ARTICLE                                                 TRANSFORMATION 11 (1990)
                  PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE
                       THE LAND QUESTION
                                                  Makhosazane Gcabashe
                                                            and Alan Mabin
  The 'land question', which has long occupied the minds of South Africans
 and their supporters or critics, has returned to prominence among the issues
 central to the transformation of South African society. Diverse reasons
 account for this renewed interest in the land question: undoubtedly the most
significant is the apparent prospect of the end of apartheid. At last, it has
seemed, the possibility of apartheid coming to an end invites creative thought
on the shaping of a new South African society, in which some redistribution,
reform or nationalisation of land is often assumed to be likely. But other
reasons for the current fascination with land reform exist too. Zimbabwe's
independence and programmes of agrarian-cum-land reform provide intri-
guing food for thought, coming as they do in a society perhaps more similar
to South Africa than any other. The supposed 'independence' of four ban-
tustans, and the existence of extensive bureaucracies in the others, has
encouraged a great deal of debate concerning land tenure and land reform
inside South Africa. As Essy Letsoalo (1987) points out, where that debate
is purely concerned with 'land reform' inside the bantustans, it cannot
address the real issues involved in the South African land question. But more
broadly, the search for strategy against apartheid has also encouraged some
rural organising activity, with an inevitable overspill into consideration of
future possibilities.
  Inside South Africa, the reform rhetoric and to some extent actions of the
Nationalist Party government have also encouraged discussion of land re-
form in the sense of removing existing discriminatory legislation affecting
land. Just as the Botha government suspended significant parts of the
legislation (as opposed to the material constraints) affecting control of
movement, so some hope that it will also be persuaded to remove the Land
Acts. Thus even the Johannesburg Sunday Times carries articles calling for
their repeal (cf Brian Pottinger, At last - can black agriculture put the wasted,
barren years behind it?', Sunday Times, 18.05.86). Meanwhile the Urban
Foundation's role as 'consultants' to the Private Sector Council on Urbani-
sation includes consideration, and no doubt lobbying, given to the repeal of
the 1913 Land Act (cf. De Klerk, 1985/6). Like so much other rhetoric, the
focus of these diverse pillars of the South African establishment tends to fall
on the statutory aspects of the land question. Other supports of the existing,
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TRANSFORMATION                                              GCABASHE & MABIN
oppressive agrarian system tend to escape their attention.
  South African land reform discussion hinges on apartheid for at least two
reasons. One, racist state allocation of land use and ownership, and similarly
state contributions to accumulation, have been central to the construction
and maintenance of apartheid; two, the notion of 'post-apartheid' society
usually involves a sense of reconstruction without the limits imposed by
apartheid. Unfortunately this focus on apartheid proceeds without much
attention falling on just what it would mean to end apartheid in rural South
Africa. If organisations of the oppressed are to contribute significantly not
only to the ending of apartheid's effects on the land question but to overcom-
ing them, the specific necessities and the implications of apartheid's demise
need more creative investigation. Among the intentions of this paper is an
attempt to indicate that future land reform will require analysis of far more
complex questions than those suggested by some of the literature to date. In
particular, those questions include the role of various kinds of organisations
in shaping political strategies and agrarian policies, now and in the future.
The present climate of negotiation politics only heightens the urgency of
examining such complex issues.
 In the flush of enthusiasm over the apparent prospect of the end of apartheid
which characterised the period in which the currently dominant interpreta-
tions of the land reform question were written -1986 being the central date
- most authors assumed implicitly that the end of apartheid would mean the
ascendancy of a radically different regime. That regime would possess the
freedom to determine the lines of its policy in every area, land reform in
particular, and policy proposals were thus articulated for this dominant
scenario.
  More recently, the altered political environment at home and abroad has
brought about a different emphasis in policy thinking, implicitly based on the
prognosis that the ending of apartheid seems unlikely to parallel decoloni-
sation. Rather than an abrupt disjuncture, a negotiated end to apartheid
appears possible if not probable; a stage reasonably likely to be followed by
at least some extended period in which post-apartheid governments will
grapple with policy issues including the land question without the freedom
to inscribe an entirely new book.
   In this environment various think-tanks in South Africa have begun a
relatively intensive process of preparation, not so much of abstract policy
proposals for post-apartheid government, but rather of positions for lob-
bying and, indeed, negotiation. In much current public debate over negotia-
tion, the assumption appears to rule that constitutional issues will form not
merely the primary but the sole set of concerns subjected to negotiation. No
doubt, implicitly, from this assumption it follows that policy issues are to be
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 GCABASHE & MABIN                                              TRANSFORMATION
 left to whatever the post- negotiation state or policy formation process makes
 of them. But, for several reasons, such an assumption may prove misleading
 and even dangerous for would-be participants in the shaping of policy in
 post-apartheid South Africa.
