We can all understand why the ANC would be angry about the piece. I mean, the proportions are clearly WAY out, and I’m sure painting the Presidential member is always going to be a stiff issue amongst the ruling party.. Regardless, we’re all missing the fundamental problem with Murray’s work here. Place on the berets now…

… The majority of the painting is a crude copy of Lenin’s infamous poster during the 1917 Revolution (the first image)

Now. If we ignore the main thrust of Murray’s painting and focus on the other bits of the painting, there is a comparison, whether intentional or nay, to Lenin. I don’t think anyone with a smidgen of political science rattling around in their heads would liken Zuma to Lenin. One was the grandfather of Soviet Communist ideology as we know it, united a people and a party, and was an architect for society numbering in the hundreds of millions, if not billions if we include China, and the other had a rape trial, married lots of women, divided his party and split the people along political battle lines. The comparison implied by Murray is quite simply horrid. Although I suppose there is an argument to be made that both were responsible for removing otherwise-indifferent heads of state by forceful politicking, but somehow I suspect during all the cock-and-balls painting Murray was not paying attention to that.

Forget taking it down because its audacity offends the ANC. Take it down because its ignorance offends history.

Now granted we would probably need to pop in on a Friday or Saturday night to get a more accurate reflection of the building and its surrounds, but first impressions were lasting… and not all for the good.

The lone encounter we had with a Ponte City letting agent was obviously a pleasant one, but almost every other pale South African had a look of shock and horror on their faces when the name Ponte was spoken about. Smash & grabs were mentioned, references to the three, four, no… five story rubbish dump in the centre of the building were made, and more often than not, that most precious of minerals was emphasised – that of our white skins.

This topic not only comes up when entering these outskirts of Hillbrow, but in almost area or topic of conversation where white people are not in the majority – which is pretty much most places in South Africa, if you haven’t noticed! Of course there are “safe havens” for the paler of the species, they tend to be the access-controlled suburbs and cluster bombs we stay in, as well as the bomb shelter-like buildings that we frequent so often known as malls; of course we feel safe here because we’re usually in the majority.

Given the rambling by twitterati as of late, mostly by younger generations who were not exposed directly to a pernicious apartheid-based education, one would certainly be curious as to the roots of this blatant racism. I would be at a loss to speak about it from a black point of view, for obvious reasons, but looking at it from my white side of the spectrum – that constant bifurcation between the cultures and people, the subtle racist undertones (like “non-swimmers” and “eish’s” racial references) and general lack of communication with people outside of one’s “safe” and familiar friend set certainly don’t seem to be helping anything, on the contrary…

The ongoing e-tolling saga has united South Africans in a strange way, it’s just a pity that the bonds aren’t enough to tie and in the not too distant future we’ll go our separate ways again, ensuring our “precious assets” are safely stowed away in our house-sized safes. If only our skins weren’t so precious – then we could actually interact with the other nearly 90 percent of the people in South Africa and give Ponte City a real look.

 
Nice work to Mama Hope on this video:

Now South Africa is following suit. The Traditional Courts Bill, now with the NCOP, will give the various traditional leaders in South Africa unchallenged, potentially unconstitutional legal power over approximately 17 million citizens. Traditional leaders argue that the bill is necessary to enable them to enforce the decisions of the traditional courts as they see fit. Opponents of the bill argue that this is precisely the problem.

The traditional courts bill will enable traditional leaders to be appointed presiding officers of traditional courts, where they will rule on both civil and criminal matters involving members of traditional communities. These presiding officers will be able to hand down fines, forced labour or, perhaps most controversially, remove “traditional benefits”. In the context of communal land ownership, common in most of South Africa’s traditional-authority areas, this includes access to land, which in turn translates into food, income and shelter. The ability to earn a living and feed one’s family will be dependent on the whims of traditional leaders. Legally. Chiefs will rule over their subjects, making laws, deciding on cases and handing down punishments, with near complete control over people, law-making and access to benefits and land, as Sindiso Mnisi Weeks  explains in this article.  If you think this is sounding a little like the dark ages, you’d be right.

