countryside

A Hundred Years after the 1913 Land Act

A Hundred Years after the 1913 Land Act

By Richard Pithouse  In 1652, the year that Jan van Riebeck first stepped on to these shores, Gerrad Winstanley, an English radical, published a pamphlet called The Law of Freedom in a Platform. Three years earlier he had led a land occupation on St. George's Hill in...

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Centenary of the 1913 Land Act | By Colin Bundy

Centenary of the 1913 Land Act | By Colin Bundy

Why consider the history of a hundred-year old law? Surely the Marikana massacre and farm-workers' strikes are more urgent? In fact, there are direct links between the Natives' Land Act of 1913 and current struggles. The Land Act and its consequences still shape rural...

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Harvesting discontent

Harvesting discontent

"I earn R800,00 per month and with this money I have to feed, clothe and fend for my family of eight. We barely survive; I cannot even afford to buy school shoes for the children. I cannot take it any longer"- Gertie Beukes, Ashton farmworker. "We produce the food...

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