Remembering the 2018 Hermanus Land Invasions

Since 1994, the South African government has failed to expand infrastructure, particularly housing, at a pace consistent with population growth. This has been driven primarily by the misuse of state funds by the African National Congress (ANC) and its friends. The result is a housing shortage: there are now more people than formal homes.

This shortfall has been compounded by decades of political promises of free goods and services, including housing, education, water, and land. Over time, these promises have fostered widespread entitlement. When expectations created by politicians are not met, tension rises. This manifests in destructive behaviour such as arson, looting, and theft including land invasion and expropriation of private property.

There is a third strand to South Africa’s post-1994 trajectory. I have explored this in more detail in another article, but essentially, since 1994 the ANC and its offshoots have placed land expropriation at the centre of its political agenda, evolving from limited restitution for apartheid-era dispossession to broad redistribution and, under Zuma, to expropriation without compensation.

These three strands met during the 2018 Hermanus land invasion, where long-standing broken political promises, rising entitlement, and the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution came together.

The large-scale land invasion took place almost overnight on the Schulphoek Peninsula that contained a protected 50-hectare milkwood forest. Thousands of people were bused in, informal shacks were erected, and the area expanded to an estimated 3,500 shacks housing around 10,000. The invasion led to the near-total destruction of the endangered milkwood forest, repeated episodes of unrest, and the burning of key public infrastructure such as the swimming pool complex, library, and police station.

Efforts to stop the occupation were limited and inconsistent. After an initial, unsuccessful eviction attempt, the DA-led municipality shifted toward accommodation by providing free roads, electricity, and eventually title deeds, even on unsafe land such as the municipal dump. The consequences included, among other effects, a decline in middle-class property values in the vicinity, long-term environmental degradation and growing municipal debt.