And the situation gets even worse for women. In many traditional courts, women are not allowed to represent themselves or even speak during proceedings. This bill reinforces this by allowing for women to be represented by their husbands or family members (the bill prohibits legal representation in traditional courts) – entrenching existing discriminatory practices. Women’s groups and particularly rural women’s groups are justifiably outraged. 18 years into democracy, women in rural areas are about to be declared second-class citizens by their own government. In practice, many rural women already struggle with decisions by traditional authorities that regularly attempt to strip them of things like land access and inheritance rights. This will only get worse when women find themselves stuck in a system that refuses to recognise their right to speak for themselves or provide legal protections from the very people now making legal decisions. Other gaps include the fact that there is no explicit recognition of crimes such as physical and sexual abuse which are currently considered private or ‘domestic’ matters not fit to be brought before a public court.

There also appears to be no opt-out clause. Anyone whose civil or criminal matter arises in the jurisdiction of the traditional court (i.e. Chief) can be summoned to the court and failure to show up carries whatever penalties the chief sees fit, up to and including those he (and it will almost inevitably be ‘he’) could hand down in sentence. People living in areas control by chiefs won’t have the option of choosing to have their cases heard in a magistrate’s court, like other citizens, without first going through the traditional court process, and even then can only appeal on limited grounds. While everyone else in South Africa has one legal system, these people have another.

Those who support the bill vehemently argue that this is a necessary part of respecting traditional culture and that it is important because constitutional authority has undermined the power and authority of the chiefs. Those opposing it point out that the bill takes us right back to the era of a separate legal system for black people – an era that was problematic precisely because those living in the homelands, those who were deemed (through no will of their own) to fall under the authority of traditional leaders, were not equal before the law. South Africa is a complicated country and the careful balancing of the rights of different groups is inevitably necessary. For this democracy to work, however, the rights of an individual to have a say in his or her future, to be treated equally before the law and to be recognised as part of the same system as everyone else, rather than being regarded as a subject with no say in the matter, have to be secure.

Public hearings on the Traditional Courts Bill will take place in April. Find out more here, here, here and here.

Image by  max_thinks_sees

There is probably too much Internet opinion already. An overnight library of detailed material on the video and IC has been written. Some of it is substantive, some of it is mudslinging, and some of it is factual pedantry. I wanted to try to extract and isolate some of the more salient arguments going around in an attempt to evaluate the actual impact of the campaign. I’ve “scored” the evaluation by simply multiplying the probability of an argument being correct with the impact it would have, were it to be correct. The numbers and ratings are my own guesstimate and open for discussion. Not all arguments fit this model well, but I’m running with it. In addition, I’ve linked, where possible, to sites with further detail.

As disclosure, I have had a strongly negative reaction to the video, and I’m unsure I know why. I’ve spent some time analysing my reaction, and separating the emotional response from the rational, conscious of my own bias. This is what I’ve come up with. If you’ve heard this all before (very probable), skip to the end, where I provide my own opinion of what all the fuss is really about. Please suggest additional (reasonable) arguments if you think I have missed some.

Arguments in favour of KONY2012

I knew 0 before, but now I know 1

Argument: Tens of millions of people who did not know about Kony before now know about Kony. They will be put more pressure on international organisations and government to do something.
Evidence: Number of views
Probability of Impact: High
Impact: Low, Positive
Score: 5 / 25
Evaluation: It is true – many people now know who Joseph Kony is and what horrible things he has done. It is the second part of the argument that is of concern. The amount of influence these people have is limited (the demographic the video has been most popular with has been 13-18 year old girls) – they are not generally the types who care much about international affairs (or they would already have known), and their only voice is as a mass-lobby and possibly to donate more to IC, so that IC can get more followers, who will donate to IC, etc., etc..

It is doubtful that even with collective action (do you call clicking a “Like”-button action?) American foreign policy will be significantly swayed.

The government have to listen to us if we all yell

Argument: With a large enough lobby, the government will be persuaded to maintain a military presence until (now famous) Kony is arrested/killed.
Evidence: Lobbying efforts, etc.
Probability of impact: Low
Impact: Medium, Positive
Score: 3 / 25
Evaluation: Please would those who study American foreign policy step in, but the USA does not seem like the country which initiates or terminates military actions because their population, especially Facebook-hugging students, really would like them to and stick up posters. Even if they did, while the arrest of Kony would be good, it would hardly make much difference to the lives of the vast majority of people in central Africa. Allegations of IC lobbying congress with false information does not help their reputation, either.

