[WA-News] Intersections - Covering Gender & the WCAR NGO Forum

[jradloff at iafrica.com]

Intersections – Covering Gender @ the WCAR NGO Forum, Durban 2001
Issue 2 – Part 1
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Items in Issue 2 – Part 1

1. People’s Reaction
By Xolie Langa

2. Poverty, Gender and Landlessness in South Africa
By Samantha Hargreaves from the National Land Committee

3. No resolution but vital work done at Youth Summit 
By Samira Bayat, Happy Mzaca and Thobani Gumede
============================================

People’s Reaction
By Xolie Langa

The world community currently gathered in Durban has been mingling as if they 
have always known each other. The atmosphere is  alive with electricity.

There is no doubt that  everyone who has come to Durban for the World 
Conference Against Racism (WCAR) is wanting a change. Shortly before the 
opening ceremony, songs of jubilation were being sung in the stadium. When Mary 
Robinson of the United Nations took the stand and announced the issue of 
Palestine was to be discussed , the stadium errupted in applause.

We asked some participants in the stadium what they thought of the conference:
Joel Jones of Atlanta, USA said, '' I think with South Africa being a new 
democracy, they need to hold this kind of event.  I have found the people of 
Durban to be very friendly'.'

Keith Malo from Nigeria said he felt all the bad publicity  South Africa has 
been getting in the media is uncalled for. ''I almost didn't come, only to find 
this is a visitor friendly city'.'
Many people said they expected to be mugged upon arriving, only to find people 
who want to help them.

Mussafa Abdull from Egypt said  he hoped the conference would find a solution 
to the problems of Palestine,''It has been going on for a long time and it is 
about time it stopped. I hope it happens on African soil.''
====================================

Poverty, Gender and Landlessness in South Africa
By Samantha Hargreaves from the National Land Committee

Land is a precious resource for sustenance and livelihood. It is crucial to the 
preservation and development of culture and identity, and to have place to 
call “home”. This remains a distant hope for millions of poor, black, rural 
women in South Africa today. In the past seven years of our new democracy, 
black rural women have stood alongside their male kin and brethren, awaiting 
the restoration of land systematically taken from black people during 
colonialism and apartheid. Since 1994, South Africa has seen a mere 2% of land 
transferred from whites to blacks through the land reform programmes of 
government. Land ownership patterns are still highly skewed - about 85% of land 
remains in the hands of white people who constitute only 11% of the total 
population!

Racially skewed land ownership patterns are the legacy of almost 350 years of 
colonialism and apartheid. The state has sought to address it through a market-
based land reform programme in which it plays a small minimalist role. This 
land policy operates within and is shaped by a neo-liberal macro-economic 
policy that has come under serious criticism by progressive forces of civil 
society. This policy is responsible for the increased unemployment, low 
investment in social infrastructure and resource redistribution programmes like 
land reform, as well as higher prices for basic services.  The combination of 
these factors has had particularly devastating consequences for poor urban and 
rural women.

Land reform is framed by a constitutional commitment by which government must 
respect and protect existing property rights. This “property rights” clause 
means that land will only become available on a “willing buyer - willing 
seller” basis, and further guarantees that existing land-owners will be 
compensated  - at market rates – for any privately owned land the government 
targets for land redistribution. In establishing the legal framework within 
which land reform would occur, the constitution gave force and effect to a 
continued racially skewed pattern of land ownership established over centuries 
of colonisation and apartheid. This constitutional commitment has placed real 
legal and financial constraints on a potentially far-reaching programme of land 
redistribution. Instead of bringing about substantive changes in land 
distribution, the land reform programme – as far as the poor and landless rural 
communities are concerned - serves to further reproduce a legacy of racially-
based discrimination and oppression.

Racism - and the land distribution pattern created by it - was actively 
advanced by successive colonial and apartheid governments. Since the arrival of 
the colonists on the shores of South Africa in 1652, a battery of laws and 
institutions forced and legitimated the annexation of indigenous land and 
coerced Africans off their land so as to provide labour to white-owned mines 
and farms. 

Colonisation had particular consequences and effects for African women. 
Successive colonial and apartheid laws barred African women from migrating to 
urban centres and condemned them to barren areas reserved for exclusive 
occupation by Africans. Through African custom, African women were also 
prevented from gaining independent rights and access to land, giving rise to a 
gendered pattern of landholding within former reserves or homeland areas.

The highly unequal and racially-based as well as sexist distribution of land 
must be eradicated if we are to defeat racism and the increasing feminisation 
of poverty. This can only be achieved if the state plays an active and 
interventionist role. With its heavily reliance on the market, the state’s 
current programme of land reform will not correct the enormous social and 
economic imbalances of the past. Poor, black rural women, who live on the 
fringes of society with minimal access to resources, education and 
organisation, are most disadvantaged by a neo-liberal, market oriented land 
reform programme.  

The relentless process of land dispossession suffered by black people has not 
been uncontested. In the midst of massive state intervention to deprive black 
people of their land, communities and individuals have tenaciously struggled to 
defend their rights to land. This struggle for land remains a feature today. 
Communities are using a wide range of tools and strategies, including the 
threat of actual land occupations, to assert their need for land and register 
their concern about the slow delivery of land reform.

Poor rural women and men are grasping the nettle, setting the agenda, and 
determining the parameters of a new programme for land reform that will 
fundamentally recast the social and economic landscape in South Africa. It is 
struggle, forged and fought from below, as well as centred on the experiences 
and needs of the poorest rural women, that will see the racist and sexist 
legacy of our past soundly defeated.

Support the Landlessness=Racism campaign by joining us at the Landless People’s 
Assembly on the 30th August at Hoy Park, 9:00am to 6:00pm and March with Us to 
Demand Real Land Reform on the 31st August, beginning at Natal Technikon, 
10:00am.

===================
No resolution but vital work done at Youth Summit 
By Samira Bayat, Happy Mzaca and Thobani Gumede

The WCAR youth Summit, held on the 26th and 27th August at the Elangeni Hotel 
in Durban, ended yesterday without the adoption of a final Declaration or 
Programme of Action. However, a work in progress was handed to the UN 
Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson at the closing ceremony of the 
Summit.

Failure to reach a resolution on a final document can be attributed to the fact 
that consensus was not reached on some issues and proposals for amendments were 
still being put forward. The plan now is to hold a series of meetings to help 
resolve the issues and amendments that are outstanding so that an official 
document can be adopted. 

At the last meeting, held prior to the closing of the Summit last night, 
delegates raised some concerns about the way forward as well as the follow-up 
mechanisms to be put into place. The main concern was that the written 
recommendations would not be translated into practice once delegates returned 
to their home countries. The general consensus on this, repeated by many 
delegates from around the world, was that the Summit would be rendered an 
exercise in futility, unless, it was backed up by concrete forms of action and 
practical application.

Although the outcome of the Youth Summit did not include a final resolution, 
there was agreement that the work that had been done was of vital importance. 
The responsibility now shifts to each delegate who participated in the process 
to take the message back home and ensure that some practical value comes from 
it. 

[End Issue 2 Part 1]



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