A voice of reason.
White people didn’t steal the land – they bought it: Lekota
Staff Writer11 April 2017
....Lekota said that the claim that white people ‘stole the land’ from black people in South Africa is not correct, and that land ownership in the country is determined through decades of buying, selling and negotiation.
According to Lekota, land ownership was not even a concept until white colonists arrived in the Cape and Natal, when they introduced title deeds. This formalised land ownership, and has ultimately made it possible for anyone to acquire land today.
Before title deeds, land was simply occupied, Lekota said, and
the black majority who now claim the land as theirs were not even the original occupiers, having come from the “great lakes” to the north.
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We, the so-called Bantu speaking South Africans, came from the North, from the Great Lakes, we over ran territory here which was occupied by the Khoi and the San. There was no title, we just occupied that land,” he said.
“We were not even the original residents here. The people we call Baroa, the People of the South – Ba boroa, the People of the South, it’s the Khoi, the people we found here.”
Lekota said that the Khoi people sold the land or negotiated with Cape settlers to work out ownership.
The COPE leader acknowledged that land was forcibly taken from black people in South Africa through the 1913 Land Act – and these cases needed to be dealt with as per the Constitution – but this could not be used as the basis from taking all land from white people in the country.
“Even when the land was taken under the 1913 Land Act, nobody could just say ‘I’m white I must get a piece of land’, they had to buy it,” Lekota said.
Lekota said that title deeds make it easier to identify who owns which piece of land, adding that if land is simply taken, there is no system in place to determine who should get it.
“If you took any land in this country, take any land from the white people, which black families will you give that land to? And which will not get? Because you won’t be able to give each and every one of the families. You must have criteria,” he said.
The COPE leader said that black people should rid themselves of the view that all white people walking around own land – and those that do, bought it. The government can take the land back from them – but only if it shows a title deed saying “this is my land”.
White people didn’t steal the land – they bought it: Lekota