   In the first place, the pressures which surround the constitutional future of
 the country have a great deal to do with establishing a new and more
 legitimate process of deciding how resources are to be allocated. No nego-
 tiations over such processes could conceivably take place in abstraction from
 concrete considerations of what the resources of the country are, what they
 could be under different scenarios both internal and international, and how
 their distribution affects political activity. But ill-prepared participants in
 negotiations can witness results - even agreements - which may contradict
 their intentions. The Lancaster House limitations on uncompensated expro-
 priation of land in Zimbabwe provide a good (or bad) example of the results
 of such elements in negotiation.
   Secondly, some evidence exists that powerful big business actors not only
envisage a less state-centred process of policy formation in post-apartheid
circumstances, but have actively engaged in seeking to promote such a
model. In the papers edited by Berger and Godsell (1988) which report the
'South Africa beyond apartheid project, one detects a certain optimism that
'incrementalists' will succeed not only in contributing to the ending of
apartheid through successful 'competition in a marketplace of ideas and
strategies' but that they will continue to shape state policy through similar
processes long after the apartheid system as such is replaced. The very
creation of a well-funded institution such as the Centre for Policy Studies
attached to the Business School at the University of the Witwatersrand
indicates that some corporate bodies see 'policy' as something not necessar-
ilyrightor wrong but rather as 'more- or-less acceptable' to various interests
at specific points in time'; something 'over which compromise is not only
inevitable, but desirable' (Lee, 1988:2,10). In such a view, the present state
has become more amenable to a variety of external policy pressures, and it
would be 'desirable' that - whatever the specific form of the constitution -
the future state should be so too. Negotiation, therefore, can be construed
as a process which will not only continue well beyond constitutional issues,
but will - perhaps already does - involve more material concerns from the
very beginning.
  Thus for oppositional forces to focus solely on constitutional concerns as
matters for negotiation would be short sighted, just as to ignore the spaces
created in the present 'climate of negotiation' would be foolish (Phillips and
Coleman, 1989). This conclusion implies that oppositional forces need to
concern themselves actively with policy studies in a great variety of material
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TRANSFORMATION                                               GCABASHE & MABIN
areas. The content of those policy studies needs to extend from the present,
and not to be restricted to a 'post- apartheid future', not least because other
powerful actors are already engaging in such strategies. The environment in
which oppositional forces enter into policy studies is already well- populated
by government- and private business sector-sponsored policy studies activity,
some of which directly concerns the land question.
  From the point of view of non-government, non-big business organisations,
it maybe suggested that policy studies do need to produce idealised versions
of post-apartheid policies, for the organising value such visionary proposals
hold (Buch and De Beer, 1989). But it may be suggested that they should not
be limited to that terrain, for they can have at least three other purposes:
 • to organise information and ideas for immediate use in the formulation of
    negotiating positions and pressuring tactics both locally and nationally,
 • to undertake research which can help organisations prepare for the more
    open policy formation process which may follow the negotiated end of
    major features of the current system, and which may indeed in some
    respects already be developing; and
 • to provide the well-grounded base for participation in negotiation on
    constitutional issues in such a way that the fundamental questions of
    creation and distribution of wealth are constantly related to political
    proposals and counter-proposals in as detailed a fashion as possible.
  Issues surrounding ownership of, control over and access to land both for
residential and rural-productive purposes have not yet been placed in the
context sketched above, at least by oppositional forces. Other forces may,
however, be moving in that direction. Numbers of institutions now exist to
conduct policy studies which could readily include land-related issues, such
as UCT's Institute for Policy Research and the Centre for Policy Studies at
Wits. Among those institutions which view the land question as a matter of
some importance might be mentioned the research effort of the Urban
Foundation (especially on behalf of the so-called Private Sector Council on
Urbanisation), and the policy and rural units of the Development Bank.
While initial efforts in many of these institutions look very much like 'propo-
sals for future policy' (cf Private Sector Council, 1988), increasingly their
focus has turned in the direction of preparation for the period of negotiation
which, most assume, is now on the point of commencement (cf Schlemmer
et al, 1989).
