PAC urges government to speed-up land redistribution

[anwar adams]

PAC urges government to speed-up land redistribution

Saturday 2 March 2013 18:16

SABC

PAC president Letlapa Mphahlele.(SABC)

Tags:

• PAC
• Land redistribution
• Letlapa Mphahlela
• Mthatha
• Military Veterans

The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) has applauded government for scraping the willing buyer, willing seller approach to land redistribution.

This comes after President Jacob Zuma announced the government will drop the principle when he was delivering his State of the Nation Address in Cape Town last month.

 PAC President Letlapa Mphahlele says what is left is for government to ensure that land goes back to the rightful owners.

Mphahlele made his comments during the election of a new leadership of Apla Military veterans in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape.

The PAC says land restitution is one the major things that will make Africans enjoy their democracy. It added that the majority of the land should be in the hands of Africans not the white minority.

"We are happy that government will be abandoning that policy but we have a bigger problem as PAC that there is still a constitution that glorifies property rights. The people have rights to something they stole. A lot of land was got through the barrel of the gun and of course that is why we are convinced that every title deed has blood on it,” says Mphahlele.

Meanwhile, Apla Military Veterans say they are worried that there are still hundreds of political prisoners who are still in jail.

 “What hurts us is that the present government is not ensuring that people who were part of the struggle are released. These people were fighting against apartheid and racial classification but till today they are in jail. This makes one wonder what democracy they fought for really is,” says William Sibakelo, Apla Veteran.  

The PAC has called for the empowerment of veterans through education and training in various skills.

The Department of Military Veterans says empowerment programmes are in the pipeline.

“We are at a very advanced stage of finalising agreements with the higher education and training department to allow veterans and their dependents to have access to education in state institutions,” says Department of Military Veterans’ Tsepe Modupi.

[Philip Copeman]

Ma-Afrika I have been a member of the PAC for 23 years. It pains me to see us "splashing about in the water like a cat that cannot swim", trapped by our own old age and fear of new ideas.  I am back  on this Land isssue not because I am some reactionary white colonialist, but simply because I love The PAC and want to see us succeed. This is dominated by my clear understanding of DEMOGRAPHICS and CONSUMPTION PATTERNS. Political parties FEED on VOTES.

I will caution you that to not heed the information below  is to risk LOSING EVEN THE SINGLE SEAT that we now have in Parliament!


1) THE LAND MESSAGE IS NO LONGER A PRIMARY ISSUE TO THE MAJORITY.

Please look at the attached tables of demographics on age distribution and housing.

For twenty years a democracy that has been supported and voted and won by the ANC with a 65% majority that has beaten us into a corner and defined the PAC as a rural reactionary spent force. They have beaten us because they have SUCESSFULLY DELIVERED housing to  a consituency far greater than that of The PAC. Scream as much as we like about what they have NOT done, but it is drowned by their success. The Scoreboard is simply ANC 65% PAC 1%. Ma-Afrika we are not even close enough for a penalty shoot out. This is what the Land issue has bought us.  This is not my opinion, this is the opinion of the voters. This is undescored time and time again in each election in which we continue down a path to irrelelvance, delivering a message that is driven  with an obstinacy born of fear of change. We have continued to cower behind an ageing ideology.

The message  "LAND" resdistribution becomes less and less relelevant, not because it is unimportant, but simply because fewer and fewer people are alive to care.

Continue with this line of thought MaAfrika and you consign Subukwe's legacy to the graveyard. I HAVE ASKED YOU ALL MANY TIMES TO EXAMINE THE CENSUS DATA . At the DA they have a TEAM to do this. Here only I do do it and nobody takes the time or effort to read the information. We are like drunken soldiers shooting aimlessley into the night "hoping" to hit the enemy.

Please consider these facts:

68% of voters live in urban areas
66% of South Africans live in Formal housing

ONLY those already living in formal housing are CAPABLE of hearing media messages about land. Those to who you are able to deliver The Land message have little interest in vacating their formal housing in exchange for Land.  IT is INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT that people seek. LAND is a nonproducing anomoly of the 20th century. It matters not that it was stolen or not stolen, what matters now is that it is NO LONGER RELEVANT TO THE VOTERS. Those that you wish to talk to have no facilitites to hear this message by modern media To those that can hear this message, everytime we  say it we apprear to be part of a group further and further out of touch with the realities of recessionary South Africa

2) The PAC cannot grow unless we have a message relevant to a larger Demographic Group

Market research shows that the Majority of the Voters are under the age of 40 their primary concern is EDUCATION, FAIR EMPLOYMENT. LAND is not a feature to them.

