“Here I stand; I am my own chief”

Delegates at the Land Divided conference heard powerful pleas – and indictments – from rural representatives, which illuminated the implications of the re-entrenchment of apartheid-era traditional leadership arrangements.

The delegates heard about two communities that successfully resisted the apartheid authorities’ attempts to declare them “black spots” subject to forcible removal, just to be confronted with the Traditional Courts Bill almost two decades into democracy.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.customcontested.co.za/here-i-stand-i-am-my-own-chief/

Chiefs’ “timeless custom” standing in way of land reform

The history of forced removals and Bantustan consolidation lays bare a trajectory of both dispossession and disenfranchisement, starting with the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936 and, ironically, elaborated in a set of post-apartheid laws.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.customcontested.co.za/chiefs-timeless-custom-standing-in-way-of-land-reform/

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