The people of Uganda are now “visible”

Argument: Even if nothing else happens, at least there is a story that is known, rather than an untold history of brutal murders, abductions and mutilations.
Evidence: Number of views
Probability of impact: Mid-Low
Impact: Mid-Low, Neutral
Score: 4 / 25
Evaluation: Meh, not really sure this passes the “So-What” question. It is difficult to argue that people really know much more about Uganda than before – they certainly don’t understand the situation. The largest demographic watching is 13-18 year old girls from the rich world. I’m not convinced that many Ugandans would value the story of their country told from this perspective to that audience.

More money to Uganda

Argument: More awareness means more resources for helping find Kony, rebuild Uganda.
Evidence: Overwhelming donations
Probability of impact: Medium
Impact: Medium, Positive
Score: 9 / 25
Evaluation: Probably the most positive outcome of the campaign – it had raised at least $15 million in revenue for IC by the end of last week. Unfortunately for IC, they have made themselves redundant through their own success. The best use of money from the newly-aware would be to give them to mature and useful charities in Uganda who know more about grass-roots development than IC (see summary for links), although potentially less about film making. I suspect this won’t happen, and people will revel in their bracelets and awareness kits. At least some money, however, will filter through to northern Uganda, and this is good.

Summary

When I thought about it, I struggled to find anything else to say about the campaign. I’m not even sure how “making Kony famous” fits into the greater scheme – more awareness? The best and most likely thing that IC can do is raise money for helping Ugandans on the ground. This could be good, but the cash would probably be better spent by other charities (or 1, 2, 3, 4).

Arguments against KONY2012

Ad hominem

Argument: The directors of IC are themselves dubious characters, seem somewhat self-obsessed, benefit personally too much from the organisation and are probably not the type of people you want influencing foreign policy.
Evidence: Financial data, photos, self-loving douche-bags
Probability of Impact: Medium
Impact: Low, Neutral
Score: 3 / 25
Evaluation: I tend to agree, but can’t really say that this makes much difference. Lots of people get paid high salaries, travel a lot, get to play with toys, think they are the most awesome people in the world. This does not mean they are unable to do good. This is a non-argument, but please feel free to buy some IC-print toilet paper.

Sensationalism

Argument: KONY2012 is a piece of Hollywood-fiction, a glorified advert which does not represent the truth and uses every trick in the book to manipulate viewers emotions.
Evidence: Ignoring facts, Hollywood style, cute children as emotional manipulators
Probability of Impact: Medium
Impact: Medium, Netural (/ Positive?)
Score: 9 / 25
Evaluation: Charities run on donations. Acquiring donation requires marketing. Marketing uses manupulative techniques all the time. We don’t complain when it is an advert, for instance, for breakfast cereal. It seems fair that charities are kept to these same standards. That false information has been provided is something that should be looked into by an advertising standards agency. On the plus side, this advertising campaign has been massively successful, and that feeds into the “More money” argument (hence the potential for positive impact).

Unfortunately, there is a strong negative correlation between grabbing attention and explaining the nuances of a complex situation. There is a scale (roughly depicted in the image below). At one ends sits massively popular, simplified messages which work because they appeal to emotion. On the other end lies complex arguments aimed at people with niche academic skills, appealing to rationality. There is a point at the upper end where you become too niche to include more than a handful of people in the discussion. At the other end you risk telling a story so simple that any independent practical action is impossible.

In my opinion, IC falls below the useful-story threshold at the lower end of the scale – all that people are intellectually empowered to do is what IC tells them – i.e. buy awareness kits, donate money to IC.

A simplified depiction of the difficulty of both captivating and providing decent content and analysis

Financially and operationally questionable

Argument: KONY2012 is a new-age scam, appealing to relatively ignorant and gullible college students to give up their easy-earned beer money.
Evidence: Financial data, low transparency rating, references from Uganda
Probability of Impact: Medium
Impact: Low-Medium, Negative
Score: 6 / 25
Evaluation: If I were to be at my most cynical, I would write a post directly relating KONY2012 to the characteristics of Affinity Fraud. The financial data of this charity do seem dubious – there seems to be a lot of indulgence involved (expensive equipment, expensive travel) and incomes that seem to be pegged at around the 1% of revenue per director region – it would be interesting to see whether salaries increase as a proportion of more donations. Is IC “stealing” donations from other charities, though? Likely not – most money made in donations is probably money that would otherwise not be donated.

