If you’ve been following much international news, you’ve probably heard that, after literally years of scandal, abuse, and incompetence, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma was finally forced to resign last week.
This is a big deal for South Africa.
The country has been suffering for nearly a decade under Zuma’s corruption.
And people are certainly hoping that the new President, Cyril Ramaphosa, will represent a positive, new chapter for South Africa.
Yesterday Ramaphosa addressed the nation’s parliament in Cape Town and made clear that his priority is to heal the divisions and injustice of the past, going all the way back to the original European colonists in the 1600s taking land from the indigenous tribes.
Ramaphosa called this “original sin”, and stated that he wants to see “the return of the land to the people from whom it was taken… to heal the divisions of the past.”
How does he plan on doing that?
Confiscation. Specifically– confiscation without compensation.
“The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans.”
Ramaphosa minced no words: he’s talking about taking land from white farmers and giving it to black South Africans.
Astonishingly, he followed up that statement by saying, “We will handle it in a way that is not going to damage our economy. . .”
Wow, what a relief. For a minute it sounded like South Africa wants to do what Zimbabwe did several years ago.
Oh wait a minute.
That’s exactly what Zimbabwe did.