WHEN President Jacob Zuma opened an exhibition in Cape Town recently commemorating the centenary of the Natives Land Act of 1913, he reaffirmed his government’s commitment to resolving the “land question” and declared that state-led land restitution remained key to the liberation of South Africa — echoing sentiments two decades old and just as catchy today. Never mind that the Restitution of Land Rights Act (22 of 1994) remains, technically, expired.

Key political points were up for grabs. As he spoke, hundreds of families in Fordsburg, Johannesburg, were being evicted from their homes. No government representatives were on site, although a few police were called to flank the outsourced thugs (“red ants”) as they turfed out the bad tenants.

In South Africa today, dispossessions considered “historical” by the terms of the law — technically, those that took place between 1913 and 1998 — are the bread and butter of the government. Those in crowded cityscapes are left up to community leaders and a handful of advocates prepared to defend pro bono and pursue the expensive course of public interest litigation on their own wallets (or the ledger books of the NGOs for whom they work).

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The search for the most dastardly policy in the South African past is futile, but if one were forced to, surely the bantustanisation of the 1960s trumps reservation of the 1910s. But still, we are restricting ourselves to twentieth-century/apartheid-era history. It would be easier to argue that the conquest of the Cape peninsular Khoekhoe in the 17th century, and the violent expansion of Dutch corporate trekboers into Khoekhoe, San, and Xhosa country in the 18th century, trump all other events of state-led dispossession. Here we must beware, for we enter the foggy realm of pre-1913 dispossession: of “tradition”, long off-limits to transformation gurus.

But this may not be so off limits anymore. In the speech delivered in January, Zuma declared that “our government will reopen the lodgement date for claims and provide for the exception to the 1913 cut-off date to accommodate historical landmarks, heritage sites and descendants of the Khoi and San who lost their land long before 1913”.

“These amendments to our laws,” he said, “will take effect this year” (although these amendments do not appear in the bill of May to extend the latter cut-off date). Yet the nature of these reforms remains unqualified. For instance, can “heritage” claimants expect to enjoy the same tenure to their “landmarks” as others in South Africa? Will all of this serve to resurrect the moribund land claims court circuit or can we expect pre-1913 claims to fall within the unaccountable purview of the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights? Is there a budget? What criteria must claimants meet to be awarded land? Who knows.

Dispossession is a terrible thing. All forms, whether past or present, are complicated to redress. They require more thoughtful discussion than what we’ve heard so far. All of this 1913 talk reeks of convenience. While a hundred-year anniversary does make a great opportunity for power brokers to gain easy political points on the “land question”, that question is not so easily resolved as the president often contends before his crowds of admirers. New debates need to begin.

Business Day.