Words matter. They need to be precise, accurate and meaningful – all of the things we’re taught at school and which journalists try and practice. Sometimes, though, words take on a life of their own and become an obstacle.
Land reform is a case in point. For many, if not all, South Africans, it’s a highly charged phrase. On one side, it evokes apartheid oppression, forced removals and dispossession, along with the 1913 Native Land Act and the fact that since 1994, not much seems to have changed. On another side, the words raise the spectre of Zimbabwean land invasions, forced removals and brutal dispossession of a different kind.
There is very little middle ground and despite ongoing government rhetoric, very little progress, except in small pockets of the country. More legislation is in the pipeline, and expert observers tell me it is dangerously contradictory.
So perhaps the time has come to ditch the phrase ‘land reform’ and reframe the conversation in a way that would unblock the process?
The idea comes from Tongaat Hulett CEO Peter Staude. Wouldn’t it be better, he asked, if instead of discussing ‘land reform’, we started speaking about improving the lives of people who live in rural areas? Of taking actions that would uplift such people and gain them a better standard of living?
Speaking earlier this week at GIBS, the Johannesburg business school, Staude suggested that such a formulation could be a lot less contentious. More important, he added, it’s simple, clear and obvious and something that the country could quickly agree on and rally round.
He was quick to point out that he was not suggesting that the land reform process per se was wrong, nor that the phrase itself was a bad one. It was simply a set of words that was causing an obstruction, a blockage, in what he referred to as a broader conversation between government, business and – in Tongaat Hulett’s case – several thousand small, black sugar cane farmers in Kwa Zulu Natal. He also stressed that he was not suggesting this as a way to duck the issue of land ownership. This, said Staude, had to remain very clearly on the table.
Staude’s big on conversations. He used the word a number of times during a 90-minute… well, conversation with his audience. He reminded them that if the challenge to overcome obstacles for the upliftment of poor black people in rural areas was not addressed, we would see increased disenchantment, higher risk of social upheaval and uncontrolled urbanization.
That’s the kind of conversation which no-one wants to see progress, so Staude’s point about reframing the conversation is a vital one.
Staude made another telling point, which caused a number of audience members to squirm, your correspondent included. He used a sporting metaphor, suggesting that when it came to South Africa’s problems, there were many, many firms and individuals sitting in the stands, watching the game. Like spectators the world over, we all have opinions and views on how the game ought to be played, and we express those views vociferously. But there were very few real players down on the pitch, said Staude, meaning companies and people actively facing really difficult questions, involved in searching for solutions and sometimes even achieving results.
The evidence Staude presented to the GIBS forum showed that Tongaat Hulett is very much ‘down on the pitch’. The work it does with small black farmers, allied to low-cost housing projects like Cornubia in Umhlanga, or starter housing near Durban’s Gateway Shopping Mall, reveal a very committed corporate ‘player’, actively ‘on the pitch’.
Staude’s challenge to his audience, unspoken but hanging clearly in the air: once the conversation is reframed, are you going to remain sitting in the stands? Shouldn’t you come and join us down on the pitch?