  From that perspective, the period of pre-negotiation is drawing to a close
(cf Giliomee in Sunday Times, 08.10.89), to be succeeded by a phase of
developing flexible positions for negotiation. Schlemmer (Director of the
CPS) and Giliomee (closely associated with several think-tanks) state that
view forcefully by placing their recent book titled From Apartheid to Nation
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  GCABASHE & MABIN                                             TRANSFORMATION
 Building 'in the context of negotiations' (Giliomee and Schlemmer, 1989: ix).
 Research on (ie, preparation for) negotiation is explicitly said to be the 'more
 important' activity of, say, the Centre for Policy Studies (cf preface to
 Schlemmer and Giliomee (eds) 1989).
   So far, and with the exception of Private Sector Council on Urbanisation,
 such think tanks have had little to say on the land question/wse. But others
 have noted that it is an issue which can (should?) come under the scrutiny of
 establishment policy studies (Schlemmer et al, 1989:168-9). At present some
 of the agencies referred to above, and possibly others, are continuing to
 develop their research and thinking with respect to the forthcoming period
 of negotiation. In particular, it bears repetition that the Development Bank
 now has an expanding and able staff of agricultural economists who in large
 part concern themselves with policy questions for the short and long term
 future; and the Urban Foundation continues, albeit at a lower level than a
 few years ago, activity in the same area.
   Against this background, it seems reasonably urgent for likely parties to
negotiations on South Africa's political and economic future to prepare in
depth not only their preferred visions of land reform, but the information,
background, and analysis required to understand, to support, and to criticise
a variety of alternatives. The present short paper does not pretend to
accomplish this task, but it will have succeeded in its intention if it con-
tributes, however marginally, to the preparedness of opposition movements
(especially those representing rural people) in the negotiation of the land
question.
   To that end, the paper proceeds in sections which:
  • review the positions on land reform which have been adopted by various
    parties in the late eighties.
  • consider, on the basis of limited research, what oppositional organisations
    of various kinds do and do not know and think about land issues.
  • examine a variety of areas in which research and analytical thinking seem
    to be prerequisites for successful participation in negotiation.
  Interestingly, many commentators on the future of South Africa have simply
assumed that land reform involving a measure of actual redistribution (poss-
ibly including nationalisation) both will be required and will occur in a future
South Africa. For example, and at an opposite pole ideologically from the
Urban Foundation, Colin Stoneman and John Suckling (1987: 537) suggest
one component of 'rural redistribution' as 'the movement of displaced
non-whites to white rural South Africa with all the implications for land
ownership and the form it should take, compensation (if any)... etc'. Writing
surely from a different perspective, Heribert Adam puts forward the idea
that a new government after apartheid will be faced with a few basic
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necessities... one of which will be redistribution of land (UCT seminar paper,
 May 1987). Hindson (1987: 598) believes that while increasing 'agricultural
productivity within the bantustans is likely to reduce ... the scope for local
employment', in 'contrast there may be considerable scope for reabsorption
of African cultivators in agricultural areas presently owned by whites'. Of
course the Freedom Charter of 1955 called for the redivision of the land
'among those who work it'. The meaning of the phrase might include both
Hindson's notion of resettlement (perhaps necessitated by forced resettle-
ment from 'areas presently owned by whites' over the past three decades)
and the more obvious division of the land among all South Africans, black
and white. By contrast, while Krikler argues that the redivision of the land
literally into the hands of a new small holding class would be a political
obstacle to socialism in a future South Africa, he does not explicitly recognise
any economic problems with the approach.
   A useful review of academic debates on the land question appears in a
recent thesis by Saundcrs (1989). We may summarise some of the main
dimensions of debate as follows.
Traditional or freehold tenure!
  The portion of the debate on which most printing ink has been expended is
the clash between proponents of freehold tenure as the answer to the low
agricultural production of the reserves, low fulltime employment in agricul-
ture, underuse of land, etc, and the adherents of various other positions -
especially the supporters of 'traditional tenure'. This debate has been thor-
oughly aired in the recent collection edited by Cross and Haines (1988). It
tends to restrict discussion of the land question to the bantustans, which
ignores the fact that the bulk of agricultural work by black South Africans
takes place outside those areas. In various ways authors such as Cross and
Letsoalo argue that African tenure systems, freed of the strictures of bantus-
tan politics, can contribute to overcoming problems in rural areas which
freehold tenure would tend to exacerbate. Such authors note that the simple
removal of the land acts under present circumstances would facilitate the
undermining of traditional tenure.
Ownership or tenancy?
