fate
True to some extent, but stripping the whites of their land and wealth has not resulted in widespread prosperity, has it
Is this an argument that apartheid was a good thing?
How do you think the Whites got their land and wealth? They took it from Blacks and forcibly relocated the Blacks.
The program of redistribution after Apartheid ended was a lot different then your characterization...which does fit the activities between 1960 and 1980 when whites stole their land and wealth... see below.
Apartheid was responsible for the largest population movement and dispossession of the 20th century: between 1960 and 1980 more than 3.5 million blacks were evicted from their land and relegated to homelands or to townships surrounding the big cities. Stripped of land, blacks were no longer potential rivals for white farmers. They became a cheap labour pool for farming, mining and industry. When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in 1994, it promised to change a landscape in which 60,000 white farmers held 87% of the fertile land and millions of blacks shared 13%. No one believed that colonial conquest and the Boer war were responsible for blacks being dispossessed and driven from their ancestral lands without compensation. It was the result of a deliberate policy since the 1913 Land Act. When the Afrikaners came to power in 1948, they created the homelands and the country accelerated population transfers that began in the 19th century.
It had been hoped that the new black majority South Africa would be actively involved in dismantling the wrongs of the past. But it did not have the means to act quickly. One of the key compromises between the ANC and the De Klerk government had been to agree not to alienate the white population, especially farmers. Agrarian reform, presented as a priority by the agriculture minister at the time, Derek Hanecom, turned out unsurprisingly to be better in intention than practice. There were three sections: the restitution of Land Rights Act (1994); tenure reform to ensure greater tenant security (Communal Property associations Act, 1996); and agrarian reform in the strict sense (Labour Tenants Act, 1996, and the Extension of Security Tenure Act, 1997).
The goal of redistribution was to allow the most underprivileged groups access to land. But the state, until recently the instrument of land confiscation, preferred to forsake its prerogatives and abstain from any authoritarian resolutions. It favoured market-assisted agrarian reform, based on freely made agreements by all parties. Black growers wishing to acquire land could do so either by launching themselves as entrepreneurs, if they could afford it, or by forming buyers' collectives, to take advantage of the 16,000 rand ($2,172) subsidy the government promised to each. Despite the initial inequity between the participants, the basic principle was freedom for both parties and respect for private property.
The reconstruction and development programme set out in 1994 foresaw the redistribution of 30% of agricultural land over five years. When it won power, the black majority government multiplied subsidies and allocations in the countryside, created mobile clinics, opened schools and improved access to drinking water (passing the bill on to consumers by privatising water distribution). But progress was slight. In June 2000, out of 65,000 restitution requests, only 6,250 were successful and only 1% of land had been redistributed (3). In eight years, 1,098,008 hectares were transferred, only 0.89% of the country's surface area.
After eight years 386,000 victims of forced transfer had benefited from restitution programmes. But it was often city-dwellers rather than landless peasants who received the allotment of 40,000 rand ($5,430). White farmers could claim up to 3m rand ($400) for each relinquished farm. In June 2000 the government reiterated its intention to transfer 15m hectares to black farmers over the next five Apartheid was responsible for the largest population movement and dispossession of the 20th century: between 1960 and 1980 more than 3.5 million blacks were evicted from their land and relegated to homelands or to townships surrounding the big cities. Stripped of land, blacks were no longer potential rivals for white farmers. They became a cheap labour pool for farming, mining and industry. When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in 1994, it promised to change a landscape in which 60,000 white farmers held 87% of the fertile land and millions of blacks shared 13%. No one believed that colonial conquest and the Boer war were responsible for blacks being dispossessed and driven from their ancestral lands without compensation. It was the result of a deliberate policy since the 1913 Land Act. When the Afrikaners came to power in 1948, they created the homelands and the country accelerated population transfers that began in the 19th century.
It had been hoped that the new black majority South Africa would be actively involved in dismantling the wrongs of the past. But it did not have the means to act quickly. One of the key compromises between the ANC and the De Klerk government had been to agree not to alienate the white population, especially farmers. Agrarian reform, presented as a priority by the agriculture minister at the time, Derek Hanecom, turned out unsurprisingly to be better in intention than practice. There were three sections: the restitution of Land Rights Act (1994); tenure reform to ensure greater tenant security (Communal Property associations Act, 1996); and agrarian reform in the strict sense (Labour Tenants Act, 1996, and the Extension of Security Tenure Act, 1997).
The goal of redistribution was to allow the most underprivileged groups access to land. But the state, until recently the instrument of land confiscation, preferred to forsake its prerogatives and abstain from any authoritarian resolutions. It favoured market-assisted agrarian reform, based on freely made agreements by all parties. Black growers wishing to acquire land could do so either by launching themselves as entrepreneurs, if they could afford it, or by forming buyers' collectives, to take advantage of the 16,000 rand ($2,172) subsidy the government promised to each. Despite the initial inequity between the participants, the basic principle was freedom for both parties and respect for private property.
The reconstruction and development programme set out in 1994 foresaw the redistribution of 30% of agricultural land over five years. When it won power, the black majority government multiplied subsidies and allocations in the countryside, created mobile clinics, opened schools and improved access to drinking water (passing the bill on to consumers by privatising water distribution). But progress was slight. In June 2000, out of 65,000 restitution requests, only 6,250 were successful and only 1% of land had been redistributed (3). In eight years, 1,098,008 hectares were transferred, only 0.89% of the country's surface area.
After eight years 386,000 victims of forced transfer had benefited from restitution programmes. But it was often city-dwellers rather than landless peasants who received the allotment of 40,000 rand ($5,430). White farmers could claim up to 3m rand ($400) for each relinquished farm. In June 2000 the government reiterated its intention to transfer 15m hectares to black farmers over the next five
fate
How many other countries have bike-jacking as a common crime? How many other countries demand in-home security nearly everywhere?
22 Apr 2015, 8:30 am 
. Stop it. Whatever you "think," maybe you should try reading. If you're able.
