The politics of taking by Solomon Mensah

 

South Africa has opened another chapter in the long, unfinished argument over land and inevitably, over race, history and political power. A court case challenging the country’s expropriation law has begun, with the Democratic Alliance, a member of the governing coalition alongside the African National Congress, joining the challenge. The legal question is technical. The political question is anything but.

The law permits the state, under certain circumstances, to expropriate privately owned land without compensation when agreement with the owner cannot be reached. That phrase “without compensation” has become political dynamite in a country where land remains one of the most visible symbols of apartheid’s legacy.

The ANC argues, with considerable historical justification, that South Africa cannot pretend that the distribution of land was the innocent result of market forces. Generations of discriminatory laws dispossessed Black South Africans, restricted where they could live and work, and concentrated agricultural land in white hands. Democracy ended apartheid; it did not magically redistribute its economic consequences.

But history is not a blank cheque. A democratic government has to distinguish between correcting historical injustice and weakening the security of property ownership. The first is necessary. The second can become economically disastrous. Investors do not require perfect governments; they require governments whose rules can be understood and whose property rights cannot suddenly become political bargaining chips.

That is where this court case matters. The Democratic Alliance’s participation is particularly revealing. It demonstrates that opposition to the law is not simply a white conservative reflex, nor can the government dismiss critics as defenders of apartheid privilege. The governing coalition itself contains competing visions of what land reform should mean.

And then there is Donald Trump, hovering over the debate like an American megaphone. Trump has used South Africa’s land policy to support his claim that white farmers are being persecuted. That argument deserves scrutiny precisely because South Africa’s genuine problems are serious enough without importing American culture-war mythology into them.

There is a legitimate debate about expropriation. There is also a vast difference between saying that a law creates risks for property rights and claiming that South Africa is engaged in a campaign of racial persecution against white farmers. The former is a constitutional and economic argument. The latter is a political narrative and a highly combustible one.

South Africa should not allow either side to turn land into a morality play with only heroes and villains. The descendants of people dispossessed by apartheid deserve more than sympathy. They deserve meaningful access to land, housing, opportunity and wealth. Farmers who have built productive enterprises deserve predictable legal protection. Neither proposition cancels the other.

The real test is whether South Africa can pursue land reform without making ownership arbitrary, and whether it can protect property rights without making historical injustice permanent.

That is precisely why the courts matter. Land reform cannot be conducted through slogans, presidential rhetoric or foreign political grandstanding. It needs transparent rules, constitutional safeguards, competent administration and an economic strategy capable of turning redistribution into opportunity.

South Africa has spent decades arguing about who owns the land. The harder question is what kind of country that land should produce. The answer should not be revenge. It should be justice with a functioning economy attached.