   Outside the bantustans, the removal of the land acts would open the
countryside to occupation by black people. The question at issue becomes
one of the tenurial relations under which rural residents would occupy and
use the land. In the absence of substantial state subsidies or nationalisation,
most people would be forced to enter into tenancy relations with owners -
and given the high prices of land, rent would be most likely to be paid in
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  GCABASHE & MABIN                                               TRANSFORMATION
  labour rather than money. Indeed, the Private Sector Council advocates a
  widespread return to labour tenancy. While there has not been much aca-
  demic debate on this topic, perhaps in part because of the Private Sector
  Council's (Urban Foundation's) secrecy policies, the issue immediately
  opened by such proposals has to do with the amount of land purchase and/or
  nationalisation which the state might undertake or afford.
     It should be noted that 'reform' has already tended in some ways in the
  direction of the removal of the land acts and other statutory, racially discrimi-
  natory, aspects of access to land in South Africa. Tricameralism, for example,
  requires that some incentives be offered to participants, and state ac-
  quiesence in (and sometimes pursuit of) land purchases by members and
  acolytes of the houses of representatives and delegates have already trans-
  ferred some land out of direct white control. The mechanism here is mainly
  one of permitting purchase and occupation of land against the Group Areas
  Act's control. In undeclared areas (ie, controlled areas = most of rural
  non-bantustan South Africa) land can only be bought or occupied by mem-
  bers of the same 'group' as previously owned or occupied it. Additionally,
 the repeal of Chapter IV of the 1936 Land Act, which provided for the
 removal of labour tenants, has to some degree facilitated the resurgence of
 that oppressive form of access to land (see below). None of these cases
 suggests, of course, a challenge to private property in land: the only way in
 which that system could accommodate really large numbers of black South
 Africans as owners of land would be by state subsidisation of purchases.
Large or small scale agriculture?
   Closely related to these debates is the question of the most productive size
 of plots or farms. Interestingly, there are those both on the left and on the
 right who are convinced of the superiority of small-scale agriculture. In any
event, there is general agreement that many large white-owned farms are
heavily subsidised by the state and that in the absence of those subsidies the
economics of farm size would change considerably. There is substantial
disagreement over the issue of the most productive size of farms in other
dispensations, a question which relates closely to the issue of how any
government can try to ensure adequate and affordable supplies of food
especially for city dwellers. Some hold that subdivision of the land in the
heartland of white agriculture would threaten the volume of production and
hence greatly raise food prices in urban areas; others believe the opposite.
Which land could be redistributed?
   The same point recurs in discussions of which land could or should be
redistributed to land hungry rural (and perhaps urban) people. The cheapest
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way to satisfy such land hunger would obviously be by the redistribution of
outlying and probably less productive land. The problems of further en-
trenching poverty which might result, lead others to propose the subdivision
of more productive land. But, as mentioned above, that only raises the
question of whether or not such policies would be viable in terms of agricul-
tural production. These areas of debate more or less disappear from the
agenda of those who deny altogether the desirability of or demand for
redistribution of land, arguing instead that the best and most productive
policies will follow from concentration of the population in urban areas and
activities.
The urban-rural bias question
  Much of the academic debate has taken place in ways rather removed from
the lives of rural South Africans. Perhaps the most immutable unknown in
relation to the land question is the double question of how the constraints
on land need and use will change, and how people will react to different
changes in those constraints. Some - possibly many - people in the semi-rural
places of the bantustans at present are little interested in returning to farm
life, not only on white-owned farms, but of any kind. The reasons for this
response include the feeling that time is more productively and less arduously
spent in labour performed in non-farm pursuits. But the ways in which
conditions and options alter will determine directions of movement (towards
more rural or more urban places, say) more certainly than attitudes ex-
pressed under the highly constrained circumstances of today. Those who
have experienced forced removal, such as eviction from farms, have fre-
quently tried - communally or individually, or both - to find agricultural land
on which to settle. There is still a strong tendency to abandon the search and
to accept the security available in resettlement areas or on residential sites
allocated through tribal authorities. As one informant [living in a densely
populated reserve area in the north-eastern Transvaal with little land and few
cattle] put it, 'after innumerable attempts to find alternatives in the years
immediately after eviction so we lost hope and came back here ... as a last
resort'."
   But there is abundant evidence that in some areas, labour and rent-paying
tenancy are reappearing. Examples are evident in the Lydenburg district,
ironically the scene of the first major push by the state against these forms
of land occupancy in the late thirties. Rural struggles referred to by Claassens
(1989) emphasise that many rural people do seek to maintain and extend the
land available for agricultural activities.
