Land distribution in South Africa is both urgent and necessary, according to Dr Shuaib Manjra when he addressed worshippers on a Freedom Day Khutbah on Friday 27th April 2018, at the Claremont Main Road Mosque, Cape Town.
He said the skewed distribution of land; the insecurity of tenure, the tardiness with which land claims are being processed, and the housing crisis are cause for serious concern.
“Statistics show that land reform in South Africa peaked in 2007/8 and then went downhill from there. This represents just another failure of the Zuma presidency whose slogan of Radical Economic Transformation seems hollower by the day when black people are sinking into greater poverty and the wealth gap increases. Since 1994, 2.4 million people have been evicted from farms in South Africa – and are in urgent need of smallholdings to provide both for housing and subsistence.”
He then added that there were three myths, which must be dispelled; the first is that most land restitution claimants have chosen cash compensation above land restoration. This may be true in urban locations because of the impracticality of restoration; however in rural areas a great majority have chosen restoration. The second myth is that 90% of land reform projects have failed. Empirical evidence suggests that around 50% of projects have improved the livelihoods of beneficiaries to some degree.
“The third myth is that we can employ a kind of ‘native fundamentalism’ and draw a linear line between specific lands and pre-colonial communities. We can in some specific cases, but in the vast majority of cases communities were mobile and changing over time discounting any notion of homogeneity. Furthermore some of these communities were at war and displacing each other. This does not discount the need for land restitution but questions the basis on which such restitution should be considered.
Allah says in the Quran in Sura Qasas (27: 5) that the oppressed must be the inheritors of the land: And We wished to be Gracious to those who were being oppressed in the land, to make them leaders and make them heirs and inheritors of the land.
Thus our call for land restitution and equitable distribution is a Quranic injunction. Allah has honoured and given dignity to human-kind. Part of that dignity is about financial security of which land plays a critical part.