All—or almost all—African countries adopted the same principle, formulated in the “state’s right to eminent domain” over all land. I am not one of those who consider this proclamation an error or that it was motivated by extreme “statism.” An examination of the real ways that the current system of managing the peasantry operates, along with its integration into the capitalist world economy, allows us to assess the scope of the challenge. The system’s management is effected by a complex system that simultaneously calls on “custom,” (capitalist) private property, and the rights of the state. The “custom” in question is degraded and serves only as decoration for the speeches of bloody dictators appealing to “authenticity,” a fig leaf they believe hides their thirst for looting and treason in the face of imperialism. The propensity to expand private appropriation encounters no serious obstacle other than the victims’ possible resistance. In some regions, well placed for cultivating rich crops (irrigated zones, truck farming in suburban areas), the land is bought, sold, and leased without any formal land title. The state’s eminent domain, the principle of which I defend, becomes a vehicle for private appropriation. The state can thus “give” the land required for setting up a tourist zone, a local or foreign agribusiness enterprise, or even a state farm. The land titles necessary for accessing the managed areas are rarely distributed with any transparency. In all cases, the peasant families that occupied these lands, and ordered to leave, are the victims of practices that are abuses of power. But to abolish the state’s eminent domain to transfer property to its occupants is not feasible in reality (it would require surveying and registering all village territories!), and insofar as it would be attempted, such an operation would allow rural and urban notables to get hold of the best parcels.
The correct response to the challenges of managing a land tenure system not based on private property (or at least one not dominated by it) requires reform of the state and its active involvement in establishing a modernized, economically effective, and (to avoid, or at least reduce inequalities) democratic system to manage access to land. The solution in any case is not a return to “custom,” which is actually impossible, and would only serve to accentuate inequalities and open the way to unbridled capitalism.
We cannot say that any of the African states have ever attempted to follow the path recommended here. Mali, the Sudanese Union, following its independence in September 1961, initiated what has been quite incorrectly called “collectivization.” In fact, the cooperatives set up were not production cooperatives. Production remained the exclusive responsibility of family farms. They were a form of modernized collective authority replacing supposed “custom” on which the colonial power had based itself. The party that took on this new modern authority had, besides, a clear awareness of the challenge and had set itself the aim of abolishing customary forms of authority—considered to be reactionary, even “feudal.” Undoubtedly, this new peasant authority, formally democratic (the leaders were elected), was in reality only as democratic as the state and party. In any case, it exercised “modern” responsibilities: assured that access to the land was “correctly” carried out, that is, without “discrimination,” managed credits, distribution of inputs (supplied by state trading entities), and marketing of the products (also, in part, delivered to state trading organizations). Nepotism and abuses of power were certainly never eradicated in this activity. But the only response to these abuses would have been progressive democratization of the state, not its retreat, as subsequently forced by liberalism (through an extremely violent military dictatorship) to the benefit of merchants (dioulas). In other areas, such as the liberated zones of Guinea-Bissau (under the influence of the theories advanced by Amílcar Cabral) and Burkina Faso under Thomas Sankara, these challenges were directly confronted, sometimes resulting in unquestionable advances that today are conveniently erased from public awareness. In Senegal, the establishment of elected rural collectives is a response to the principle of which I will unhesitatingly defend. Democracy is a practice that requires an unending learning process, in Europe as much as in Africa.
What the currently prevailing view understands by “reform of the land tenure system” is the exact opposite of what is required to build an authentic and prosperous peasant economy. The view propagated by the propaganda instruments of collective imperialism—the World Bank, most development agencies, but also a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) having large financial support—is that reform consists of rapidly increasing privatization of land and nothing more. The objective is obvious: creating conditions that would allow the “modern” pockets of agribusiness (foreign or local) to get hold of lands that are necessary for their expansion. But the additional production that these pockets could provide (for export or the profitable local market) will never be able to meet the challenge of building a prosperous society for everyone, which involves progress for the peasant family economy as a whole.
On the contrary, land reform designed with the aim of building a true, effective, and democratic alternative, based on thriving peasant family production, should define the state’s role (main holder of eminent domain) and the role of the institutions, as well as mechanisms for managing access to the land and the means of production. I do not rule out complex and mixed solutions, specific to each country. Private property in land could be accepted—at least where it is established and considered legitimate. Its redistribution can—or should—be reconsidered where necessary through agrarian reforms (in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya). I do not even necessarily, in all cases, rule out opening controlled spaces for the establishment of agribusiness enterprises. But the main point lies elsewhere, in the modernization of peasant family production and the democratization in the process of managing its integration into the national economy and into globalization.
I do not have a blueprint to propose here. I am satisfied highlighting some of the large problems that such a reform raises. The democratic question is the main focus of the response to the challenge we are examining. This is a complex and difficult question that cannot be reduced to the insipid rhetoric of good governance and multiparty elections. The question includes an undeniable cultural aspect: democracy pushes for the abolition of “customs” that are hostile to it—prejudices about social hierarchies, and above all the treatment of women. It includes legal and institutional components: the construction of systems of administrative, commercial, and private law that is consistent with the objectives of social construction and the establishment of adequate institutions (preferably elected!). But above all, when all is said and done, the progress of democracy will depend on the social power of its defenders. The organization of peasant movements is, in this sense, absolutely irreplaceable. It is only insofar as the peasantry is able to speak for itself that advances in the direction of what is called “participatory democracy”—as opposed to reducing the problem to the dimensions of “representative democracy”—will open up.
The question of relations between men and women is a no less essential dimension of the democratic challenge. When we speak of the (peasant) family farm, we are obviously referring to the family, which up to now, and almost everywhere, has been characterized by the structural submission of women and the over-exploitation of their labor power. A democratic transformation will not happen in these conditions without women’s organized movements.
Attention should also be focused on the question of migrations. “Customary” rights generally exclude “foreigners”—that is, all those who do not belong to the clans, lineages, and families that make up a village community—from rights to the land, or restrict access to it. Migrations caused by colonial and post-colonial development have sometimes taken on dimensions that shake up the idea of the ethnic “homogeneity” of particular regions affected by such migration. The emigrants—whether