   There are, of course, those who believe that the best option for people in
South Africa's rural areas is to move to town, and that future land policy
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  GCABASHE & MABIN                                              TRANSFORMATION
  should encourage them to do so. The best-known argiunents along these lines
  have been widely published by Cobbett (eg, 1987). As participants at the
  Agrarian Workshop in Johannesburg in May 1987 pointed out, Cobbett's
  position uses the results of centuries of wrong to support his argument that
  there is no land hunger, nor will there be: semi-proletarianisation has gone
  so far it cannot be reversed, and the condition of the people cannot be
  improved by reversing it anyway. A fundamental problem with Cobbett's
  argument is that it completely ignores the significance which huge numbers
 of people livmg (for whatever period) in the urban areas attach to the
 retention (and expansion) of rural bases; it ignores the persistence of circular
 patterns of migration which are common throughout the poorer regions of
 the world, and takes urban bias in development policy proposals to new
 £xtremes.
      Cobbett, however, enjoys plenty of company in his ignorance of the
 dynamics of migration and their effects (real and potential) on agrarian
 questions. So little is known, in any event, that it could hardly be otherwise.
 Thus Planact has found that many workers oppose employer home owner-
 ship schemes primarily because they usually require investment in houses
 close to urban worksites. Workers would frequently prefer to invest in 'rural'
 locations; recognising the general ignorance of the dynamics involved leads
 that service organisation to undertake substantial research into 'migrancy',
 noting that such research will go 'to the heart of the political economy"
 (Planact, 1989). The persistence of circular migration has very wide implica-
 tions for debate on the land question.
Organisational responses
    Many conventional wisdoms deserve renewed scrutiny for the making of
the land question in South Africa to be revealed in sufficient detail to allow
assessment of its complexities. While the members of mass organisations
such as the unions are those who know the realities of migration in contem-
porary South Africa, this knowledge is not necessarily available even to those
organisations in a systematic form. Furthermore, in relation both to these
complexities of society and thus to their own political activities, the question
forms: to what extent have oppositional organisations actually considered
the land question?
   In an endeavour to find out how much organisations and individuals know
about current issues concerning land and what policies they may have on
those issues, as well as what they would like to see happening in a post
apartheid society in terms of land allocation, resettlement patterns and so
on, we undertook a short project. The project was very far from comprehens-
ive, but does help to indicate how little prepared organisations are to
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contribute to detailed discussion, let alone negotiation, of land questions.
  The 15 organisations responding so far range from church-based organisa-
tions, to rural based organisations, to politically inclined organisations, trade
unions and service organisations. In this report we use quotations from
interviews without attributing them to specific organisations, for most of the
time they represent the considered views of officials rather than official
positions of organisations. Almost all the responses indicated that the or-
ganisations had no formal position or policy with regard to land issues.
Sometimes this was because they felt the subject did not directly concern
them and cannot be included in their daily programme at work. An over-
whelming sense was expressed that 'land is still controlled by the state in such
a way that it is very difficult, almost impossible to even do anything towards
Land Reform.'
   We were painfully aware of the uninvited role which we played in raising
land questions with the responding organisations, and have obviously tried
to avoid the negative and antidemocratic consequences of placing items on
the agenda of those organisations in such a way that their approach to the
land question in the future is shaped by our manner of raising it.
   Our respondents definitely felt that land issues needed to be placed more
firmly on the general agenda of opposition movements. Several reasons
emerged. While most of the responding organisations had no formal policy
on land issues, some officials did have strong views on the importance of the
land question in broad terms. Some talked of land as 'the source of all
biological life. It is important in the whole ecological chain, food production,
distribution and price.' Secondly, they recognised that whoever owns the land
determines these things. The connection between land and the underlying
mineral resources - which 'constitute the land in its bowels' - was also made.
Also, the vital connection between control of land and settlement patterns
for both rural and urban places was recognised, albeit schematically. These
are the three reasons which emerged from organisations as to why it is
important particularly in South Africa to talk about land.
    Some organisations stressed the importance of developing a historical
 understanding of land questions. Apartheid has its basis from the colonial
 system. Therefore one has to look at land problems from before 1948. If we
 look at the colonial system, especially at the reasons why people from Europe
 and Asia came to South Africa, it was because of the economic system which
 allowed them to own land, own mines thus being able to determine settlement
 patterns for themselves and their workers.' 'One other reason which makes
 it difficult to talk about land is that we are looking at an entrenched system
 which is hundreds of years old. Land problems refer to the development of
 the land, agricultural services, health services and social services. We cannot
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  GCABASHE & MABIN                                              TRANSFORMATION
  work on presumptions when it comes to distribution of the land. What has
  happened in history... we know it may happen again especially as we do not
  know what the post apartheid government is going to be like.'
