Long time journalist Allister Sparks has, by his own admission, been waging a campaign to allow Africans living in communal areas to gain exclusive legal ownership of the pieces of residential land on which they live.
This is the land which is found in the territories which used to constitute the former bantustan homelands.
Sparks is the man who famously praised Hendrik Verwoerd, alongside Hellen Zille, as one of the smartest politicians he had encountered in his career as a journalist.
Verwoerd is one of the apartheid leaders who corralled Africans into labour reservoirs as they sought to entrench white supremacy.
In his time these reserves constituted some 13% of South Africa’s land mass while the African population amounted to 87%. The rest of the country belonged to the descendants of European immigrants who chose to make South Africa their permanent home.
The 13% was successfully defended by Africans under the leadership of their kings and lords through the wars of resistance.
Sparks made these remarks in the aftermath of the conference of the Democratic Alliance where Zille stepped aside for her successor to be elected.
Sparks was given hope for the realisation of his dream by the fact that one of the conference resolutions was that the DA would, when in power, release the land from communal ownership and give individual title to those who live on it.
He laments the fact that this land is administered by the African lords he derogatorily calls tribal chiefs.
He asserts that the lack of individual title over these pieces of land renders the African inhabitants poor because the land has no commercial value and the occupants are thus not motivated to effect improvements to their homes.
Yet in the same breath he tells his readers that while in the past he used to see only old mud-daubed thatched huts while travelling through Verwoerd’s creations, he can now see hundreds, if not thousands of solid, well-built concrete multi-storeyed houses.
He is nonetheless still unimpressed and finds it regrettable that this happens without title deeds having been issued to the owners.
Like all the proponents of title deeds, he does not give the full story of the meaning of title deeds. He stops having conveyed the idea that these home owners cannot sell these homes because they do not own them. He says they cannot sell them because their tribal chiefs have the power to kick them off the land at a whim.
The simple truth is that a title deed makes it possible for the holder to lose his land if he fails to pay a bank loan which would have been secured through the use of the title deed as collateral.
The African majority remains poor even in democratic South Africa. The only property they truly own are the pieces of residential and arable land they have in the communal areas. Most other land in South Africa is owned by the banks which store title deeds in the vaults to safeguard their money.
If then the title deeds extend ownership to the holders, why are these title deeds in the vaults of the money lenders?
We know, of course, who owns the banks, just as we know who owns the rest of the wealth of the nation – the descendants of the white immigrants.
Verwoerd himself was an immigrant while Zille and Sparks are the descendants of the white immigrants.
These immigrants, having grabbed 87% of African lands, now want to take over the remaining 13%, ostensibly to empower these tribally oppressed Africans.
If Sparks and the predominantly white DA want to empower Africans by giving them full title to land, why don’t they come up with policies that call for the sharing of the land that is disproportionately owned by the descendants of the European immigrants?
The patronising and condescending attitude of liberals like Sparks is sickening. It assumes they know what the African needs. It assumes Africans do not know it when they are oppressed. It displays ignorance of unimaginable proportions of the African way of life.
What could prevent Africans living in communal areas from rising and rebelling against oppressive and undemocratic tribal chiefs? This is an insult that assumes Africans are stupid.
The simple truth is that communal land is owned jointly by African lords and the people in ways which ensure that none can use the land to the detriment of the people.
In Sparks’ neighbourhood – the urban areas – Africans live in shacks. In the communal areas people are building multi-storeyed houses. That should tell him and his fellow-travellers that the communal system of land ownership guarantees security of tenure.
A piece of land granted to a family - not an individual - belongs to that family in perpetuity for all generations to come. The residence is a spiritual place where ancestral spirits reside to look after the family members.
The African lord does not own the communal land as his personal property as it is the case in Europe, where traditional leaders own the land on which the serfs live and work at the pleasure of the tribal leader.
Africans do not always view life in terms of commercial value. We see life from the point of humanity. The individual is a valued and integral part of the whole. The individual constitutes the whole as much as the whole does not exist without the individual.
It is a good thing that the DA will never rule South Africa. It is no shame that the people in the countryside continue to have confidence in the ANC. They are intelligent enough to know that the organisation could never destroy what its founders set out to achieve - the total liberation of the African in the land of their forebears.
That liberation is the restoration of all that Africans were stripped of – their land, dignity, culture, language and African royalty. This is so in spite of the troubles it continues to attract as a result of it being in power.
I am sorry to dash the dream of Verwoerd, Sparks and the DA of their ever again dispossessing the African of his land. Just look at the positive spirit which permeated the whole of South Africa occasioned by the enrobing and anointment of King Mpendulo Sigcawu (Ah! Zwelonke), the direct descendant of the legendary King Hintsa of Khawuta (Ah! Zanzolo), who was treacherously murdered by European mercenaries in 1835.
Afrika is rising!
