Sep 1-15, 2018
To borrow a phraseology from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, his country is profoundly unequal in all senses, be it land, wealth or on any other measurable vectors. The phrase has economic, social, political and emotive appeal, especially when inequality runs deep down into the country’s history. Unfortunately, that is true for most of the African countries, which have undergone the harrowing experience of colonial and Apartheid eras of varying degrees.
The simmering antagonism borne out centuries of neglect naturally burst out when the US President Donald Trump in a recent tweet supported the white farmers of South Africa and their predicament of losing the land of a country that they had colonized centuries back and refused to fall in line with the progressive land reforms of South Africa, under one pretext or the other, by playing on the fringes of law. The much touted land distribution policy ’willing-seller, willing-buyer’ was more a farce in a society riddled with inadequate dispute settlement mechanisms and over arching corruption.
If one has to plough the data and arguments given by perpetrators of inequality and the advocates of egalitarianism, there can be misleading pathways and to draw an informed conclusion is near impossible. The World Bank, in its recent study flagged inequality in South Africa and documented that it is all pervading and breached beyond land to finance, education, entrepreneurship, skill sets, access to utilities and what have you. Corroborating the World Bank findings, another study reveals that 72% of farms and agricultural holdings belong to whites who make up only 8.2% of the population. Black South Africans who constitute around 80% of the population, own just 4% of the land.
There is no denial that land has been through millennia a powerful and emotive political tool to rally people around. This is true for all countries across continents and civilizations. Inequality seeded by uneven land distribution and skewed distributive justice is a perennial enigma that caused several disturbances. That has to stop lock, stock and barrel.
Yet, there are a few countries in Africa and elsewhere in the world, which are revisiting their stringent land rules to promote corporate farming, creating enough raw materials for their agri-business and importantly for promoting productivity and exports since the precision agriculture –euphemism for modern agriculture – is technology and capital driven. That needs pooling of land, use of optimal irrigation, use of organic manures and insecticides and importantly creation of a strong supply chain, which are beyond the realms of a subsistence farmer, who grows for himself primarily and surplus, if any, for the market. That culture should sweep in the continent without compromising on the genuine rights of the local farmers.
Africa is in the cusp of a great transformation. It is moving up the curve to decide what is good for itself and what policy tweaks it requires to unleash the growth potentials. It should not get enraged by a tweet or a tongue- in – cheek comment, especially when such comments are made to divert the attention of the political drama that is being played out in the tweeters home ground . The reaction to such calculated uttering is to laugh it away and continue with the nation building without fear or prejudice.
