22 May 2000
LAND IS THE BASIS OF OUR STRUGGLE
By Lesego Sechaba Mogotsi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Land has always been the basis of the Black people`s
struggle in Africa. When Black people finally decided to
take up arms against the settler colonial minority regime,
it was precisely because of that reason, nothing less or
more.
During the dark apartheid days black people were forcefully
removed from their land and driven deliberately to the
barren homelands. They were subjected to ruthless apartheid
system brutality and many children, men and women became
victims. They were treated as foreigners in their own land
of birth by the same European settlers who are making noise
today.
I generally grew-up as a non-violent person and the only
"violent" methods that I openly supported was the arm
struggle during our struggle against apartheid and I
strongly feel that if the need should arise again in this
country for the black people to engage in the arm struggle
to re-conquer the land which is rightfully theirs, I will be
the first one to volunteer.
I obviously do not support the killing and murdering of
innocent people and white farmers in the neighbouring
Zimbabwe, but the brutality that our own Black brothers and
sisters that are subjected to in some of the white farms in
this country, makes me to think otherwise. The Zimbabwean
settlement as it is correctly documented, states it clearly
that the former colonial master, Britain; would be
responsible for the re-settlement of the black Zimbabwean by
providing the Zimbabwean government with money to buy back
the illegally occupied land in Zimbabwe by the minority
whites and give it back to the black majority.
In South Africa, my homeland, there is also an agreement
similar to the Zimbabwean one. White farmers would sell
their land to Thabo Mbeki`s government then President Thabo
Mbeki`s government through one of his creation; Land
Commission, would then be responsible for resettlement. This
is a typical black liberal arrangement and it only benefits
the minority nation, whites. If they were not willing to
sell or give up the land that they have illegally occupied
since 1652, poor black South Africans would remain landless
for centuries even worse off than the Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabwean recent land crisis should be a good lesson to
people like DP's Tony Leon, because people like him came to
Africa uninvited with Dromedaris, Reiger and Goode-Hope;
they surely did not bring any land with them. In fact, all
white people in this country are our guests and the black
majority is their hosts. There is no single white South
African who can rightfully claim any piece of this land,
including those who belong to the African National Congress.
They all constitute part of the European settlers.
The similarities between us and the Zimbabwean are very
classical, we are both former British colonies, however, in
our case Britain did not promise us any pounds to back the
land back from the white farmers; now where is the poor
President Thabo Mbeki`s government going to get millions of
rands to buy land from white farmers and give it back to the
rightful owners, blacks.
In fact, I do not understand why the black people must buy
the land, which rightful belong to them, from the people who
occupied it many years ago through aggression, without any
compensation. This does not make any logic at all, surely
you need not to be an academic to understand this. When your
car is stolen and later on recovered by the police, surely
you do not expect them to sell it back to you; as if it was
never your car before it was stolen. The logic demands that
you go to the police station and produce your identity and
ownership certificates, then you car is all yours again.
Indeed, there are couples of white farmers who can produce
the ownership certificates, which relates to their
supposedly legal occupation; but the fact of the matter is
that those certificates were issued by the illegitimate
settler minority regime. Perhaps the logical thing for the
white farmers in Zimbabwe and in this country to do is to
ask Britain to compensate them. I am personally prepared to
support them (whites) if they want to sue Britain for land
compensation, because "NO MAKANJANI"; the national land
question still needs to be addressed in this country as a
matter of urgency if we do not want to witness the situation
similar to that of Zimbabwe.
Our Zimbabwean black brothers and sisters are more brilliant
than the black South Africans, they occupy arable and
fertile land, while the South African; generally referred to
as squatters occupy a small piece of land and jam-pack
themselves as sardines under severe, unbearable and inhuman
conditions.
Most of us from the black consciousness school of thought
honestly believe that independence or soverignity of any
nation, primarily depends on the ownership of the land by
the black majority. Blacks in this country only have
political power, but the most critical component of power,
which includes land, economic power; is in the hands of the
tiny minority.
In the US correctly so, the majority white nation are in
charge of the affirmative action there, to affirm our black
brothers and sisters who became citizens of US out of their
own will, they went to US as part of the slave trade during
those years. However, strangely enough, here at home we
expect the white minority nation to affirm the black
majority in this country, this is rediculous. Everytime the
government want to build schools, clinics, houses, factories
ansd so on; they must humble themselves before the white
minority and beg for more land. This should not be allowed
to continue it is absolutely nonsense. NO LAND! NO
INDEPENDENCE - NO LAND! NO SOVEREIGNITY!
In conclusion, I would like to urge President Thabo Mbeki`s
government to pass an Act in parliament which will make it
easier for the black majority to get their land back, if we
do not want to go the Zimbabwean route. Alternatively, his
government must convince the white farmers to willingly
relinquish their "land rights" to the state, which is
unlikely under normal circumstances, so that the land
Commission can at least have something to do. Now the land
commission remains one of the toothless bulldogs in this
country, they are subjected to the order of the day; they
cannot do anything beyond the forceful removal claims. They
must stop fooling the landless black majority as if they got
more powers than the President`s office, in fact they should
be disbanded because they could hardly redistribute the land
which is illegally occupied by the white farmers. They are
just wasting the taxpayer money because most of them drive
flashy cars and stay in potch houses while the majority
remains landless. This is my sober minded position as one of
the black consciousness adherent and I surely do not owe any
one apology for my position on this matter.
Sincerely yours,
Lesego Sechaba Mogotsi
Azapo: Publicity Director
North West Province
PO Box 4803, PRETORIA, 0001, Tel. 018 - 307 2015,
Cell. 082 5695 762.
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