What seems to be questionable is that IC is far more interested in the charity than the cause. A good NGO would not care who is addressing the problem, but rather that resources are being funnelled into addressing the problem. It would have been preferable to see IC suggest a list of NGOs in Uganda suitable for donation – IC is far more successful at creating awareness than creating actual change. As it stands, IC seems to care more for its own bottom line and fandom. Money given to IC is almost undoubtedly going to do less good than money given to a more competent, hands-on charity.

While the financial aspects of IC are slightly off-putting, evidence of improper behaviour is not particularly strong and this argument is not a deal-breaker.

More harm than good

Argument: KONY2012 tells the story of the Western Saviour, plays on “White Man’s Burden” and depicts Africans as the incompetent poor, begging for assistance. This might enable short-term assistance, but stunts greater African independence, confidence, and essentially long-term development.
Evidence: Conceptual, References
Probability of Impact: Medium
Impact: High
Score: 15 / 25
Evaluation: This is a tough one – mostly because it is very difficult to measure the impact on development of a general perception of Africa and Africans. Anecdotally, it feels like more interventions aimed at empowering Africans are successful than those that merely treat the continent as a charity case. IC definitely does not empower, and the narrator’s relationship with Jacob is certainly depicted as one of paternalism and charity, rather than equality.

I think this is a real problem, and probably the strongest argument of the lot – and I would be grateful if anybody could point me in the direction of any relevant empirical research. Unfortunately, I’d imagine that it involves a lot of complex economics and case analyses to show, convincingly. It is the slow erosion of a capacity for African independence rather than any measurable year-on-year change. Given that there are scores of Kony-like warlords, preying on weak infrastructure, in Africa’s past, present, and, probably, future, people should be more concerned about capacity building than immediate perceptions of “Justice”.

Summary

You can divide arguments into two camps: those that are about the nature of the campaign (method) and those about the effects (result). I think there are a lot of negative things to say about the method – the campaign has been manipulative, factually dubious, sensationalist, and seemingly self-serving. The directors of IC seem to be relatively simple, self-loving, but ultimately caring individuals. I prefer flawed, caring individuals to competent bastards – but it certainly does not need to be a dichotomy. The persistent use of deception is problematic.

As for the results – these are difficult to predict. Certainly the arrest or escape of Kony would not be the whole story. This is not an action movie – catching the bad guy will not restore order. I think the “more harm than good” is the best of the arguments against the campaign, but requires more complex analysis to demonstrate satisfactorily. But simplified, if we contribute to the patronising image of Africa as a group of poor and helpless individuals, we potentially do a lot of harm to potential development within Africa.

All this to catch one aging and mostly-inactive man? There is reason to be concerned, but not a lot.

More general arguments

Doing something is better than doing nothing

Argument: All action is positive, this is some action, therefore it is positive
Evidence: Speculative
Probability of Impact: Mid-Low
Impact: Low
Score: 2 / 25
Evaluation: Difficult to argue against (unless you buy the “More harm than good” argument – in which case inaction is definitely preferred). Either way, on the scale of “giving $1 to a beggar” and “empowering a nation”, I think the work done by IC is truly closer to the former. Anybody making this statement needs to provide a good justification of why their time is best spent clicking “Like” buttons and sticking up posters and their money best spent buying bracelets. It’s a puny retort.

Social networks are going to limit world wide conflict

Argument: Social networks and the Internet in general will contribute to speedy global awareness of international issues, resulting in greater pressure on governments to act
Evidence: Speculative
Probability of Impact: Low
Impact: High
Score: 5 / 25
Evaluation: This would be lovely if true, and there is plenty of time to prove me wrong. What KONY2012 has achieved has to introduce a huge peak signal amongst the large noise of thousands of campaigns and lobbies begging for support. Hence, it gets noticed, it gets attention. But, if you watched the video, you saw the long list of horrendous people on the ICC charts. By person number 3, people will be bored of protesting against another dictator, and the rest of the world will get tired of listening to another protest. That is cynical, but not unrealistic. If anything, KONY2012 will prompt a media-race for NGOs to produce the most awesometastic advertising in the name of “awareness”. Caring will become sharing. Donation money will be increasingly wasted on marketing material.