Phathekile Holomisa is traditional leader of the Hegebe clan and Deputy Minister of Labour
Sparks’ patronising dream overlooks African priorities
This is the land which is found in the territories which used to constitute the former bantustan homelands.
Sparks is the man who famously praised Hendrik Verwoerd, alongside Hellen Zille, as one of the smartest politicians he had encountered in his career as a journalist.
Verwoerd is one of the apartheid leaders who corralled Africans into labour reservoirs as they sought to entrench white supremacy.
In his time these reserves constituted some 13% of South Africa’s land mass while the African population amounted to 87%. The rest of the country belonged to the descendants of European immigrants who chose to make South Africa their permanent home.
The 13% was successfully defended by Africans under the leadership of their kings and lords through the wars of resistance.
Sparks made these remarks in the aftermath of the conference of the Democratic Alliance where Zille stepped aside for her successor to be elected.
Sparks was given hope for the realisation of his dream by the fact that one of the conference resolutions was that the DA would, when in power, release the land from communal ownership and give individual title to those who live on it.
He laments the fact that this land is administered by the African lords he derogatorily calls tribal chiefs.
He asserts that the lack of individual title over these pieces of land renders the African inhabitants poor because the land has no commercial value and the occupants are thus not motivated to effect improvements to their homes.
Yet in the same breath he tells his readers that while in the past he used to see only old mud-daubed thatched huts while travelling through Verwoerd’s creations, he can now see hundreds, if not thousands of solid, well-built concrete multi-storeyed houses.
He is nonetheless still unimpressed and finds it regrettable that this happens without title deeds having been issued to the owners.
Like all the proponents of title deeds, he does not give the full story of the meaning of title deeds. He stops having conveyed the idea that these home owners cannot sell these homes because they do not own them. He says they cannot sell them because their tribal chiefs have the power to kick them off the land at a whim.
The simple truth is that a title deed makes it possible for the holder to lose his land if he fails to pay a bank loan which would have been secured through the use of the title deed as collateral.
The African majority remains poor even in democratic South Africa. The only property they truly own are the pieces of residential and arable land they have in the communal areas. Most other land in South Africa is owned by the banks which store title deeds in the vaults to safeguard their money.
If then the title deeds extend ownership to the holders, why are these title deeds in the vaults of the money lenders?
We know, of course, who owns the banks, just as we know who owns the rest of the wealth of the nation – the descendants of the white immigrants.
Verwoerd himself was an immigrant while Zille and Sparks are the descendants of the white immigrants.
These immigrants, having grabbed 87% of African lands, now want to take over the remaining 13%, ostensibly to empower these tribally oppressed Africans.
If Sparks and the predominantly white DA want to empower Africans by giving them full title to land, why don’t they come up with policies that call for the sharing of the land that is disproportionately owned by the descendants of the European immigrants?
The patronising and condescending attitude of liberals like Sparks is sickening. It assumes they know what the African needs. It assumes Africans do not know it when they are oppressed. It displays ignorance of unimaginable proportions of the African way of life.
What could prevent Africans living in communal areas from rising and rebelling against oppressive and undemocratic tribal chiefs? This is an insult that assumes Africans are stupid.
The simple truth is that communal land is owned jointly by African lords and the people in ways which ensure that none can use the land to the detriment of the people.
In Sparks’ neighbourhood – the urban areas – Africans live in shacks. In the communal areas people are building multi-storeyed houses. That should tell him and his fellow-travellers that the communal system of land ownership guarantees security of tenure.
A piece of land granted to a family - not an individual - belongs to that family in perpetuity for all generations to come. The residence is a spiritual place where ancestral spirits reside to look after the family members.
The African lord does not own the communal land as his personal property as it is the case in Europe, where traditional leaders own the land on which the serfs live and work at the pleasure of the tribal leader.
Africans do not always view life in terms of commercial value. We see life from the point of humanity. The individual is a valued and integral part of the whole. The individual constitutes the whole as much as the whole does not exist without the individual.
It is a good thing that the DA will never rule South Africa. It is no shame that the people in the countryside continue to have confidence in the ANC. They are intelligent enough to know that the organisation could never destroy what its founders set out to achieve - the total liberation of the African in the land of their forebears.
That liberation is the restoration of all that Africans were stripped of – their land, dignity, culture, language and African royalty. This is so in spite of the troubles it continues to attract as a result of it being in power.
I am sorry to dash the dream of Verwoerd, Sparks and the DA of their ever again dispossessing the African of his land. Just look at the positive spirit which permeated the whole of South Africa occasioned by the enrobing and anointment of King Mpendulo Sigcawu (Ah! Zwelonke), the direct descendant of the legendary King Hintsa of Khawuta (Ah! Zanzolo), who was treacherously murdered by European mercenaries in 1835.
Afrika is rising!
Phathekile Holomisa is traditional leader of the Hegebe clan and Deputy Minister of Labour
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