Secondly, hon Chair, regarding polarisation ... First of all, I should welcome the spirit displayed by hon members during the debate, including the hon Swathe. I think we will work very closely with him, because he seems to be very keen on understanding what is happening in Giyani. We will make sure that we make him part of our visit next time.
To answer the hon member from the IFP, I think hon Msimang, regarding polarisation: It is correct that there is polarisation between government and traditional leaders, between government and commercial farmers, between government and squatters even. The greatest polarisation, which we must avoid, is polarisation between government and the people. If that were to happen, Zimbabwe would be a picnic compared to South Africa!
The second thing is redress and correction. There is this myth. We ourselves, as hon members, and many other people must understand one other thing: As much as we, as the people who are in government, as parliamentarians, or maybe even professors and analysts out there, understand that there are laws, there is a Constitution and so on, the people out there, the majority of the people we are working with, whom we represent here, do not fully understand the things in the manner that we do. For them, it is firstly redress and correction. On the question of whether there is production and so on - the hon Wilmot is a researcher, he probably knows this better than all of us - people don't actually place so much importance on this thing that we are talking about, that they must produce on the land. They understand that a little bit, but the first thing for them is redress.
Let us deal with this question of redress. The hon members on that side, including the hon Swathe, understand this thing. He comes from that side of the community where people say, "Redress! We lost our land, we want it back. It doesn't matter what we are going do with it. Later on we will correct that and deal with that question." That is the second point. Let us be very realistic here. Let us deal with the question of redress.
The question of conflict between government and traditional leaders is a very important one on land. Traditional leaders hold land in trusts on behalf of the people. Let's again understand that. Because if we were to understand it that way, I think ...
... uMhlekazi uShenge uyazi ngaphezu kwam le nto. Ukuba singavana ngale nto yokuba umhlaba wenkosi ngowabantu. Iinkosi zibambe umhlaba egameni labantu. Masivumelane ngalo ndawo. (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[... hon Shenge knows this matter more than I do. If only we could agree that traditional leaders hold in trust land which belongs to the people - traditional leaders hold land in trust on behalf of the people. Let us agree on that point.]
Once we agree on that, the issue of ownership in terms of communal land is not an issue at all. What is at issue is that there must be the democratisation of the processes of using that land. That is what we are going to do when we debate this issue ...
... nabahlekazi xa sixoxa nabo asizokuxoxa ubumnini ngoba umhlaba ngowabahlekazi nabantu babo. Sizakuxoxa nabo ngokuba abantu babo abahlekazi balambile, umhlaba ulele. Sithini? Sifuna ukusebenza lo mhlaba. Mabahlale ke, baxoxe njengaseMuyeshe. Ukuba ungabona imifanekiso yenkosi ibhala ebhodini isithi: Masisayine sonke bantu bam ukuba lo mhlaba sizakuwusebenzisa ukuphuhlisa thina sonke.
Yonke le nkqubo ilapha yenziwe ngabo neenkosi. Ithiywe ngaye le lali uNkosi uMuyeshe. Sisixaphothi senkosi. Wayebhala phaya esithi nabantu bakhe mabaze kubhala. Babhala abantwana, babhala ootata, babhala oomama ukuba urhulumente makaphuhlise kulo mhlaba. (Translation of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)
[... with the Traditional leaders and we are not going to debate the issue of ownership because the land belongs to traditional leaders and their people. We are going to discuss the fact that their people are starving and the land is not being utilised. What must we do? We want to utilise this land. They can meet and debate like the people of Muyeshe. If only you could see the pictures of that Chief when writing on the board, saying: My people, let us all add our signatures in agreeing that we are going to use this land to develop ourselves.
This process was followed by the Chief and his people. This village is named after him, Chief Muyeshe. This Chief has a towering figure. He was adding his signature and calling for his people to also come and write. Children and their parents also appended their signature in agreeing that government must develop this land.]
It's their land, it's communal land. There shouldn't be a problem. The problem occurs in the manner in which we handle it. We are not going to debate the question of ownership. We are going to debate the question of democratising the utilisation of the land.
There is another matter, which perhaps is my last one: The moral correctness of engaging and negotiating. It took the ANC 80 years to convince previous governments about the moral correctness of negotiation and engaging on resolving problems, but we cannot expect that, on a small issue of land redress, our people should be patient for another 80 years before they explode. They have seen it happen; 80 years were too long, yet the resolution came in exactly the manner that the ANC had said in 1912. It cannot be done now in the same way, and this is the approach we are going to adopt, to say to those who own land that we cannot expect our people to be patient for another 100 years before we correct one small thing. [Applause.] It cannot be so. Before we then get ourselves into a situation ...
Mnr Groenewald, ek verstaan u s daar is kriminele elemente in ons departement. Ek stem saam met u, daar is. Maar die waarheid is dat die meerderheid van ons mense goeie mense is. Die ander ding is geld. Die regering kan nie R71 miljard in vyf jaar mobiliseer nie. Ons kan nie. Ons moet met die mense gesels wat land besit en vir hulle s: (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Mr Groenewald, I understand you are saying that there are criminal elements in our department. I agree with you, there are. But the truth is that the majority of our people are good people. The other issue is money. The government cannot mobilise R71 billion in five years. We just cannot. We have to talk to the people who own the land and say:]
"We must avoid Zimbabwe here." Because, in comparison, Zimbabwe will look like a picnic. So we must just agree. Forget about the criminal elements, forget about that. The willing buyer, willing seller does not work. Polokwane said that, and we know what it is. Polokwane was the ANC conference. It doesn't work.
There was a summit for landless people in 2005: They were very clear. It doesn't work. We were there. The farmers were there; I was one of the people who stood up and spoke and tried to persuade them. The landless people were very impatient. That was in 2005. They were very impatient about willing buyer, willing seller. It doesn't work, because we don't have money as government. [Interjections.]