South Africa march is about race, says academic

A march in Auckland against South African land appropriation is indeed about race, says a leading academic, despite event organisers’ claims to the contrary

The March for South Africa, which will start at Auckland Town Hall, will protest against the repatriation of white-owned South African land after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on August 2 that the Government would be working towards land expropriation.

On Tuesday, the ANC announced in a tweet that the bill in question, the Expropriation Bill, would be re-introduced to Parliament once a constitutional review was completed.

The Auckland protest’s organisers were unavailable for comment, but the event’s Facebook page describes white South Africans as an oppressed minority.

“This is not a rally based on race . . . We do realise that the South African Government has targeted the ‘whites’ with the land grab but it will affect all,” it says.

However, Avril Bell – a sociologist from the University of Auckland – says that while white people have always been a minority in South Africa, they have also, until recently, been among the most dominant and the wealthiest.

“Race is involved fundamentally,” she says.

Currently, White South Africans make up 9 per cent of South Africa’s population but own 72 per cent of the country’s land according to the most recent Land Audit Report.

The system of apartheid in the second half of the 20th century was essential to this, says associate-professor Bell.

Under the apartheid system, which existed from 1948 until 1994, “black people were given the worst land”, and the post-apartheid government didn’t really disrupt that, she says.

March for South Africa will take place on Sunday September 2 outside Auckland Town Hall at 12noon.