Apartheid

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4.2. Dispossession and Selective Urbanization
In South Africa, land dispossession started before the Khoikhoi and the San were first
deprived of their land by Whites in the 1600s. Land dispossession was firstly a result of
indigenous competition for grazing land and hunting and foraging grounds. Increasingly,
Bantu-speaking agriculturalists then trickled into South Africa from around 2,000 years ago,
but, presumably due mainly to low population density, competition for land was certainly not
(in the wide sense) ‘genocidal’ or ever intense in character until the Whites showed up in the
17 th century. Before then, Khoisan groups remained spread rather evenly across the country,
but after the arrival of the Whites the Khoisan started to disappear, especially from the South,
due to ethnic cleansing as well as White-borne diseases.
A new dimension of land dispossession in South Africa began in the 1870s after the
discovery of diamonds and other minerals, when competition for land intensified further. In
the 1880s and 1890s, industrial development flourished following the discovery of gold,
leaving small sharecroppers out of the market, which resulted in the increase of squatter areas.
This was the case for both black and white small sharecroppers, yet due to the fact that racist
attitudes against the Blacks already existed, authorities ensured that white squatters would live
in better conditions than non-Whites. In 1913, a Land Act was established which limited black
land ownership to 7 per cent of the entire land area, forcing many Blacks to leave their land
and move into reserves. With the 1936 Land Act, the black population was allowed to own a
maximum 13 per cent of the land, presumably in order to sustain 66 per cent of the
population. 393
Today, still, Whites conversely make up less than 11 per cent of the population but
hold more than 85 per cent of the land, including nine tenths of the country’s productive land.
By the year 2000, only 0.81 percent of commercial farmland had been redistributed in six
years of democracy as opposed to an initial state-set target of 30 percent over the first five
years of democratic rule. 394 The Department of Land Affairs then radically changed its tune
and instead vowed to put 30 percent of agricultural land back into black hands by 2015. Five
per cent of land had changed hands by late 2002. The land department said it needed around
26 billion rand ($2.54 billion) a year to meet its new target, but currently it only gets one
billion rand. Many Blacks had by now grown angry at the slow pace of restitution. Moreover,
troublesome farm labor tenants are still being evicted, as if apartheid still ruled. On the other
hand, resentful violence against white farmers is also rampant. There were nearly 2,000
attacks on them in 2000 and 2001, 282 were killed. Many of these murders, however, appear
to be simple, criminal acts, committed for personal gain. 395
The 1923 Native (Urban Areas) Act ‘limited’ black residence in white areas. Those
who still lived in white areas lived without their real families in servants’ quarters, called the
‘boy’s kaya’, situated behind the white people’s houses. The Act also meant that the black
population would not be eligible to utilize white-funded urban amenities. This developed
seamlessly into the apartheid era. In the meantime, some Blacks were allowed into white
property is often stolen during such operations by individual Israeli soldiers, including the commanding officers,
again without compensation or apology to the victims. A handful of Israeli soldiers have been given short jail
sentences for having been found out, apparently a cosmetic move by the Israeli army in response to domestic and
international criticism amid daily reports of looting and destruction by the soldiers. See Hauser: Israeli
Withdrawal Leaves Debris of Incursion, 2001; Ass’adi: Bitter Memories After Israel Quits Palestinian City,
2001; Batrawi: Occupation: Only Teddy Bears Sleep in Peace, 2002; Williams: Israeli Army Under Fire for
Looting, 2002; Ass’adi: Israeli Soldiers “Share” Palestinian Family’s Home, 2002.
393 Lester 1996: 59
394 Commey November 2002; Thomasson: Southern Africa Struggles to Redistribute Land, 1998; Seccombe:
South African Government Urged to Speed Up Land Reform, 2000. The need to rectify this situation, according
to the South African National Land Committee, is exacerbated by the fact that almost half of the country’s
population still lives in rural areas.
395 Commey November 2002; N.N.: South Africa Lags Behind Land Reform Target, October 22, 2002