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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Nothing's really happening yet and I suspect it'll be a long while before anything does, or I would have heard more about it from friends there.

From the little I know, there are massive lists of people without land that are waiting to be given land by the government. Some people get them, but as with government things, if you sweeten the deal it will help.

I think the land will be used in different ways. Politicians and capitalists will always be lining their pockets with money and land, but realistically some substantial portion of people will get small land (if this actually goes down in any substantial way once they've done watering it down).

The South African state already owns a huge amount of land that it does nothing with, that it could allocate to people. For the most part it seems to me that the ANC has taken on the land expropriation direction to remove any of the reason to vote EFF, who didn't have much else going for them.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

So far as anarchists go, there are already groups that are interested in occupying land without asking permission or relying on laws - Abahlali baseMjondolo - that we can support.

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didiDIDI wrote

Zikode's speech here covers the ground: https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/the-politics-of-the-expropriation-of-land-without-compensation-in-south-africa-sbu-zikode/

The ANC’s new talk about ‘expropriation of land without compensation’ is a new voting campaign for the ruling party that aims at attracting black majority voters. The ruling party has lost its credibility with millions of people. It is hoping that this campaign will restore its credibility. But when they talk of expropriation as taking land from white farmers we know that land will go to black elites. We know that at the same time impoverished black people will be violently driven off urban land occupations in unlawful and brutal evictions. Democratically organised land occupations from below will continue to be criminalised.

It was surprising for me also to see the 'news' on this website that the government here was taking the land, because that's not what's happening. By my best guess there is going to be an endlessly long bureaucratic process that will amount to very little becoming possible and even less being done. We'll see.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

'news'

I thought so! I wonder what other bullshit finds its way to white audiences overseas.

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ziq OP wrote

Is the land they're sitting on forest land? It could be they don't give it to farmers because it would lead to mass deforestation.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

There are forests in SA, but it's more savanna and desert afaik. I don't expect that the kind of land being taken from white capitalist farmers will not be forest.

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