I’m yet to be convinced that awareness is a sufficient condition for changing the world. I’m far from being convinced that social media will be able to create any sustainable and meaningful awareness.

So why are people angry?

My own conclusion is that there is very little to fuss about. KONY2012 is just another YouTube hit, and at worst reinforces an archaic and unflattering image of Africa in the minds of a bunch of youngsters, mostly teenagers, with limited critical thinking to start with. I’m even starting to feel a little sorry about the time wasted writing and thinking about this.

I don’t believe the strong reaction to this campaign has anything to do with the above arguments. The campaign is surprisingly weak, but catchy – like a Black Eyed Peas song. If anything, it is a blip on the timeline of the awesomeness that is the Internet. It is far less a blip on the timeline of the development of Africa.

What is getting everyone uptight? My argument is simply that KONY2012 has caused a large amount of insult and righteous jealousy.

There are a lot of people who work very hard at development. They don’t live in a safe neighbourhood in San Diego. They don’t have pretty children who are well dressed (designer tattered jumpers are expensive), who live far away from any evil or harm. They don’t get to stand in front of crowds of people and feel like a rockstar. They don’t get hundreds of millions of Internet views, or money pouring at them from college student pockets. They don’t get told continuously that they are amazing humans.  They don’t get to play with millions of dollar worth of equipment (many make do with a handi-cam). They don’t get to feel as though they are the only people making a difference. They work hard in often hostile environments, and have, themselves, now been made invisible in favour of an army of would-be vandals.

This, folk, is the big slap in the face that IC have given to many developmentalist out there. They are saying, “You guys can go get your advanced degrees, spend years talking to people on the ground, earning a pitance if anything, working with your hands, living in a foreign country, with a limited family life. Us, well, we’ll stay safe and comfy in the USA (God Bless), make movies, tell some stories, and rake in the money, reap the praise.”

I, too, would be insulted, and jealous, and disillusioned.

Unfortunately, “But It’s Not Fair”, although emotionally justified, is not a valid argument.

I’m not really sure that KONY2012 is such a big deal – positive or negative. I look forward to the day in the next few months where people have forgotten it in favour of the new blockbuster starring Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lopez. I don’t really like the kind of people running IC – I would not want to associate with that sort of organisation. But that is neither here nor there. In the meantime, I urge you all to give every real, somewhat-disappointed charity worker a big hug, a thank you, and maybe donate a few pennies to their organisation – the world needs them more than they need IC.

In this context of insecurity, hunger and desperation, the Governor of the arid Masvingo Provinces has banned 29 NGOs from working in the province. This is likely to bring hardship and undermine the livelihoods of many, especially given the government’s previously demonstrated inability to meet the demand for assistance. The governor said that the ban is because NGOs were secretly campaigning for Mugabe’s opponents. It is unclear whether this claim is true, but it does raise the question of the role of NGOs in politics in Zimbabwe.

Many commentators have written with unease about the possibility that NGOs, with money from outside the country, could interfere with the democratic process. If a foreign group came into a country and told local people what was good for them, while at the same time handing out cars and televisions, there would be an outcry, especially if that group was telling people that a particular political leader was bad. That sort of outside interference wouldn’t be acceptable. So, the logic runs, why should it be okay for an NGO to come into a country and hand out food, medicine and sewing machines and do the same thing? International NGOs are widely accused of throwing elections and imposing Western ideals, although admittedly most often by dictators and corrupt officials.

In this case, the NGOs that were banned could not be accused of being foreign, neo-colonial Western agent; they were local Zimbabwean NGOs. Should that make them exempt from the accusation of playing politics with the poor? Unfortunately, no. While local NGOs are traditionally far less likely to take up a political agenda under cover of humanitarian work, international NGOs – recognising that they were perceived as neo-colonialists – have in recent years begun to work through local organisations. This means that local NGOs get their money from international NGOs, which in turn means that they must take particular positions and preach a particular message if they want their funding to continue. Other local NGOs have jumped on the band-wagon and it seems now to be the norm, in many countries, for NGOs to have some sort of (often hidden or subtle) political agenda.

