Land reform and the possibility of expropriation without compensation are among the most hotly debated topics in South Africa today, met with trepidation and fervour in equal measure. But these broader issues tend to obscure a more immediate reality: a severe housing crisis and a sharp increase in urban land occupations In Promised Land, Karl Kemp travels the country documenting the fallout of failing land reform, from the under-siege Philippi Horticultural Area deep in the heart of Cape Town’s ganglands to the burning mango groves of Tzaneen, from Johannesburg’s lawless Deep South to rural KwaZulu-Natal, where chiefs own vast tracts of land on behalf of their subjects. He visits farming communities beset by violent crime, and provides gripping, on-the-ground reporting of recent land invasions, with perspectives from all sides, including land activists, property owners and government officials. Kemp also looks at burning issues surrounding the land debate in South Africa – corruption, farm murders, illegal foreign labour, mechanisation and eviction – and reveals the views of those affected. Touching on the history of land conflict and conquest in each area, as well as detailing the current situation on the ground, Promised Land provides startling insights into the story of land conflict in South Africa.
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Karl Kemp. Promised Land
Contents
Preface. Anysberg
1. The Great Cattle-Killing and Other Stories
2 ‘Return the Land’
3. A Winelands Murder
4. Trench Warfare
5. The Urban Farmers
6. Hand of God
7. Dwaalarbeiders
8 ‘Addicted to Black Labour’
9. The Sound of Hammers
10. A Plurality of Revolutions
11. The Knife Edge
12. The Contours of a Crisis
13. Burning the Mango Grove
14. The Stadts of Zeerust
15. The Land-Grab Blueprint
16. The Deep South
17. The Making of a Township
18. Inside Gabon
19. Foreigners on the Banks of the Jukskei
20. The Place of Weeping
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Sources
Abbreviations
Glossary
Index
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Vir my ma Regina,
my linkerhand wyl ek skryf.
.....
The majority judgment was less than a third of the length of Cachalia’s. The authors, Judges Pillay and Dambuza, conceded that some of the evidence led by the claimants was ‘capable of criticism’, but responded that the evidence of the landowners was similarly tainted, and strongly emphasised the fact that the legal process in the Land Claims Court was special and unique and should be approached ‘holistically’ and in line with the purpose of the Act – namely, to offer historical justice and redress wherever possible.
Cachalia’s judgment formed the basis for a last-ditch appeal to the Constitutional Court. In this final stretch, media interest again flared up considerably. The experts had testified in person at the Land Claims Court, but both the SCA and the ConCourt dealt largely with the record only. There was far less drama, but the fact that the ConCourt was the absolute last stop on the journey was cause for coverage. What was more, the celebrated and storied jurist Edwin Cameron wrote the judgment, which was unanimously agreed upon by the other nine justices. The ConCourt charted a completely novel course, emphasising how unique and special these types of court cases are, and handed down a judgment ruling that both parties were entitled to the land in some way or another. With that order in hand, it was up to the government to go back to square one and hammer out some kind of deal between the settlers and the Xhosa that validated Cameron’s reasoning. In the justices’ own words, the claimant community was entitled to a ‘measure of restitution’ that ‘did not necessarily include the entirety of the land-owner’s farms’. What shape this deal would eventually take was unclear. Land restitution is rarely so cut and dried, and the specifics would likely take a number of years, much paperwork and a lot of taxpayer money to reach an actual conclusion.
