Last year 39% of black South Africans believed they were the victims of land injustices in the past. A year later this figure has risen to 55%.
A rapid rise in perceived land grievances is one of the startling findings in the first set of results from a national opinion poll conducted by Markinor for the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation in May this year.
The Land Reconciliation Survey of 2004 is a countrywide interrogation of South African’s attitudes, perceptions, experiences and aspirations in response to land, in both urban and rural contexts.
A representative sample of South Africans were asked about their experiences relating to various land matters. These experiences had to be personal or in relation to their immediate family.
The first round of analysis provides a taste of the extent to which black South Africans feel increasingly wronged on various land matters. Data on the attitudes of coloured, Indian and white South Africans is forthcoming. The survey shows land-rights violations as they exist in the minds of black South Africans.
About 38% of repondents said they had had land taken away from them, while forced removals were almost as common (30%). In last year’s survey 11,5% of blacks said that they were having a land dispute with a traditional leader. This year the figure has grown to 23%.
Moreover, 40% of respondents assert grievances regarding other land benefits, such as mineral or water rights.
This data provides compelling evidence that the land problem is one that affects a large proportion of the black population. Indeed, the most startling finding is that more than half (55%) of black South Africans claim to have experienced some sort of land grievance.
If the black population of South Africa comprises about 21 731 000 people, then 11 865 000 black adults claim to have been victimised concerning a land issue.
Historical land-rights violations are not concentrated among older South Africans, as might be expected. While people 60 years and older are the most likely to express a land grievance, the differences across the age groups are not large. Apart from respondents in their 20s, the majority of black adults believe they have been harmed. This finding indicates that a sense of land victimisation has been transferred from one generation to the next.
How does this compare to official statistics on land dispossessions?
Estimates of the numbers of South Africans subject to forced removals during apartheid range between 1,29-million and 3,5-million. In our survey 30% of blacks said they, or their direct family, had been subject to a removal. This indicates that the proportion of South Africans who believe they were subject to a removal, real or perceived, may be bigger than anticipated.
While it is highly unlikely that 6,5-million (30% of the black population) South Africans were forcibly removed, the survey shows that significant portions of the population believe they were victimised by the policy.
The increase in people who believe they were victims of land grievances most likely reflects the fairly widespread publicity about land issues in the media, such as the high-profile Constitutional Court decision that a small group of black South Africans were illegally deprived of their rights to proceeds from diamond mining.
At the same time the increase may also suggest an improved awareness among ordinary people of their rights to land, extending beyond the obvious rights to simply living on the land.
Another indication of a potential storm on the horizon is the difficult problem of land-tenure insecurity. Last year 34,1% of black South Africans believed they had rights to the land on which they lived, even without ”official” ownership. A year later this has risen to 45%.
The range of title problems outside the realm of formal ownership is crammed with examples of evictions and counter-evictions, squatting, boundary disputes, land grabs and the like.
Just less than a quarter of black South Africans believe their land ownership is insecure. Contrary to what may have been expected — considering that the land problem is often framed as a struggle by poor blacks to gain the land of wealthy white farmers — black South Africans are increasingly fearful about land-tenure insecurity.
It is likely that this statistic speaks to the repercussions of the influx of people into the country’s metropoles and smaller urban areas. The rural poor flood into the sprawling informal settlements encircling major cities. Driven by need, desperation, opportunism and greed, the demands on limited land, limited services and limited low-cost housing swells and with it conflicts about ownership and rights.
Karin Lombard is project coordinator of the South African reconciliation barometer at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation