The South African land question in light of Nelson Mandela’s political thought

ABSTRACT

Land redistribution in post-apartheid South Africa is a problem that has caused division and violence in the country. Particularly, the dispossession of land suffered by many Africans in South Africa and the failure of land redistribution programmes has led to a variety of protests. In this article, we analyse whether, in light of Nelson Mandela’s thought, these protests are morally justified. The point is not to contend that Mandela’s thought is correct. Instead, it is to understand what the implications of Mandela’s ideas are for the land question in South Africa today. According to Mandela’s political thought, we maintain that some forms of protest could be morally justified even if they involve property violation and symbolic destruction. However, excessively violent and radical protests would not be considered legitimate. The more violent and radical protests violate Mandela’s principles of a gradual increase of violence and of preserving future-friendly race relations. In contrast, some of the property violation and symbolic destruction protests do not disregard these principles.

KEYWORDS:

• Nelson Mandela
• political thought
• South African land dispossession
• civil disobedience
• land redistribution programmes

Notes on contributors

Prof Luis Cordeiro-Rodrigues is an associate professor at the Department of Philosophy, Yuelu Academy, Hunan University. He has published in African philosophy and critical race theory. This research has been funded by Hunan University’s Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, fund number 531118010426. 本 文受湖南大学“中央高校基本科研业务费”专项资金资助 (531118010426).

Dr Jonathan O Chimakonam is a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. His teaching and research interests include African Philosophy, Logic, Environmental Ethics and Decolonial thinking. He aims to break new grounds in African philosophy by formulating a system that unveils new concepts and opens new vistas for thought (Conversational philosophy); a method that can drive theories in African philosophy and beyond (Conversational thinking); and a system of logic that grounds both (Ezumezu). His articles have appeared in several refereed and accredited international journals.

Notes

1 We have avoided using the colour categories ‘Black and white’ in this work, as they are now being problematised and viewed as racist. In their place, we have used ‘Africans and Europeans’ in a simple geographical sense much similar to the category ‘African-Americans’. For details on the racial problematic of colour categories, see Kwesi Tsri (2016a, 2016b; Chimakonam 2019).

2 See, for instance, Denita Annzra (2017) and Jewel Topsfield (2018) for reports of this type of violence.

3 This Act is captured in Gazette Extraordinary No 380 of 19 June 1913.

4 See also Walker (2006, 145).