LETTER: EFF, MK ignore reality of manifesto proposals

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Publication title: Business Day: Web Edition Articles (Johannesburg, South Africa)

It cannot be denied that this call should resonate with the millions of black people who live in poverty. Amplifying this resonance is the fact that most of those not living in poverty but enjoying property and security are a distinct and small minority — whites. Sealing the promise are two ideas: whites are not African and SA's land belongs to black South Africans

The manifesto of the MK party frames the latter idea as one of "our birthright reclaiming". Fundamental to this view is that the land should belong to the people who were here originally, not those who came from beyond the shores of SA.

Neither the MK nor the EFF say whites do not belong here; their contention is that those whites who have settled here are "land thieves" who used their superior power to dispossess black people.

To remedy this land theft, all land must be owned by the state and all private sector companies nationalised and present agreements with the state be scrapped. The state will take control of every part of the economy so the people of SA, black and white, benefit from the regulations and programmes it introduces.

With the premise that "poverty, inequality and unemployment stem... from the theft of land and minerals", the MK believes the state owning all the means of production will eradicate those three evils.

To back its ideas MK references land reform measures taken by South Korea and Japan, among other countries. With the obvious wealth that both of these nations now enjoy, it would seem that such land redistribution must work.

However, there is no mention that after both the second world war and the Korean War the US gave enormous and ongoing amounts of financial aid to these countries, both of which also had a strong educational footing.

Nor is it mentioned that in the case of South Korea, huge companies such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai were instrumental in creating prosperity within the nation and were...