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he will do what the A.N.C. wants him
to do.”
A pair of baristas approached and
asked to take selfies with Maimane—
his face is ubiquitous in Cape Town
and Johannesburg, appearing on D.A.
campaign posters, above the slogan “A
job in every home.” Maimane posed,
then continued, “First, there’s no need
for a constitutional amendment—there
never was. Second, rather than em-
power the state we should be capaci-
tating our courts to make decisions on
compensation: create the budget allo-
cation so that more people can hear
cases so we can create enough case law
to adjudicate quickly. If we get that
right, we will be able to get to a point
where people will actually know what
is just and what is equitable, so you
don’t have farmers holding the state for
ransom. Third, expropriation without
compensation already happens in this
country—it just happens to black peo-
ple. Because it’s black people who don’t
have title.”
The Democratic Alliance has been
comparatively effective in places where
it holds power. According to the think
tank Good Governance Africa, fifteen
of the country’s twenty best governed
municipalities are run by the D.A., ei-
ther alone or in coalition. But, while
the Party has begun attracting more
middle-class black voters, it has strug-
gled to appeal to voters loyal to the
A.N.C. There is little chance that Mai-
mane’s party will win the majority in
the forthcoming elections, and if the
A.N.C. wins it will likely have to fol-
low through on some kind of expropri-
ation. But previous efforts at redistri-
bution have had dubious outcomes.
Zuma’s land-reform minister, presum-
ably intending to highlight the failures
of earlier administrations, announced
that ninety per cent of reform projects
in the past quarter century had failed.
Ben Cousins, a scholar at the Univer-
sity of the Western Cape and the lead
author of a recent study on South Af-
rican land-reform policy commissioned
by Parliament, contests this statistic.
“There’s no data to support that—it’s
a thumb-suck,” he said. “In about fifty
per cent of projects, beneficiaries have
their lives improved. And the benefi-
ciaries are poor people. Even modest
success makes a difference.”But, without access to irrigation, ma-
chinery, and training, new farmers are
bound to struggle. And South Africa’s
agrarian potential is limited: only about
eleven per cent of the country’s land is
arable, and less than two per cent is
currently set up for irrigation. Every
year is hotter and drier than the one
before. Many black South Africans who
are offered land prefer to be bought
out, rather than give up their lives in
the city to take up a risky and isolat-
ing venture.
In some respects, the focus on land
is an attempt to return to the era of
the Glen Grey Act, when an entire
economy—an entire society—could be
molded by redistributing land. But the
wage economy is now inextricably in
place. Ultimately, Maimane argued,
education and employment are the
most meaningful focus for the future
of South Africa. Even Cousins, who
calls himself an “agrarianista,” admits,
“The big question is employment. We
have to find ways of including morepeople in the economy, or we are going
to face another popular uprising at
some point.”
At the café, Maimane, who had re-
cently attended a vigil for the victims
of farm attacks, said, “The race war is
on in South Africa. The great diffi-
culty is that it’s got political dividends
for parties who want to mobilize be-
hind it in a simplistic, reductionist
manner, and that’s simply not going to
build the nation we want. Not to be
too M.L.K. about it, but my children
are mixed-race. They must come of age
in a country in which they are citizens
not because of the color of their skin.”
Like many others in South Africa, Mai-
mane believes that the country urgently
needs to reckon with the economic
legacy of colonialism and apartheid.
But, he concluded, “it’s a Marxist con-
struct to say the means of production
are within the land. Land becomes a
catchall to say, ‘There’s still too many
of us left out.’ But maybe land is not
the solution.”“If you don’t stop squabbling, I’m turning this car around
and going right back to the bank.”• •
Fact Levy South Africa 05_13_19.L [Print]_9508344.indd 55 5/3/19 7:51 PM