The Constitution makes provision for the restitution of land to those who were dispossessed during apartheid rule. The Expropriation Act is not a land reform law
I want to start by addressing the proverbial elephant in the room regarding US President Donald Trump’s executive order and the punitive measures his government has wrongly taken against South Africa.
Late in 2023, South Africa filed papers against Israel with the International Court of Justice after many months of brutal attacks against the Palestinians. The actions against the Palestinians were triggered by another tragic, and equally barbaric, event perpetrated against the people of Israel early in October 2023 which led to the death of more than 1 000 citizens of Israel and the capture of several dozen more.
In condemning the attack on Gaza, South Africa has been equally critical of the violent attack against the people of Israel in October 2023.
But what is the overriding position of Pretoria on the conflict between the warring parties in the Middle East? Its position on this conflict has been consistent over the years — peace in that region can only be realised through a two-state solution. It is in the interests of both the people of Israel and those of Palestine that there is peace. None can enjoy peace when others are experiencing war or attacks.
Contrary to popular belief, and anti-South Africa propaganda over the Middle East conflict, the position of our government is neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestine or even pro-Hamas, as some have sought to suggest.
Where human rights are involved, especially the right to self-determination, the position of our government tilts in favour of those who are oppressed and the Palestinian people have found themselves in this unfortunate and difficult position.
South Africa’s stance is informed by its own past — steeped in centuries of the oppression of black people in their country of birth, dispossessing them of their land and subjecting them to being second-class citizens with severe restrictions on their movements.
In approaching the court to deal with the ongoing attacks on Palestinians, all South Africa wanted was for the world to reconsider its silence on the military campaign against the Palestinian people. When we stand for the rights of the Palestinian people as a country we do so not because we are anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. South Africa stands to benefit nothing from antagonising the Jewish people — our own struggle for freedom was led in large part by Jewish people who hated the oppression of black people by whites.
Our foreign policy standpoint is anchored on human rights and a peaceful world. It is regrettable that South Africa seems to have been singled out for punishment in this regard — keeping silent when something which is not in line with our collective values as humanity is happening in Palestine will not help anyone in the long term.
Let the International Court of Justice decide, on the basis of the facts and evidence before it, whether there are merits to our claim as a country that genocide is being perpetrated against the Palestinian people. In the long term, it will be up to multilateral bodies such as the UN to find a lasting solution to the crisis in the Middle East.
Expropriation law in South Africa
The new expropriation legislation is not anti-white. It is not about the expropriation of whites’ property, including farms. The intention of this law is to allow the government to expropriate any property (land being one such property) for the purposes of building infrastructure.
Through this law, for instance, it is possible for the government to expropriate property in Soweto (which is an exclusively black township) if such expropriation will aid the delivery of infrastructure such as a road, railway line or healthcare centre, for instance.
The law is not about white land or farms, as has been claimed by voices resistant to transformation in South Africa. The location of the law — under the department of public works and infrastructure, instead of the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development — should be sufficient to prove that it is not about land but rather infrastructure.
As it stands, this piece of law is very legalistic in nature and makes expropriation difficult, even if the intentions are noble. Our Constitution remains the bulwark against any arbitrary act on the part of the government. The constitutional court has ruled against the government in the past and will continue to do so in the future where the exercise of power by the government is not in line with our laws.
As a country, we have a very tight constitutional order which makes it impossible for the government to do as it pleases with private property. In fact, critics of the Constitution argue that it protects white people’s property and privilege at the expense of transformation. The black majority sometimes feel that the writers of our Constitution did not adequately take into account the centuries of oppression and economic exclusion which they suffered.
White people in South Africa are not facing any threat of economic exclusion. They continue to control the country’s economy — commercial agriculture, manufacturing, mining, construction and many other sectors.
Ownership of land and transformative laws
Because of our colonialist and apartheid past, land ownership in South Africa is still skewed in favour of whites. According to the 2017 Land Audit Report, 72% of farms and agricultural land is owned by whites while their black counterparts own a paltry 3%.
Undoubtedly, this situation is untenable — it is bad for our economy and it is bad for our future, especially where race relations are concerned. For the past 30 years since the dawn of democracy a number of corrective steps, including the willing seller, willing buyer policy, have been employed to help correct this untenable situation. There have been successes and there have been failures but meaningful discussions continue between the government and interest groups, including farmers and traditional leaders, to find a long-lasting solution.
The state that was inherited by the democratic government in 1994 was an abnormal one and the many transformative laws that have been rolled out since then need to be understood in this context. Whether it is black economic empowerment laws or affirmative action laws the purpose is the same — the correction of the pre-1994 abnormalities while creating a society that provides fair opportunities, especially for those who were excluded from these opportunities because of the colour of their skin. These laws are not about punishing whites or Afrikaners, as some claim.
Social crime
Like many countries in the world, South Africa is faced with unacceptable levels of social crime. Without excusing it, a lot of this is committed by people who feel left out of opportunities and have nothing to do with race. The narrative being peddled by certain groups in South Africa that such crime is targeted at the white population is simply not true. A look at the crime statistics released by the South African Police Service, and other agencies, reveals something consistent throughout — crime affects both black and white in the country, with blacks being the most badly affected. From armed robberies and hijackings to rapes, blacks are on the receiving end of the scourge of crime.
No anti-white, or more specifically anti-Afrikaner, agenda is being pursued by the government of the Republic of South Africa. Afrikaners continue to have a better quality of life than most other groups, they have access to better resourced schools and their language continues to be widely used in both commerce and public administration.
Equally, there is no policy that has been taken or pursued by South Africa to antagonise Jewish people.
It is important for the people of the world to know the truth about what is happening in South Africa and not rely on gossip and rumour-mongering. It is also important that, as other countries and their governments take decisions with far-reaching implications for us, they do so on the basis of truthful information, including about official government policies.
We accept as a country that some of the positions we take on global affairs will not appease everyone — but these are positions we take nevertheless, in line with our own values as a nation and the past that we have. We will spare no effort in explaining these positions to all who are willing to listen and who want a better understanding of our policy positions, including on complex geopolitical issues.
Our re-admission to the international community after decades of isolation has given us a wealth of experience in navigating convoluted geopolitical situations, including facilitating peace and disarmament. As a country, we will continue to tap into this experience in our endeavour to build a better world for all.
As we chair the G20, we will do everything in our power to drive consensus on the difficult issues confronting the world today. The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, multilateral bodies such as the United Nations are being treated with disdain, international institutions created to deliver justice to the weak are being disregarded — as countries we have to act and prevent a slide to the bottom.
Fidel Hadebe is a former spokesperson for the South African government and writes in his private capacity.