Land grab pipe dream

So Julius Malema wants the ANC to grab as much land as possible from white owners so that it can be redistributed to black farmers. He also wants the constitution to be changed so that there is no payment made for the land that is grabbed from white farmers.

Paddy Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com

At least this is what Malema has been telling delegates attending the ANC Youth League’s annual conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.

If Malema is serious then the implications for South Africa are horrendous and will lead to droves of people leaving the country, investment from foreign sources drying up entirely and South Africa rapidly collapsing into a basket-case.

It will do so in exactly the same way as Zimbabwe has.

So while Malema might be serious, I don’t think that too many other people in government will take him seriously and I do doubt that the ANC would attempt to change the constitution in such a way that it would allow land grabs to take place unchallenged.

I suppose, if Malema had his way, then much like Zimbabwe, such rulings would mean little or nothing anyway. After all we have seen how Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe simply ignores any courts or any international pressures. He even ignores the recommendations of the Southern African Development Community and continues on his merry way to destroy his country.

In Zimbabwe’s case, who actually cares?

None of the major Western economies are particularly interested in what Zimbabwe’s plight might be. If they did care I’m pretty certain, President Barack Obama would have sent a couple of fighter jets in to bomb Harare and oust the sitting President who stole the last election having lost it fairly and squarely.

But the implications of Malema’s claims still remain worrying for South Africa at a time when it needs as much meaningful foreign investment as possible to create jobs, maintain its infrastructure and provide water and electricity and to millions.

And it needs to keep its farming community productive and performing.

And that’s one of the reasons I can’t see other members of the Cabinet endorsing anything that Malema says – regardless of how inflammatory it might be. 

I suppose we will have to wait and see what the Youth League resolved at the annual congress and, much more importantly, examine closely how the ANC reacts it meets at its annual event.

Fortunately South Africa has a great many very clever leaders who are well acquainted with the needs that this country regardless of what Malema or his colleagues might have to say on the subject.

I notice that he has also had his vitriolic attacks on other members of the government by saying, for instance, that Planning Minister Trevor Manuel has produced nothing at all over the past two years he has been in office.

Of course Malema’s information is incorrect and, like so many of his utterings, is fundamentally flawed anyway. Manuel has set down his plans to create jobs, improve the economy and improve foreign investment in this country.

He’s done so in his relatively quiet way and, I’m sure, he will continue to do so.

So what I would really like to see is that Malema took all his anger and frustration – clearly two elements that have resulted in many of his inane suggestions – and channelled these into making South Africa better for all the people of this land.

Sure, he is an influential character and he has the ability to draw crowds and to get them to support him. But to attack the fabric of South Africa’s constitution by suggesting that the “willing buyer, willing seller” tenet is wrong, is just nonsense.

What’s more, much of his own history is flawed because while he accuses whites of “stealing the land” from black counterparts the reality is that many of these land deals started out with a barter of cattle, beads and other trinkets that were “paid” to chiefs for the land rights.

In today’s world, a few beads and a couple of cows might sound like a horrendous rip-off and it may well have been. But at the time it was negotiated using exactly the principle that Malema now wants outlawed: the principle of a willing buyer and a willing seller.

And these barter land deals were not limited to Africa and its “colonial masters” either. Manhattan was sold on the basis of a few treasured trinkets by the Red Indians who were living there at the time.

There are vast tracts of land throughout the developed and developing world that have been purchased this way and have been held by families or groups for hundreds of years.

The fact that the price paid for the land is inconsequential in today’s terms is of no meaning, force or effect. Moreover, treaties were negotiated with chiefs in South Africa in return for arms, ammunition and protection and these deals, too, were concluded on the basis of a willing buyer and a willing seller.

If Malema doesn’t like this today, well, guess what: That’s his problem.

It’s not a problem that warrants the changing of the constitution and it’s certainly not a notion that anyone in government would seriously entertain unless they wanted to undermine the country completely.

And like all South Africans, every one of us has too much of a vested interest in this land to let such a fundamental land grab occur. At least that’s what I hope.

So should any of us waste any more time giving Malema any credence? I don’t think we should bother – unless of course he emerges as a replacement for Gugile Nkwinti, the existing Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform.

Should that happen then, and only then, might we be in serious trouble, but I personally believe that this is so remote that it’s not worth turning our minds to at all.  

*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn’t pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at via   email.

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Brilliant article! What protection do we have against Malema? Zero! Zulch! Niks! – Anonymous