Award-winning songstress Simphiwe Dana says she’ll continue tweeting after a bust-up on the social network with DA leader Helen Zille and party spokeswoman Lindiwe Mazibuko.
This came after Dana challenged the DA leader on the Western Cape being the best-run province in South Africa. But Zille said her back-and-forth with Dana was “no big deal” and that she accepted valid criticism and was a fan of her work.
“She is also a great musician, and I am a fan of her music, especially Bantu Biko Street, which means a lot to me for obvious reasons,” Zille said.
“She is not a politician, nor a political analyst, nor does she pretend to be. So I am not surprised that we have differences on this front.”
Dana said the voices that were being stifled in the debate over wealth distribution were not that of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, but ordinary black South Africans.
“Living in Cape Town, the DA holds itself as the most efficiently run province in South Africa, which begs the question: are we looking forward to a Western Cape-type of government when the Western Cape has a huge imbalance (between rich and poor)?” Dana asked.
She said that even though the province was well run, the question of redress remained unanswered.
Apart from their interactions on Twitter, the two had met each other only once, an interaction that Dana said had left her disappointed.
Dana added: “I posed a few questions about crime, and the answers were unsatisfactory.”
On Saturday night, after several of Dana’s questions on Twitter to Zille went unanswered, Mazibuko came to her defence.
“Do twitter slacktivists who live to hurl abuse at @helenzille ever ask themselves whether an ANC head of govt would entertain their drivel?” she said.
In follow-up tweets, Mazibuko described Zille’s critics as talking to her “like she’s a waitress who served them burnt food. What are THEY doing for SA?”
But Dana said Zille had deliberately ignored several of her questions, not just on Saturday but on the previous day, when the initial back-and-forth exchange started.
Zille said she had been unable to respond to Dana’s questions because she was at a function on Saturday night, but had engaged with her throughout the day. - The Star