Are white South Africans really refugees? A historian who grew up under apartheid explains.

The law allows the government to seize property without compensation only in limited circumstances, including when the land is not in use or has been abandoned and if the owner is merely holding it as an investment in the hope that it will appreciate in value. The very first piece of legislation that Nelson Mandela signed into law when he became president in May of 1994 was a land reform bill whose job was to correct what is essentially South Africa’s original political sin, and that was the taking away of land from indigenous peoples and allocating it to white South Africans for exclusive ownership. The single biggest mistake that the ANC made at the moment of transition in 1994 was to assume that all that you needed to do to correct the injustices of apartheid was to create a Black capitalist class.

Author: Nicole Narea

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