Abstracts

38 Free State and the Transvaal) to form the Union of South Africa (Leacock, 1910). In 1913, the Union passed the Natives Land Act, which prohibited Africans from owning or purchasing 93% of South African land. The remaining 7% was designated as reserves in which Africans might reside. Although Boer and British colonial activity originated African land dispossession, the Natives Land Act legally ensured both white monopolization of the land and the long-term entrenchment of black South African poverty (Modise & Mtshiselwa, 2013). The lasting impact of the Natives Land Act is signified by the current Constitution’s use of 1913 as the date after which dispossessed South Africans are ineligible for restitution (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa [Constitution], 1996). In 1936, the Union of South Africa– established South African Native Trust was to further entrench the national system of segregation. Strong anti-squatting provisions were included to reduce sharecropping and catalyze the forced relocation of black farmers to the reserves (Feinberg & Horn, 2009, pp. 42, 47, 55–56). The election of 1948 increased the rate and magnitude of discriminatory policy in South Africa as the Union Party lost power to D.F. Malan’s National Party. The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951 instituted fines and imprisonment for illegal squatting and created a legal pathway for the forced removal of squatters (Union of South Africa, 1951). The Natives Resettlement Act of 1954 enabled government officials to forcibly remove any land-owning Africans in the Johannesburg region, regardless of their legal rights (Union of South Africa, 1954). Under its 1996 Constitution, postapartheid South Africa has a moral and legal duty to provide historical redress. The deep scarring perpetuated by discriminatory and dispossessive legislation necessitates meaningful land reform policy in order for South Africa to move forward. However, more than 25 years after the end of apartheid, the dispossession of natives’ land and spatial dislocation continue to lock most black South Africans into poverty with limited space for socioeconomic mobility. The spiritual and economic disconnects from the land perpetrated by the Union of South Africa are the foundational justification for EWC. Political History of EWC The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, founded in 2013, was the first major supporter of an EWC amendment. The EFF is self-described as a radical, left, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist political party. The EFF lists “Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation for equal redistribution” as the first of “Seven Non-negotiable Cardinal Pillars” (EFF, 2014). The EFF’s founding manifesto proposes that all South African land be put under state custodianship, which would require land occupants to apply for 25- year leases on the land (EFF, 2013). Since its founding, the EFF has become a legitimate threat to the political dominance of the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC is South Africa’s dominant postapartheid political party. The ANC’s conception of what EWC should mean remains unclear and variable. At the 2017 National Conference of the ANC, then–Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa challenged then-President Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma for the ANC Presidency. Dlamini-Zuma represented the term-limited President Jacob Zuma’s faction of the ANC. Ramaphosa became President of the ANC, and subsequently of South Africa, after Zuma’s February 2018 resignation. As a price to pay for political power, Ramaphosa was forced to accept EWC in the 2017 ANC Constitution. 1 South African political expert R.W. Johnson describes how the Ramaphosa administration was backed into endorsing EWC. Johnson identified a key pattern in former President Zuma’s political response to criticism. Zuma would “tack to the left, promising ‘radical economic transformation’ and attempting to throw all the blame on ‘white monopoly capital’ ” (Johnson, 2019, p. 29). As the South African economy was shriveling, the extent of his corruption surfacing, and his popularity disintegrating, it made political sense for Zuma to co-opt the EFF’s flagship 1 The ANC 2017 Constitution is equivalent to its party platform.