To anybody who thought the political noise around land was populist posturing, think again.
Over the past week the country has been burning. In Soweto, Eldorado Park, Mitchells Plain and Kuyga in Port Elizabeth, burning barricades blocked roads and people clashed with police and sometimes with neighbouring communities.
At times like this, it feels like SA is an irredeemably violent place with no hope for the future. But all of these violent episodes had one thing in common: the call for land.
The wait for a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) house — now called a Breaking New Ground (BNG) house and much improved on the earlier models — is 10 to 16 years. Where do you live while you wait for a house? How much faith do you have that you will be allocated one, whether or not you have engaged in bribery to get a better place in the queue?
It is interesting that in each of the land protests over the past week protesters have arrived at the same answer to this question. Thabang Makele, who lives in a shack in Freedom Park, alongside the Golden Highway, told The Sowetan: "We don’t want to be put on housing waiting lists because we have been on them for a long time, they must give us stands and we will do the rest."
— WE DON’T WANT TO BE PUT ON HOUSING WAITING LISTS... WE HAVE BEEN ON THEM FOR A LONG TIME, THEY MUST GIVE US LAND AND WE WILL DO THE REST.
The Freedom Park shack dwellers were joined in the protest by their neighbours from Eldos in formal housing on the opposite side of the highway. There each yard is crowded with shacks, sometimes as many eight or 10. While at times these communities are at war on racial lines – remember the parents of pupils at Klipspruit Secondary who in 2016 refused to accept an African principal – on this issue they were united.
In Mitchell’s Plain the conflict took a racial turn. A shack community, which for six years has occupied a piece of private land on which the city is unable to install services, barricaded the road that runs between their own settlement and the mainly coloured community opposite in formal housing. Said shack dweller leader Luvuyo Booi: "We wanted to get an answer from the council on what is happening with our case so we took to the streets. What we want is the land. We want services on this private land or we want alternative land; that would be the best thing that could happen."
The shack dwellers met resistance from their neighbours, who came out to remove the barricades, which were preventing them from getting to work and school. Ugly scenes of confrontation followed.
Port Elizabeth also burned. Said the ANC’s Andile Lungisa: "People were asking for land to build their own houses. They have been waiting for RDP houses all of their lives. The only option now is to get land."
In Protea Glen, Soweto shack dwellers made a grab for vacant land, also in the hope of getting ahead in the queue for land. Nearby home-owners — there was no racial issue here — moved in to remove and destroy their materials, arguing that the settlement would undermine the values of their homes.
The situation demands a response. While the government insists that part of its housing policy includes "the rapid release of land", in reality it is focused on housing delivery and on the upgrading of informal settlements.
Serviced land, where poor people could build their own homes, has not been released rapidly or even slowly. A big reason is the apartheid stigma that has been associated with "site and service schemes".
In the dying days of apartheid, having realised that Africans were in fact in the cities to stay, the apartheid government initiated some site and service projects.
So while the policy of "rapid land release" has not gained much traction at the top, it does seem there is pressure from below to change this.
The DA mayors in Cape Town and Johannesburg are in favour of providing and selling (to slightly wealthier households) serviced land. In the Western Cape the idea is already quite advanced.
The ANC’s Eastern Cape chairman, Oscar Mabuyane, said after this week’s protests: "I don’t think people should have to wait for houses before they can get land." And Dikgang Moiloa, Gauteng’s MEC for housing, declared after a heated meeting with Eldos residents: "We need to create opportunities for communities to build their own houses; the RDP was not supposed to create a culture of dependency."
Moiloa, who is new in the job and fired up with passion, reminded people that "not everything that was done by the previous government was wrong", a sentiment that no doubt would have some of his colleagues in that other political party shouting, "Hear! Hear!"
• Paton is deputy editor.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.