement for land reform was quashed in the referendum of February 2000, with white farmers financing the “NO” vote of the Government-led constitution.
The fast track land reform programme, which benefited around 300 000 families previously marginalised black people followed and in 2005 an amendment was put in place barring any contest in court over State acquired land.
The disbanded Sadc Tribunal could well have proved the demise of the programme following the favourable rulings to white farmers.
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