Some might argue that the money flowing into the country’s politics through the NGO system in Zimbabwe is a necessary counter-balance to the state money that will probably be used to woo voters in the upcoming election. The problem is that the people who get hurt in this equation are the poor families. With the economy still in ruins, widespread disease, unpredictable food and fuel costs, poor rains and no safety nets, many families still depend on assistance. These families don’t care whether that assistance comes from the government or the NGOs, or what political message either group is preaching, just as long as they don’t starve.

Wouldn’t it be nice, this election, if the government and the NGOs found a way to keep their political squabbles out of poor Zimbabwean’s struggle to survive?

Image by nite_owl

The second unexamined assumption in the current land reform debate is the idea that poor rural people aren’t making it in farming because they don’t have land. There are roughly 1.5 million poor families in South Africa producing agricultural products (crops, vegetables and animal products) at a subsistence level. All 1.5 million of them have access to some land. Whether they own that land or not, they have sufficient security of tenure to plant and harvest and/or raise animals. Many would probably like more land – who wouldn’t – but it probably won’t make them more successful.

Contrary to what appears to be South African popular belief, large-scale commercial farming is not always the best or most cost-effective way to produce food. Some food products are better suited to small-scale production. This is part of the reason that a good proportion of Europe’s very successful farmers practice what would be considered small-scale farming if they were in South Africa. Climate also plays a role. That is why the Australian Outback, like the Northern Cape, tends towards larger farms. Profitable farming is about production values, quality, market access and input and transport costs. Beyond an absolute minimum necessary to produce anything (and this is a very small minimum, particularly for vegetable farming), the size of the land is a factor in deciding what to farm, not a determinant of success.

The point is that farming can be commercially-viable at all scales. Perhaps not all of South Africa’s subsistence farmers could produce at a commercially-viable small-holder farmer level, but a good proportion of them, perhaps 80%, could well be producing commercially with the land they currently have access to. The difference between a subsistence farmer and a profitable small-holder farming enterprise is whether the farmer is able to make money from what they produce, both in terms of immediate profit and to reinvest to grow and expand the farming business.

But money doesn’t come because you grow more, it comes because you are able to sell more. South Africa’s retail sector is heavily centralised. Local shops disappeared decades ago in most places, giving way to large chains-stores. One of the key characteristics of large-scale retail everywhere is a tendency to centralise buying. Established farmers in South Africa may well have the capital to transport produce quickly and safely to central markets. Small-holder farmers, like most small-business owners, struggle to absorb the additional costs. Our food retail system is structured in such a way that are unable to sell at a profit. They are excluded because they can’t afford to get to the major centres and nothing in the system incentivises retailers to go out and source what may well be higher quality, lower-cost products for their consumers.

Because of the structural realities of the South African food system, existing small-farmers (many of whom are non-white farmers who have been trying to make a rural living for years) cannot use their land, their hard work and the expertise they have to make a living and grow their small-farming operations. The government appears unwilling to challenge this food system in any way, so small farmers are not growing and developing emerging businesses to fill the gap left by the exit of many existing commercial farmers (over the past 10 years, the number of commercial farmers in South Africa has dropped from 100 000 to 42 000). South Africa should have a thriving, rapidly developing agricultural sector building on years of excellent research, thousands of small-scale farmers willing to take on the challenge and huge market opportunities in Africa and overseas. Instead, our agricultural sector stagnates, while the government fixates on land reform.

Nor would addressing market access break the bank. Simple investments in infrastructure could make a huge difference – improving rural infrastructure to reduce the transport costs, building markets in outlying areas, supporting the development of intermediary businesses to buy from farmers and sell to large retailers. Big retail could also come on board and commit to buying more locally and selling fresh, instead of freezing and shipping food across the country. Local markets available to the public and smaller shops could revitalise a lot of small centres.

If the government was serious about building a sustainable, profitable, multi-racial (or even non-white) farming sector, they’d be looking hard at how to support existing small-holder farmers to expand their operations and supporting the great work some of the government extension workers and cooperative experts are already doing in this sector, while also finding ways to recreate the food system so that small-holder farmers have access to markets. Land alone won’t fix the farming sector.

