Reddit mentions of Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities (African Issues)

Bantu Biko once wrote the following words:

> Black Consciousness seeks to show the black people the value of their own standards and outlook. It urges black people to judge themselves according to these standards and not to be fooled by white society who [sic] have white-washed themselves and made white standards the yardstick by which even black people judge each other

I know this might seem irrelevant. However, if you look at the article the author seems to compare African countries to the West and some countries in Asia. This, on its own, is not a problem. However, in such endeavours one cannot ignore the culture, history and what goes on in these countries. For instance, on the Zimbabwe issue, I am currently reading Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities and things are not as simple as this guy makes it seem. They are actually becoming more complicated with the current drought that is facing both Zim and South Africa.


I didn't want to judge this man from this one article so I decided to Google his other articles to get a sense of the type of person he is.

I came across the following:

> There are indeed some "clever" blacks who think they are better; but, in reality, they are simply ignorant

> Successful black people don"t buy books. White people know this. When they plan shopping malls for black communities, they do not include book shops.

> if the "clever" blacks are serious about their claim of superiority, why have they accepted Mercedes Benz as a symbol of prestige?

All of the above statements are just from one article.

African countries have issues, one cannot deny that. For instance, Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
paints a beautiful and scary picture about certain leaders in African states. However, this man obviously still needs to learn about himself and about the continent. I see why he appeals to certain people here though. I see where he is coming from, however, his reasoning worries me.

Postcolonial land restitution and redistribution schemes in former settler colonies are a related but somewhat special case to the ones indicated above. In the cases of Zimbabwe and South Africa (the ones I know best) there are two issues at work: first, figuring out what the original title to the land was; second, figuring out whether or not that title was uprooted in a way one might consider "just." John Weaver talks about this in The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World 1650-1900 (2003), a very valuable book if you haven't read it. The case of Zimbabwe arguably went south so quickly because the colonial-era landholders dragged their feet on redistribution to the point that they became the first target for Mugabe when he came under pressure from rural agitation. He could paint them as the problem, and people would agree with him, because they were always the problem, right? The redistribution was handled haphazardly and with very little concern for accuracy or proper claims determination as you know, with a lot of big estates handed over to cronies who might sublease parts or simply do nothing with them. A fair bit of land was however put in the hands of families, but they did not have the inputs or the institutional support to make the land produce, even if they had the knowledge. South Africa's been a better case so far, but everyone eyeballs Zimbabwe for differing reasons. Jocelyn Alexander, The Unsettled Land (2006), is essential reading for the fraught history of land in Zimbabwe since 1893. She's got another study coauthored that's coming out this year, on the Fast Track program itself. You can also see Ian Scoones, ed., Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities (2010) for some more specific discussion. Cherryl Walker and a variety of others are working on the issues surrounding land in South Africa, which I also study (the 1800s alienation end, not the restitution end) but I don't want to belabor that literature here. It's a moving target.

[Edit: Added links.]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zimbabwes-Land-Reform-Realities-African/dp/1847010245/

https://theconversation.com/land-reform-is-a-zimbabwe-success-story-it-will-be-the-basis-for-economic-recovery-under-mnangagwa-88205