SIKONATHI MANTSHANTSHA: Land is not black or white
The political opportunists who say land is a black and white matter have another thing coming
The most incredible thing happened this week: different classes of black people went toe-to-toe in two Gauteng suburbs and in North West over land occupation. The fight mirrored the social divide being sown by some opportunistic politicians, who continue to abuse the desperate situation of far too many of our compatriots. A group of people carrying their "homes" arrived in trucks in the upmarket (by Soweto standards) Protea Glen to erect shacks on open land owned by the municipality. Many residents came out of their bonded houses and blocked them. Fights ensued. Blood flowed in the neat and tarred streets. The police got involved on the side of the Protea Glen residents and drove away the invaders, tearing down structures. In the not-so-upmarket Vosloorus in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, residents took to the streets to protest against illegal land invasions by shack dwellers who had erected structures in their suburb. On the same day, northeast of Rustenburg in North West, a co...
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