One morning last July, Stefan Smit, a white farmer in South Africa’s wine-making region, woke up to find that overnight his vineyard had essentially been invaded. In a matter of hours, impoverished residents of a nearby black township had showed up on his land, cleared weeds, and put up 40 shacks to live in.
“We see that land, we must take that land,” said Zola Ndlasi, 44, the man who led the takeover, as he walked among the new shacks. By the end of August, nearly a thousand shacks spread across Smit’s property.
And with that, Smit’s farm, about 30 miles east of Cape Town, became yet another battleground in a bitter political fight that continues to split this nation. The key question: Who owns South Africa’s land?
White South Africans, who account for only 8 percent of the population, control much of the country’s economy a generation after the end of apartheid. Many of their black neighbors are still struggling to acquire a tiny patch of earth on which to build a shack. Blacks make up more than 80 percent of South Africa’s 58 million people.
A quarter-century after a historic election transformed South Africa from white rule to a true democracy, the nation has made enormous strides in some areas but still faces huge challenges in others.
One morning last July, Stefan Smit, a white farmer in South Africa’s wine-making region, woke up to find that overnight his vineyard had essentially been invaded. In a matter of hours, impoverished residents of a nearby black township had showed up on his land. They had cleared weeds and put up 40 shacks to live in.
“We see that land, we must take that land,” said Zola Ndlasi, 44, the man who led the takeover, as he walked among the new shacks. By the end of August, nearly a thousand shacks spread across Smit’s property.
And with that, Smit’s farm, about 30 miles east of Cape Town, became yet another battleground in a bitter political fight that continues to split this nation. The key question: Who owns South Africa’s land?
White South Africans account for only 8 percent of the population. They control much of the country’s economy a generation after the end of apartheid. Many of their black neighbors are still struggling to get a tiny patch of earth on which to build a shack. Blacks make up more than 80 percent of South Africa’s 58 million people.
It’s been a quarter-century since a historic election transformed South Africa from white rule to a true democracy. The nation has made enormous strides in some areas. But it still faces huge challenges in others.