3) The TRADIONAL SUPPORT FOR The PAC IS DYING PHYSICALLY.

Every week the death columsn are filled with with peoples names to whom the Land Issue is relevant. To continue with a line of thinking focused on the needs of a few is to purposedly choose the path to irrelevance. Our current strategy is moving us down from support of 1% to EVEN LESS!

I enclose a table of Western Cape Data to show that less that 25% OF THE VOTERS are over 50. Census data shows this to be mirrored on all provinces.More than any other group, this is group is subsided by the ANC. IT IS POLITICAL SUICIDE TO BUILD A CAMPAIGN TARGETED AT THE MAIN BENEFACTORS OF ANC PATRONAGE.

4) Putting it into Context.

The PAC has a Voter support base of 45 000.  THere are 45 000 people to who Presumably Land is important, Each year 500 000 school leavers enter the labor market. We can continue talking about Land to the 50 000 or we can talk to the 500 000 about something totally new - EDUCATION and EMPLOYMENT -  to  a consituency that is 10 times the size of what we have. The Youth is growing in numbers the old are dying in numbers. One way leads to growth the other way leads to shrinkage.


IN EMPHASISISNG THE LAND ISSUE we are carrying a historical message to people that are no longer alive to hear and certainly not in a position to vote on the matter. MAKE THE MESSAGE RELEVANT TO THE LIVING or bury the PAC.

YOU CAN CHOOSE TO TAKE SUBUKWES REVOLUTION INTO THE 21st Century or you can choose to RUN  A POLITICALLY FOCUSED BURIAL SOCIETY.

Ma-Afrika the fate of the PAC is in your hands.

[Philip Copeman]

Mafrika Philip

 

I understand your argument, but I hold a different view. Firstly the land question should be understood in the following interrelated contexts.

 

1. Historical aspect- Land dispossession which started from 1652 – 1913 -1936 – 1996 constitution protected accumulation that took effect since the era of Dutch – British classic & settler colonialism, post 1994 the 1996 SA constitution protected white minority capitalist accumulation of land including everything below, on and above ground (soil) such historic injustice in which the indigenous African majority had been subjugated remain unresolved. Land should be expropriated and nationalised there should be no private ownership of land. This implies resolution of the historical national question which remain unresolved todate!

 

2. Political Economic aspect – Land is the basis in which Primary sectors of the economy arises that is mining and agriculture as matters stand both mining and agricultural sectors are privately owned and since the South African economy is capitalist thus responds to market demand, these sectors are shrinking significantly since early 1990’s and some companies in this sector have shifted from labour intensive production methods to capital intensive methods since profit is the motive factor, this explains why there has been a massive increase of job losses and employment coefficient is below zero.
   1. Second related aspect to Political economy is that the Manufacturing industry of South Africa is primarily a demand based- export orientated and does not prioritise national imperatives. The Neo-liberal economic models have failed and continues to fail hence no 5 million jobs will be created by end of 2014 Zuma’s term. A determined democratic people’s government can open a drug company to manufacture the required HIV/Aids medicines/pills massively to save many lives in the country and Africa as a whole but HIV/Aids has been subjected to the same principles and dictates of a free market system of demand and supply based on profit generation irrespective of many lives lost!
   2. Thirdly, education and training including skills are driven by the market demand trajectory of the South African capitalist economic system thus this explains the disjuncture of an education system from socio-economic development national imperatives; Also education and training has been commodified and linked to profit generating market paradigm hence the vast majority of young people are facing exclusion from colleges and universities on yearly basis;
   3. Fourth aspect linked to political economy is labour, as stated that the ideological orientation of the South African economy is capitalist thus employment will only rise if there will be a high demand of products and services peculiar to South Africa and SA has a competitive advantage but our 20 years SA experience tells us that people had been misled by a dishonest and self-serving comprador bourgeoisie who kept on promising people employment and more jobs when reality is to the contrary. Capitalism and white supremacy with some black chocolate sprinkled on the white foam, are ideologies of the ruling class thus dominant ideas are those of the ruling capitalist class colluding with agents of neo-colonialism. The PAC must respond without contradiction to this ideo-social construct.
   4. Land for residential and recreational purpose, there country is facing housing problems including absence for recreational facilities to create solid unified communal lives whereat one is his/her brothers/sisters keeper!

3.      The State, seizure of the State machinery is central to advance social transformation, the Party has not applied itself what and how to transform the State Machinery as an instrument to drive social change and emancipation. The ANC adopted the same capitalist and white supremacist state machinery which was designed to oppress and exploit and subject the African majority into a permanent state of servitude.

