2 - Naming, Blaming, and Claiming on Historical Land Injustices: The Views of the South African People

Summary

Apartheid and colonialism left a profound legacy of unrequited demands for land justice. Through its system of forced removals, restrictions on occupancy, the creation of Bantustans, and so on, apartheid dispossessed millions of South Africans of their land and land rights. Layered on top of apartheid's other sins is a system of communal land control that seems to have benefited few rural South Africans. And even apartheid's demise has exacerbated the land problem as countless rural poor people flock to the cities in hopes of some degree of economic subsistence. Apartheid, and its own ancestor, colonialism, created a tremendous need for land restitution, land redistribution, and a secure system of individual ownership of land and land resources.

How do South Africans view these issues of land reconciliation? Unfortunately, little is known beyond a handful of questions about the issue asked in our 2001 survey (see Gibson 2001). The data indicate that land reconciliation is broadly important to South Africans – concern over the problem is not limited to a landless few (or even the landless many). Enormous and profound racial differences exist, with virtually all blacks and no whites believing that whites hold land illegitimately. For instance, the respondents in our 2001 sample were asked whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: “Most land in South Africa was taken unfairly by white settlers, and they therefore have no right to the land today.”