    To indicate to organisations the kinds of issues in which we were interested,
 we sent them a questionnaire prior to visiting them. We hoped that sending
 the questionnaire would encourage discussion so that members or officials
 present at the actual interview were well informed on organisational and
 individual views. The interviews themselves were open ended (they did not
 by any means follow the questionnaire) and took place between Makhosa-
 zane Gcabashe and one or two members of the organisations.
    Organisations responding generally recognised the possibility that post
 apartheid society could take different forms and that policies could vary
 greatly. But certain issues emerged very clearly as fundamental concerns:
  • Meeting needs
   People should be able to occupy land 'in respect of who they are, in terms
 of their needs since this has not been the case.'
  • Equity
   'We hope to have an equitable distribution of land.'
  • Training and education in relation to land issues
  There is a general feeling that the post apartheid government will be under
 pressure to redistribute land and also to handle rural reconstruction. 'In
 order to avoid a scramble or conflict on how the demand for land is met, the
civic organisations should educate or give information to people on how to
make their demands.' 'There will be a period of time when the status quo has
to be sustained so that the economy does not go into recession. To achieve
this we have to, first, educate the people.' 'Education in relation to land issues
would be necessary to channel the pressures.'
 • Land question must not be viewed in isolation
 In organisations which might be described as having embarked on a process
of rural reconstruction, it is considered important to 'improve the quality of
life of the people spiritually, physically, materially and/or economically1
through such reconstruction.
 • Access to skills
    For some rurally-based organisations, the critical issues are not to be
defined in terms of redistribution of land but in the accessibility of skills. 'As
an agriculturalist, I do not foresee any change in land availability. As a
Christian I believe we will handle the land problem as one nation. The only
change which can be expected is in the allocation of resources, availability
of skills and expertise; help people by improving their agricultural skills. It
does not matter to whom the land belongs. There must be information
available and resources to manage land properly; extension services must not
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TRANSFORMATION                                              GCABASHE & MABIN
be restricted; qualified people in the country must be available to everybody,
(bantustan) boundaries have to be broken...'
 • A large role for the churches
  To set examples now: 'The church's own method of rural construction is
through the redistribution of resources and the transformation of the institu-
tions and power relations which are at the root of poverty. The church should
set an example of such redistribution and transformation. There are three
ways of achieving this and they are as follows: (a) Make people become
creative and responsible communities, (b) Make them enjoy security of
tenure, (c) Transform their social and economic situations, (d) Collaborate
with other organisations for political representation.'
 Encourage tenants to struggle for rights: 'On church land, the church is going
to be involved with developing its land and come up with a new land tenure
agreement for its tenants. But the land is registered under white people and
the tenants are black people. How are leases going to be released to black
people? This is still being researched. The tenants have formed themselves
into residence associations which have been encouraged by the church to
fight for their rights. Not only are people becoming organised on church land,
even in other places of the country . They are even starting to look at
proposed options for land reform.'
 • Necessity for fundamental change
  'But first what needs to be done is to have a change of government and
fundamental changes. By fundamental changes we mean, a change in the
economic system, social and legal systems. The basic crisis is caused by the
economic and the political systems derived from the superstructure. Second-
ly put the options to the people and get rid of the Land Acts.'
 • Nationalisation of land
 There is a strong general sense in favour of nationalising at least some land:
the owners usually mentioned include mining houses and multinational
corporations.
 • But some expect a continuing role for markets
   Some organisations responding do conceive of a market in land in the
post-apartheid future. 'People who have got money will be able to acquire
more land. Today, land is acquired that way and this will still hold in the
future.'
 • Some have concerns over the effects of nationalisation
   'Nationalisation in a post apartheid society would mean nationalising
everything with no compensation. With this type of reform the government
will have to guard against capital leaving the country. Look at what happened
in Mocambique and Angola. Land was nationalised skills and capital left the
country.'
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  • And there are fears that control over rural people will continue into the future
   There are those who fear government redistribution of the land under any
 system, but suggest that it should be left to 'the people' as 'it belongs to the
 people'.
  • Concern that redistribution should enhance production
   There is a strong body of thought that a future government should only be
 pressured to redistribute land and resources as long as 'good management
 principles are adhered to in using the land productively.'
