Great post, I'm sorry I only found it now!

One contribution from my fact file:

If South Africa can find a way to bridge the gap between the black and the white farmers and implement structure in land reform, I personally believe it could work. We cant forget that this land was forcibly taken from the black population during my parents generation.

This is also largely a government fed line of propaganda. I'm afraid that the truth is far more complex.

Under the Group Areas Act the Apartheid government did indeed appropriate large areas of black, coloured (South African coloured) and even Asian (mainly Indian) owned land. But the government fed story of whites arriving and stealing black land is a fallacy. Blacks and whites arrived in SA at similar times, the whites arrived in the South West (in the vicinity of Cape Town and later Port Elizabeth, while the blacks migrated through the Zimbabwe area into the North East of modern day South Africa. English whites remained near the coast while Afrikaans whites "trekked" (long journeys of large groups who travelled by ox cart) into the interior. Where blacks and whites clashed frontiers were formed. this was approximately half way between the two starting points. Equipped with better weapons, whites eventually dominated militarily, with Afrikaners settling in the North West and English remaining to the South. (Later on these two groups fought each other fiercely during the Anglo-Boer wars - won by the English but only after heavy losses to superior Afrikaner tactics
and the most terrible wartime atrocities committed by the English). The blacks remained largely to the North and East, with Xhosa tribes spreading to the South East. Blacks and whites were fairly separated and lived in relative peace, though through the usual process of colonialism it would be fair to say that blacks were probably regarded as "second-class citizens", even if laws to that effect did not exist.

This is the starting point that was established when the Apartheid Government (the National Party) took the reigns. Apartheid was all about separation, with the government of the day seeking to group all blacks into independent "homelands". The idea is not a terrible one if one looks at the strength of nation states, but the way it was carried out was truly horrible. Aside from the fact that the whites kept all the prime areas (gold reefs, diamond mines etc), blacks that lived peacefully next door to whites were pushed out of those areas with only a token of compensation.

This however does not apply to the majority of modern farmland, which in those days was really just completely empty and undeveloped space in the middle of the country. Most modern farms are not built on the former lands of black tribes, despite government hype to the contrary. This creates massive tension in the country as frustrated black youths are fed misinformation and led to believe that modern farms are now built on land which was once owned by their forefathers. Obviously this leave the farmers feeling upset and betrayed by the government and uncertain of the future. This insecurity is crippling to the country; farmers now won't take out loans for fear that their farms may be stolen. Instead land is starting to go to waste and food security is becoming a problem.
Zimbabwe 2.0.

I don't have an easy solution for South Africa, but I do know that it lies in being open and working together, not in being divisive, which seems to be the ruling party's go-to card, lest the population discover how corrupt and inept the government is.

Worst of all is the plight of the coloured people. Too black to have benefits under apartheid and now too white to have benefits under the ANC government, the true native South Africans have been marginalised ever since blacks and whites first set foot in their land. Most continue to live in poverty, earning a small living working on farms or fishing (often illegally in rather well equipped crime syndicates!)

The question of who rightfully owns land is never an easy one, especially when you have a painful past like South Africa. But the reality of the situation is that land changes hands over and over again. Look at the history of Europe and you will see an continent that continually changed ownership as nation after nation after nation conquered parts of it. You can never just revert back to some sort of "Starting point" and say "this land is ours". In a multi-cultural society the very definition of "ours" makes no sense anyway. My own forefathers probably come from about 10 different countries if I go back only 4 generations or so.

I hope that SA can sort out their issues in a fair and amicable manner. I will continue to watch them with interest and attempt to combat their harmful government misinformation wherever I can.