Mitchell’s Plain on the Cape Peninsula was the scene of a volatile stand-off between black and black.
The Coloured “oom” (uncle) who was interviewed on national television made no bones about it.
Speaking like he was the late Eugene Terre’blanche the orator, the “oom”, was flanked by “my mense” (my people), meaning several brown Afrikaners who were at the coalface of contestation over tracts of land.
The Coloured folk were “gatvol” with regards to the sudden arrival of scores of “daai mense” (black Africans), to occupy unused land in their neighbourhood.
According to the locals’ uncompromising leader — the “oom” — his community was not going to allow “daai mense” to just invade their space.
The latter stand-off symbolises the change in direction of the emotional land discourse from a race to a class struggle.
In Soweto the black middle class residents of Protea North were up in arms after the homeless (black Africans) took illegal occupation of a piece of land in their neighbourhood.
The middle classes were having none of it; the homeless were going to send the value of their properties plunging to all-time lows.
“Not here,” the middle classes blurted out in unison.
In the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, a small Indian community woke up to the sound of hammers with the homeless putting up shacks in the neighbourhood of a middle class Indian community.
The point here is that the discourse over land is rapidly shifting from racial rhetoric to a class struggle between black/white “haves”, and black/Coloured “have-nots”.
On a recent visit to the Masilelas smallholding in the communal farmlands of Klippan, north of Pretoria, I gasped at all the homeless being sold a piece of our land by some family members.
The situation has divided the Masilelas right down the middle.
I for one shall attempt to tread the middle pathway, hoping people can be brought together to find common ground.
The contestation between the middle classes and factory floor working classes dates back to the days of Apartheid.
At the time city folk used to look down on migrants arriving from areas such as rural northern Transvaal, now known as Limpopo.
Older folk who experienced all this shall tell you how denigrated they felt whenever they were referred to as country bumpkins or, in olden days’ lingua franca, rural “moegoes”.
And do not be fooled by the sunshine on our faces, the process of millions of rands flowing from land restitution has set brother against brother, sister against sister.
Time for property owners of all races to take note, as the narrative of the conflict over land is bound to become colour-blind, in months to come.