  % Divergent views on the future role of chiefs
  There are extremely divergent views on the future appropriate role of chiefs
 in allocation of land. 'There are those people who feel that chiefs have been
 part and parcel of the oppression system, therefore we do not think that there
 are still any legitimate chiefs left. But if there are any left, then they will
 continue with the function.' If the tribal system were abolished 'there would
 be some resistance, because the tribal authority is still in control of the lives
 of rural people and they do not want interference from the outside.'
  • Organisations and leaders have creative ideas on other options
   For example, 'Transfer of ownership to tenants especially in farm areas is
 another option. This may happen in the Northern Transvaal because of
 absentee farmers. But the government is doing its best to resettle white
people on those abandoned farms. This may be for security reasons but we
do not know if it will work. This is an area which needs to be researched.'
  We have not yet succeeded in distilling any very systematic views on the land
question from oppositional organisations which might arguably be expected
to have some interest in the area. Continuing this research requires more
resources. But we have found that most oppositional organisations are not
well prepared for an era'in which negotiation over control of resources is
likely to accelerate, especially with respect to that most basic of resources:
land. The results of research and policy studies need to reach organisations
in a useful form if the latter are to play a powerful role in determining the
future of the land question.
  To conclude this paper, we suggest some areas of research which seem to
be needed if oppositional organisations are to participate successfully in a
political era in which land questions may become vital to negotiations.
   First, there are certain historical issues which would bear considerable
examination. Accounts of the division of land among South Africa's people
usually concentrate on the allocation of land to reserves, even though the
account given is incomplete. For example, the Surplus People Project book,
77ie Surplus People, (which in its own right is perhaps the most significant
and useful single volume on apartheid ever published) contains an excellent
summary of many steps along the road to creating today's divided land
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TRANSFORMATION                                              GCABASHE & MABIN
pattern. But at the same time it focusses on the creation and demarcation of
reserves (and the concomitant destruction of'black spots' [ie land owned or
sometimes controlled or exclusively occupied by Africans outside reserves])
almost to the exclusion of the processes which deprived Africans of legal,
technical and effective control over the land on which they lived.
   It is obviously correct that state action was responsible for much of the
dispossession which occurred, and some excellent illustrations are provided
in Tlie Surplus People. On the other hand, the position espoused in this paper
is that the establishment of private property in land was, to put it mildly, at
least as important as direct state action in depriving persons of control over
land. Of course, that establishment required for its enforcement a variety of
state actions. But those actions in themselves were not necessarily designed
to transfer control into the hands of whites as such. Those actions were at
once part of the 'scaffolding' (a term borrowed from Mamphela Ramphela
and Francis Wilson, 1988) which surrounded the construction of an apartheid
edifice, and more general than that: they are not in essence different from
actions designed to establish private property elsewhere in the world. The
silence in the South African land question literature on the complexity of
property relations follows from its exclusive concern with white state efforts
to constrain Africans' land access; the results include misunderstanding of
that process as part of a failure to pose the land question in anything
approaching its full complexity. As one of our respondents pointed out to us,
we cannot hope to avoid mistakes around the institutions of private property
in the future if we do not learn the lessons of the past.
  Present and past ownership, control, use and occupation patterns thus may
usefully be subjected to detailed scrutiny. In making such examinations,
several conventional distinctions between rural sectors will come under the
microscope, and some will have to be reformulated. One example has to do
with reserve/non-reserve distinction: one not to be treated lightly, for reason
of the protection which 'traditional tenure', however corrupted, has had
within bantustans and trust areas.
  Charles Simkins has pointed out the value of Merle Lipton questioning the
conventional thesis that 'there are two quite distinct agricultures in South
Africa: the efficient white capital intensive sector and the underdeveloped
 black sector ..." (in Simkins, 1984:22). Simkins suggested that three sectors
could usefully be distinguished, from the point of view of African rural
 incomes; but he maintained the distinction between reserves and white areas
 in so doing. Nevertheless, reason exists for arguing that part of the problem
 in conceptualising the land question has to do with the forced insistence on
 the maintenance of that invidious division (reserves and other) in the lit-
 erature. Several points indicate not only that the distinction is dubious but
                                        7i


  GCABASHE & MABIN                                               TRANSFORMATION
  also that so little is known about real life in the South African countryside as
  to render the assumption of the reserve/other division a dangerous imposi-
  tion on research and discussion.
   For example, Bethuel Setai noted in 1979 'It is striking that despite the large
  number of rural Africans, very little is known or written about them ...'