Externally thrust of the party on this aspects is either poorly focused or non-existing hence all election the PAC performance has been dwindling but the last elections both national and local government, the PAC performance has been worse simply because the party is inadequately prepared on these key fundamental policy and ideological issues.

 

4. The limitation of the PAC has been the following:-
   1. Party ideological and theoretical orientation namely Pan Africanism has been suffocated by consistent actions of depriving party members to reflect and ensure there is a common understanding as to what do we mean about Pan Africanism. Regrettably some have reduced Pan Africanism to be a political theory that represents nationalist bourgeoisie democratic aspirations which is not the case Pan Africanism stands for total liberation and unification of Africa on a socialist programme thus ushering an era whereat the African majority democratically led by the African workers to enable realisation of the right to national self determination. Pan Africanism constitute part of the world struggle against imperialism and white supremacy. PAC national leadership being unable to articulate coherently on Pan Africanism amidst what we observe daily in Mali, Somali, Afrophobia (Xenophobia), recolonisation of Africa by China and America etc.

 

2. Party programme, the 1959 Pan Africanist Manifesto requires a committed and disciplined organisation to craft a strategy and plan of action for its implementation, absence of strategies and plan of actions implies that the whole party is subjectively led based on subjective interests of those in leadership supported by their own preferred group of members. Many aspects remain relevant in the 1959 Pan Africanist Manifesto.

 

 

3. Organisation, the Party has become scattered and uncoordinated structurally and systematically. If the party does not function and act similar to a living organism composed of cells-organs-sub-systems which are interrelated and complement each other to make one whole system thus a Party, those occupying positions of leadership are effectively reduced to position holders incapable to effect any public opinion. Our task is to ensure that the party systematic political work is based on clear plans of action we must politically educate the people instead of depending on media and other private means to spread ideas and positions of PAC. The Party should build its own organisational capability to spread its own ideas among the people, to organise and mobilise the masses for action.

 

 

The three above aspects are interrelated and influence each other dialectically. They are mainly internal aspects which enable the party to focus vividly on external aspects.

 

Poor message or no message at all to the people from the Party is as a result of all the above aspects have not been given adequate in-depth particularly post 1990 , 1994 including to-date. Kindly note my argument is PAC chasing votes to increase more seats without a clear purpose of existence is not only risky and naïve but tends to serve the interests imperialist and white supremacy.

 

Apology for typographic errors !

 

Regards

 

Nkrumah Raymond Kgagudi

[Philip Copeman]

These stastics are an indication that voters are not interested in PAC’s interpretation of the land question and who owns what percentage, how much land the Africans have lost through colonization. 

If our guys cannot come with counter statistics and counter arguments on contemporary politics then hard luck for us in the coming elections.

Our guys like good English without substance and that annoys me to the bone.

How many of us are prepared to resign their jobs and work for the party? Alternatively who has ever offered to donate a percentage of his salary so that party programmes tabulated by Nkrumah are sustained.

Party programmes need sales people to sell them, need researchers to play around with statistics as you have done so that organizers can be able to have a clear programme of action to execute.

The party need full time political thinkers to strategise on a daily basis and by so doing they are able to build a strong team of PAC lobbyists that are to drive public opinion without wearing a party cap.

 

I support your views 110%.

 

Rgds    

 

Vincent Mfundisi

Sabc News

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[Philip Copeman]

a href="mailto:[e-mail]" target="_blank">[e-mail]> wrote:

MoAfrika, land is the cornerstone of the african life. The PAC was formed on the basis of rhe land issue. The articulation of the land issue to the voters its what need to be revised. For land is money. Land is life. Nothing can come into being without land. As PAC we need to breakdown the land issue to simplicity, I.e. How land becomes money, your Gold, diamond, platinum. How land becomes jobs, education, health, social activity etc.

[Philip Copeman]

MY answer to Bonang

Bonang - Read Subukwes opening speech of 1959. Land is NOT the central issue of the PAC, African Unification is the central issue. The rise of the Land issue came with the dominance by Socialsits of the PAC in the latter half of the 20th century. These people are now dying! The future of Africa belongs to the sub 30s. Listen to what they are saying.

In 1994 I was part of the committee that changed our PAC slogan from One Settler One Bullet to One Family One Plot - A spectacualr electoral failure. It is just as likely to fail again.

Land may once have been the cornerstone of African Life it is no longer so. That is a dream of a life long gone,

Don't take my opinion. Ask young people -  it comes through again and again in surveys. Thay want education and fair employment.  The voters are the customer. Ignore them at  the peril of obsurity.