Image by Kevin Dooley

Land is not the problem 

The first assumption is that wealth and land are synonymous. This is a bizarre hangover from the long-gone era when land-owners controlled the world (or at least the bits of it situated in ‘civilized’ Europe). We live in a commodities economy. Wealthy lies in minerals, manufacturing and, crucially, trade. Land is highly valuable in urban areas and where mining rights are in question. On it’s own, however, land in rural, farming areas is not worth very much. It certainly doesn’t guarantee economic success or stability. Someone with the resources and skills to do something with it will probably be able to make a living from the land. But it’s a high-risk proposition, particularly given the variable rainfall, water-quality deterioration and highly unstable prices faced by modern agricultural producers. This is not to suggest that those disadvantaged by Apartheid should not be given a hand-up, simply that large-scale farming may not be a hand-up.

One way in which farm-land can be a life-changing asset for previously disadvantaged, and particularly previously dispossessed people, is where the can choose to capitalise on that asset by selling the land. This provides cash that can be safely invested to produce income for many years to come, in agriculture or in other (lower-risk) sectors. Yet, this is the one use of redistributed land that is vilified across the board – as if there is something wrong with recipients of redistributed land making a rational choice to use the land to their own maximum benefit.

Our obsession with who owns the land – based on archaic ideas of ‘landed overlords’ and the misconceptions that commercial farming is an easy way to make big bucks – is clouding out any rational analysis of who has all the rest of the wealth. Primary agriculture last year contributed 2-3% of GDP. Even if all the land were redistributed and all that land continued to be productive (at some of the highest productivity levels in Africa), redistributing commercial farm land would have the potential to address less than 5% of inequality.

Land Reform in South Africa is mostly clever misdirection. In a largely urbanised country, where the rural poor are poorly organised and so lack voice, it is easy to shift the impetus for economic transformation away from cities and focus on farming land. The days when land was the indicator of wealth and the source of financial security are gone. Farming is high-risk. The drive to “reverse the impact of the 1913 Land Act” is going to take far more than land reform. It is going to take, among other things, a recognition that the Land Act wasn’t just about land – it was about removing people’s independence and ability to use their assets as they chose to further their own interests. South Africa is a modern economy, wealth is much, much more than land – redistributing farm land won’t come close to fixing inequality because land is not the problem.

Image by Kevin Dooley

When was the last time anything said by the President during the SONA was carried on in any honest sense of accountability? Simply put, the address serves nothing more than for a public act where all must play their roles, and the curtains close a few days later after the opposition parties have had their roasting in their retaliatory speeches of rivaling pointlessness, and the public forget this ever happened. For now, we tweet with #SONA hashtags about the President’s points and examples highlighted, we titter and giggle at the MP’s who fall asleep in their lavish robes (gained in part from their multi-million rand salaries) and we laugh at the simple-yet-ridiculous mannerisms of the President while he gives his two cents on the nation.

It’s pointless because it’s utterly temporary. The President’s address does no more to alter the perceptions or understanding of this country’s affairs than the dull-eyed simpletons who comment on it on SABC or E-TV. It is all a ridiculous pantomime conducted for the purely-indulgent post-match armchair analysis fit for Bryce Lawrence’s rugby matches and ammunition for small talk in the days to come. But who can honestly remember what happened in last year’s SONA, or the year before that? We can’t because it simply does not matter. The truly pertinent speeches occur not on this elaborate annual stage set up by the shackles of tradition and media interest, but when a true crisis or challenge emerges, and the country’s leader really shows a reaction – for good or ill – that resonates throughout the country. What we see here is simply spaghetti western hashouts of the same routine we’ve seen before.

The problem is also with South Africans as a whole. There is often a prevailing sentiment that the President will show some sort of uncharacteristic flash of brilliance; where his leadership and oratory genius will give us some cause for optimism in a political sphere mired in bullshit and scandal. We want to be entertained, and therein lies the problem. Because the SONA has become less of a reflection on what this country has achieved in the past year and more of an hours-long French aristocratic-styled ball, where both onlookers and nobility play out a ridiculous joke which we must take for politics. When all the while the guillotines are being sharpened by the masses of poor and unemployed who no longer find the hashtags and status updates very witty.