The point, Ken, is that sometimes restorative justice is necessary for reconstructive justice to occur--reconstructive justice being the ingredient for "creating a future for our children," as you put it.
I think in judging the justness or otherwise of land reform, one needs to look beyond what Mugabe did, how he did it, and why he did it. One has to go back to originary questions. The messiness of what Mugabe did does not detract from the merits of land reform. Even Britain and Ian Smith recognized, perhaps reluctantly, the need for restorative justice, for reversing the brazen land thefts and, together with Mugabe, instituted a mechanism for accomplishing land reform. The willing seller willing buyer principle agreed at Lancaster was not a radical recipe for the kind of land redistribution that Mugabe and others in ZANU-PF would have wanted but in the interest of reaching a settlement they acquiesced to it. Even so, when it came time for Britain to cough up the money for a compensation package as agreed to at Lancaster, it demurred and placed a new condition (democratization) on the path of land reform. Agreed, Mugabe didn't do anything about this British breach of Lancaster until his political position weakened and he needed to shore up his political base and win back some credibility with the powerful war veterans. But all of that does not invalidate the documented merit of land redistribution as a foundational economic redress. The legitimate quest for this redress does not in anyway exculpate the bad decisions of Mugabe, his generals, and allies.
On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 9:34 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
my impression--impression, not absolute knowledge--is that mugabe's hold on power was increasingly partial or nominal, that he was rewarding his generals and that he was insuring the ex-soldiers' support with compensation of land. he had some justifications as the whites' claims to those lands were also shaky, at least in some cases where the settlers were recruited late in ian smith's days, and they were still displacing africans. but he didn't rule alone, and his major supporters had to be compensated. did he control that process at all?--
furrther not all cases were the same. and the logic of what is just here is not clear to me.
if we were to return manhattan to its original owners, would that be just? what about victoria island? you name it. not to mention palestine. how can we speak of justice correcting the expropriations of the past when we are living in an age of such vast inequalities of wealth. justice has to be marked by creating a future for our children, not restoring what was taken from us in the past. and yet, who would not want back what was stolen from their parents or grandparents. it's just that that isn't enough. and in a real sense, none of us can lay claim to being the original inhabitants in any meaningful sense.
so we can consider s africa as a kind of paradigm, although i think the real truth is that it was essentially the same as the rest of africa--not an exceptional case. same meaning, familiar pattern of what became bantustans, apartheid, forced labor, expropriation of african labor, separate systems of law, economy, housing, culture. and at the same time, margins where mingling messed up the model, where "coloureds" were created, where greeks or indians or lebanese competed, entered into labor pools, became merchants, etc. then expropriation of land or wealth, competition for resources, violence, struggle, even mass killings. then an end to it , truth and reconciliation. then the money grubbing all over again.
we need a better future for our children. mandela was only a moment in this itinerary; and so was desmond tutu. now, with mugabe, zuma, it's hard to be looking forward to a new dispensation.
kenOn 12/6/13 7:30 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:Oga Cornelius,You're right. Not only did the Brits drag their feet; in fact they declared flatly (although not in so many words) that as long as Mugabe remained in power and didn't allow "democratization" to occur (a euphemism for essentially relinquishing power to their preferred candidate) they would not provide the money for the agreed compensation. Without money for the compensation of white farm owners, the slow-track, phased land redistribution agreed at Lancaster was impossible to accomplish, hence Mugabe had a legitimate reason to fast track land reform and to do it unilaterally. Having said all these, the fact remains that it was no coincidence that Mugabe chose to do Fast Track right around the time that his grip on power was at its most brittle. That he chose a unilateral track at a time when his hold on power was slipping and his public support eroding speaks volumes, especially since Britain had delayed the provision of compensation funds to start the land reform component of Lancaster for several years after it came due for implementation and Mugabe, secured in power at that time, did absolutely nothing to either nudge Britain or go it alone.--On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:Only "when he found himself in political trouble, his power threatened"?
Not absolutely correct – at the height of the forcible farm seizures, I attended a whole day seminar conducted by Professor Adebayo Olukoshi and some of the folks from the Zimbabwe embassy here in Stockholm, where they meticulously and systematically and painstakingly took us through the terms of that Lancaster House agreement and the history of Great Britain dragging her feet in keeping her part of the bargain.
The fact: also - ten years after the Lancaster House promises were made, they had still not been fulfilled.
I still don't know why the legal road was taken by Mugabe - why instead of violent farm seizures and beatings by Zimbabwe's liberation war veterans, an act of parliament didn't give those farmers a reasonable timeframe within which to hand over the farms?
Once again dear Professor, only Cornelius Ignoramus wonder-ing!
Sincerely,
Fair, if hackneyed, critique of Mandela's settlement with the white establishment. But how is Mandela different in this respect from the overwhelming majority of African nationalist actors who led their various colonial territories to independence? Was Mandela not simply following in the footsteps of previous African nationalists who, in decolonization negotiations, were forced to choose between a delayed or denied independence and a compromised settlement that kept economic power and influence in the hands of "departing" colonial countries or gave them privileged economic access while preserving the dependences that imperiled the economic futures of Africans/blacks? Even in colonial territories where decolonization negotiations occurred because of armed struggle (the Portuguese colonies, Zimbabwe), the nationalist figures faced a variant of this tough choice. Even radical Mugabe reluctantly embraced a settlement at Lancaster House that effectively preserved while economic privileges and dominant land ownership, belatedly and unilaterally embarking on the so-called Fast Track land redistribution scheme when he found himself in political trouble, his power threatened.Mandela did exactly what other African nationalist figures, facing a tough choice imposed by the white oppressors, did; he pragmatically chose political freedom, trading economic freedom for it. In other words, like Nkrumah and other nationalist predecessors across Africa, Mandela embraced the mantra of "seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added onto you." The failure of the latter part of this mantra to materialize in South Africa cannot be blamed on Mandela alone.On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:"Mandela kept on saying: 'I am here for the people, I am the servant of the nation.' What did he do? He signed papers that allowed white people to keep the mines and the farms," said 49-year-old Majozi Pilane, who runs a roadside stall selling sweets and cigarettes.
"He did absolutely nothing for all the poor people of this country."
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