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Mail & Guardian

1913 Land Act

latest news & developments
South Africa’s land reform journey is still shaped by the legacies of colonial conquest and apartheid. (Madelene Cronjé)
1913 LAND ACT

Recall unheard voices in South Africa’s history

Adelaide Tantsi Dube’s poem was published in 1913, the year Africans were stripped of their land

  • Athambile Masola
5 min read
The courts have continued to order, legally, mass evictions, in effect undermining the validity of ‘land expropriation without compensation’ and ultimately disconnecting the land reform programme from the housing crisis. (David Harrison/M&G)
1913 LAND ACT

Housing crisis inextricably entwined with land occupations

Land expropriation can only take place politically and unrestrained by the law

  • Staff Reporter
8 min read
“Seventy years after apartheid rule commenced, our land redistribution programme is an undertaking in restitution, not retribution,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa. (GCIS)
1913 LAND ACT

Ramaphosa hands over 4 500 hectares to KZN community

The president said the government would assist the community by developing their ability to create sustainable income and jobs from the land

  • Mxolisi Mngadi
3 min read
What radical changes? Enoch Godongwana. Photo: Madelene Cronjé
1913 LAND ACT

Politics blocks land reform

Radical economic transformation has been dismissed as rhetoric because there is no plan.

  • Dineo Bendile
  • Staff Reporter
5 min read
Many reforms were influenced by the policy-making architecture that existed in the late 1990s and during the 2000s. In turn, these were shaped by the goals of a democratic society articulated in the 1996 Constitution. (Madelene Cronje/M&G)
1913 LAND ACT

State failed, not the Constitution

Populists lift their middle finger to a 100-year fight for rights to freedom, equality and, yes, land.

  • Serjeant At The
  • Bar Author
4 min read
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
1913 LAND ACT

Nation’s loss is literature’s gain

The ingredients of great South African novels are based on greed, injustice, land and natural resources.

  • Daryl Accone
4 min read
The Democratic Alliance.
1913 LAND ACT

Ace plays his hand on leased land

He said, although the government was aware it needed to accelerate land expropriation, he urged South Africans to use constitutional means to get land

  • Matuma Letsoalo Author
3 min read
Doug Jones
1913 LAND ACT

ANC plans ‘constitutional revolution’ on land

No longer Mr Nice Guy, the party also wants to put a freeze on foreigners buying land.

  • Dineo Bendile
  • Staff Reporter
7 min read
Self reflective: Dean Hutton confronts the ‘powerful drug’ of whiteness in the provocative Fuck White People installation
1913 LAND ACT

Is ‘Fuck White People’ fucking itself?

Dean Hutton’s work shocks and discomforts, but will it foster meaningful change?

  • Kwanele Sosibo
7 min read
The four farms would benefit 2 304 people
1913 LAND ACT

NW farms to be restored to dispossessed communities

The North West agriculture MEC is to hand over farms, aimed to benefit 2 304 people, to communities stripped of land as a result of the land Act.

  • Sapa
2 min read
1913 LAND ACT

Modise returns R60m worth of ‘stolen’ land

North West Premier Thandi Modise has returned six farms in the Ratlou municipality after they were taken from the community through the 1913 Land Act.

  • Sapa
2 min read
South Africa’s Crop Estimates Committee lowered the 2023-24 maize harvest to 12,8 million tonnes, down 2% from last month and 22% from the previous season.
1913 LAND ACT

Farming problems are clear but the solutions are not

Can we create one million new jobs in agriculture as envisaged by the National Development Plan (NDP)? If so, how?

  • Ben Cousins
  • Ruth Hall
4 min read
1913 LAND ACT

1913 Land Act: Bantustans left untransformed

The trajectory of the land Acts of 1913 and 1936 lays bare two interrelated processes of dispossession and disenfranchisement.

  • Aninka Claassens
4 min read
Large-scale production of biofuels in South Africa could create at least 15 000 jobs.
1913 LAND ACT

1913 land act: A longer history of dispossession

The centenary of the Natives Land Act has revealed that the dominant understanding of the Act is that it was a fundamental cause of land dispossession

  • Staff Reporter
4 min read
1913 LAND ACT

1913 land act: Change is written into the Constitution

The centenary of the Land Act of 1913 is an opportunity to reflect on its role in constructing a society based on inequality and dispossession.

  • Sipho M Pityana
4 min read