The assertion that fixating on documented private-property ownership is misplaced, as stated by Ayabonga Cawe, misses an important point (Misplaced fixation on title deeds is a convenient diversion, May 21). The land use and control explained by Cawe, quoting Archie Mafeje, are of course quite understandable in unsophisticated and underdeveloped societies. However, I suggest that apart from a few starry-eyed romantics and extreme Marxists, most Africans of all colours actually want to own a patch of land they can call their own, build on it with security of tenure and — if it is large enough — use it productively. It is tribal control of land, often in despotic traditional circumstances, that explains why rural areas are still so poor. The land is used largely on a subsistence basis as any material improvements belong to the local induna — those implicit reversionary rights. Ask the people farming on land "owned" by the Ingonyama Trust if they would prefer direct ownership instead o...
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