Tea at Trianon: South Africa May Soon Take Land Without Compensation

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, October 22, 2022

South Africa May Soon Take Land Without Compensation

From Zero Hedge:

South Africa’s National Assembly passed a bill on Sept. 28 that would allow the government to seize land without paying the owners, a practice known as ‘expropriation without compensation.’

“This thing is emotional. We cannot deny it,” said South African farmer Herman J. Roos in a Sept. 29 message to The Epoch Times. He noted that the law would not change Article 25 of South Africa’s constitution—a more radical move that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has frequently advocated. The Expropriation Bill, the latest gesture toward land reform in a racially and economically divided nation, still awaits approval from the National Council of Provinces.

It would then need the signature of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has publicly supported expropriation without compensation for years. The bill passed over the objections of several minority parties. Notably, the National Assembly is dominated by the country’s ruling party, the left-wing ANC. It controls over 57 percent of seats in the 400-seat chamber. The second-largest party, the centrist Democratic Alliance, controls under 21 percent of seats, followed by the openly communist Economic Freedom Fighters at a little under 11 percent of seats. The right-populist Freedom Front Plus, known for its opposition to expropriation without compensation, has just 2.38 percent of the body, or 10 seats.

Groups representing black farmers in the country have typically favored expropriation without compensation, as noted in a report from the United States Department of Agriculture. That’s against the backdrop of mass landlessness among the supermajority of South Africans who are black or colored (a specific multiracial category in the country). Years after the end of apartheid and its racial restrictions on land ownership, much of South Africa’s land remains concentrated in the hands of white farmers. (Read more.)