South Africa: The Land And The Fury

The Land and the Fury South Africa In 1652, the Dutch arrived on the shores of modern-day South Africa, followed by the British, setting off centuries of indigenous Blacks being forcibly displaced from their land. By the early 1990s, White South African landowners made up 7 percent of the population yet held 93 percent of the land. Then, in 1994, Apartheid collapsed. Soon after, restrictions were lifted on Black and other non-White South Africans from owning land, as well as those rules that dictated where they could live and what employment they could choose. That was because the African National Congress led by Nelson Mandela came to power after Blacks won the right to vote. And one of the first things the new government did was to set a target of redistributing 30 percent of the agricultural land within five years to address the country’s legacy of colonialism and Apartheid. However, South Africa has missed that target, year after year, because of political disagreements, patronage, bureaucracy, a lack of data, and corruption. The government is now aiming to meet it by 2030. To do so, the country passed a law called the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 that repealed an Apartheid-era land law. The new law defines how land appropriations for “a public purpose” or “in the public interest” are to be compensated. It also allows for a limited number of cases where land expropriation would not be compensated. While the land issue has long been controversial in South Africa, the new law set off a firestorm in the US: “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” US President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the measure was “a massive Human Rights VIOLATION.” Trump cut aid for the country, which includes the world’s largest HIV treatment program. He announced that Afrikaners, only one part of the White minority, could get refugee status as persecuted individuals. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would boycott the G20 meeting in South Africa scheduled for later this month. And Elon Musk, a South-African-born advisor to Trump, called the new law “racist.” South African politicians on both sides of the debate reacted with outrage, saying that US officials are mischaracterizing the new law. “South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice, and equality,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote on X. “The South African government has not confiscated any land.” He noted that the US funded about 17 percent of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS program and that there was “no other significant funding” from the United States. He added that the country would not be “bullied.” Opponents of the law, such as the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA) party, said Trump’s characterization of the new law was “unfortunate.” “It would be a tragedy if this funding were terminated because of a misunderstanding of the facts,” the DA, part of the governing coalition, said in a statement. “It is not true that the Act allows land to be seized by the state arbitrarily.” Opposition parties such as the right-wing, pro-Afrikaner Freedom Front Plus party and ActionSA say they will take the matter to court because they believe it is unconstitutional. Many opponents say they fear its economic impact – that it will dampen the foreign investment South Africa needs. “While other parties assert that this bill does not compromise the ‘willing buyer, willing seller doctrine,’ it ultimately allows the government to unilaterally set the price if an agreement cannot be reached,” said ActionSA in a statement. Meanwhile, lawyers in South Africa pointed out this new law was not directed at land reform – although it could be used for it – but at infrastructure projects such as highways or dams, similar to how eminent domain rules work in the US. South African law professor Zsa-Zsa Temmers Boggenpoel of Stellenbosch University said the new law isn’t perfect, but South Africa needs to move forward. “I am not convinced that the act, in its current form, is the silver bullet to effect large-scale land reform – at least not the type of radical land reform that South Africa urgently needs, Boggenpoel wrote in the Conversation. “Understandably, the act will have a severe impact on property rights. But it still substantially protects landowners affected by expropriation.” “This has become a matter of increasing urgency,” she added, “South Africans have expressed impatience with the slow pace of land reform.” Political analyst Melanie Verwoerd, a former South African lawmaker and diplomat, says that the debate outside of South Africa has misrepresented the issue. She explained that for the past 30 years, the state has bought land from landowners at or above market value. “The fact is, South Africa has not expropriated any private land since the dawn of its democracy,” she wrote in an opinion piece in Bloomberg. “Given the country’s history, nothing would have been easier – and frankly more popular – than for the ANC government to have forcefully expropriated large tracts of land from White owners without compensation. Yet, it chose not to.”