  (1979:128). One little-known aspect of rural life outside the reserves is the
 fact that for decades many white farms 'exported' not only permanent
 migrants to the towns and to the bantustans, but also temporary migrant
 labour. This point was recognised by Jill Nattrass (1980:105-9) but has
 remained grossly undeveloped. According to Nattrass's estimates about
 400 000 temporary labour migrants were engaged in urban work in 1970, a
 figure which compares with similar numbers from the bantustans, and from
 Lesotho, Mocambique and the rest of southern Africa. It is not clear what
 the statistical history of this labour supply was (Simkins showed that many
 Africans resident in white rural areas were not in farm employment), let
 alone how it arose or affected those involved. But it is abundantly clear from
 recent interview-based research that the nature of life on white farms and in
 the reserves has differed far less significantly, for a very substantial number
 of households, than usually supposed (or than apartheid tried to achieve).
 Greater differentiation almost certainly existed (and still does) among rural
 households on either side of bantustan boundaries than between the two sets.
 That general differentiation among rural households is increasing, as sug-
gested by Levin and Neocosmos (1989) and Levin and Weiner (1989), and
 as several local-level studies confirm (eg, Vaughan, 1990).
  Bantustan or reserve boundaries are, after all, rather odd lines. They do not
clearly separate, as the migrant labour point shows, discrete populations
from one another. Nor do they demarcate readily distinguished patterns of
ownership, tenure, land use or control, though some broad categories (sche-
duled areas, white ownership) may more or less coincide with them. Inside
the bantustans, together with considerable class differentiation, a great
complexity of ownership forms prevails. Letsoalo has shown this for Lebowa;
Jeppe demonstrates that well over half of the land in the Transvaal parts of
Bophuthatswana is privately owned, not state or trust controlled; in some
districts the proportion reaches 100%. The reserves cannot be characterised
as 'communal areas'. And indeed, what patterns of control, occupation and
use exist on land within the reserves is often not very different from what
happens on some land in white areas - including some land not at all adjacent
to reserve areas.
  The pattern which exists is partly due to the fact that the bantustans have
in considerable part been created on the basis of the scheduled areas of the
1913 Land Act - thus the boundaries of these artificial statelets are, as
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TRANSFORMATION                                                        GCABASHE & MABIN
Davenport says, really a result of an official fit of absence of mind. There is
precious little relation even between released areas under the 1936 Land Act
and the bantustans: for example, in the Dclareyville district of the western
Transvaal, the boundary of the Ditsobotla area of Bophuthatswana has
released area farms on both its sides.
  The enormous differences in access to and security in land which exist in
South Africa's rural areas conceal the still greater social variation. While this
paper has not concentrated attention on the latter point, it is obvious that
different but little understood interest groups form in rural society. To
understand the processes of class formation at work is vital. Obviously,
different groupings are likely to make and to articulate different demands,
and to seek different alliances.
  With these points in mind, the need to initiate substantial research into the
great variety of categories of rural land, of rural activity and indeed of rural
households becomes obvious. There are not simply two, three, four or even
five broad categories of land for which policies can readily be evolved: there
are myriad communities, great varieties of household types (with tremen-
dously varied patterns of linkage to urban and other rural areas), complex
variations of ownership, control and access; in combination these categories
speak of the need for a subtle and nuanced understanding of political and
policy implications. The differing problems, needs, opportunities and con-
straints within these categories must be understood. Research into such
questions must
 • be of the highest possible quality;
 • not only take into account the various potentials for production of
    different areas, as the Development Bank is doing, but
 • develop categories in consultation with and useful to organisations with
    interests in land questions and which may find themselves engaged in
    negotiations; and
 • be made available to organisations in forms which they can use both to
    inform themselves of issues and options, and to provide the basis of
    developing negotiating positions.
   In preparing to negotiate the land question, education, research and
training will prove essential elements along with organisation and mobilisa-
tion.
Notes
 • This paper was originally presented at the South Africa Education, Research and
Training (SAERT) workshop on the land question at the Agricultural University,
Waageningen, the Netherlands, in November 1989. We would like to thank respondents in
our research, participants at the workshop, and the Richard Ward Foundation at Wits
University for funding.
1. Sponsored by, among others, Anglo American related entities, First National Bank,
Anton Rupert, Chemical Bank, General Motors and IBM.
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GCABASHE & MABIN                                                            TRANSFORMATION
2. See Mabin, 1989, for an argument which places such remarks in the context of
contemporary urbanisation processes in South Africa.
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