The racist tweet by Helen Zille presents the DA with an opportunity to do things differently, writes Molifi Tshabalala.
A few years ago I attended a workshop on workplace diversity. To illustrate how a diverse workforce unlocks innovation and drives market growth, a facilitator told us an anecdote about a company that had suffered a great deal of damage to its reputation following a certain incident.
Consequently, the management called an urgent meeting to discuss the incident and come up with damage controlling measures in order to preserve the company’s image. During the meeting, narrated the facilitator, one of the managers of Chinese descent stood up and urged his colleagues, who had pressed the panic button, to view the incident as an opportunity to do things differently.
Orlando Pirates’ chairperson Irvin Khoza said the same following his club’s 6-0 annihilation at the hands of the reigning Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Confederation of African Football (CAF) champions Mamelodi Sundowns earlier this year at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria.
After Mamelodi Sundowns had scored a sixth goal, a group of Orlando Pirates’ fans invaded the pitch, prompting a group of their Sundowns counterparts to do the same, resulting in a scuffle between the two groups of fans.
Speaking at a press conference his club had called to reflect on the incident, which came against the backdrop of a 6-1 loss to SuperSport United, prompting coach Muhsin Ertugral to resign live on television in a post-match interview, Khoza said it was “time for reflection”.
The same applies to the DA. The racist tweet by its former leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, presents the party with an opportunity both to reflect on her future as the premier and do things differently as a damage controlling measure.
Zille struck a chord with black people when she tweeted: “For those claiming the legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water, etc.”
Essentially, Zille not only echoed journalist Paul Kirk’s views, as expressed in a Facebook post that Dianne Kohler-Barnard shared over a year ago, but also fed into a view that the DA is a racist party, using black people to win the votes.
In part, Kirk wrote: “Please come back PW Botha you provided far better services to the public - we had a functioning education system, functioning health system and the police did not murder miners on behalf of government toadies as they do now.”
Sadly, black DA members bear a far more insurmountable burden of defending the party as non-racist than their white fellows do. For example, DA leader Mmusi Maimane, Mbali Ntuli and Phumzile van Damme, to name but a few prominent black DA leaders, spoke out against Zille while the party’s traditional white guard, which includes Athol Trollip, Desiree van der Walt, James Selfe, and Chief Whip John Steenhuisen, lost its voice over the racist tweets.
It is against this backdrop that Steve Biko’s famous quote, “black man, you are on your own,” springs to mind. Maimane is on his own to de-racialise the DA. He is fighting a lost battle.
Steenhuisen did find his husky voice amid the furore over Zille’s tweet, but on a different matter, that is, a burglary at Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s offices in Midrand. He pointed the finger at State Security Minister David Mahlobo. Nevertheless, this may very well give credence to North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo’s assertion that Steenhuisen is a racist, or holds the same views as Zille.
Furthermore, both Zille’s tweet and the audible silence from the party’s traditional white guard undermine concerted efforts by Maimane to uproot a seed of racism within the DA.
In a speech delivered at the Apartheid Museum amid a storm of racist outbursts started by Kirk’s Facebook post and intensified by Penny Sparrow, who called the black people at a beach in Durban “monkeys”, Maimane said, “no DA member must ever turn a blind eye to racism, no matter how subtle or coded it may be”.
Not mincing his words, he went on to add, “racists are not welcome in the DA”.
In an article, “From the Inside: Lessons from Singapore”, seeking to put her tweet into perspective, Zille claims: “I have always known that African racial nationalism is the central tenet of the ANC.”
As if that is not enough to drum up support from the party’s traditional white guard in case she faces the music over her tweet, Zille adds: “The real danger is that the DA, in its quest for (black) votes, may start to swallow every tenet, myth and shibboleth of African racial-nationalist propaganda, including the scape-goating of minorities, populist mobilisation and political patronage.”
Essentially, Zille implies that the black votes would corrupt the DA. Zille should not start with it.
To start with, whose brainchild is the BEE, which Zille says is a “bribe-based black elite enrichment” scheme?
In the book Architects of Poverty, Moeletsi Mbeki says: “(The) BEE was, in fact, invented by South Africa’s economic oligarchs, that handful of white businessmen and their families who control the commanding heights of the country’s economy, that is, mining and its associated chemical and engineering industries and finances.”
He adds: “The object of BEE was to co-opt leaders of the black resistance movement by literally buying them off with what looked like a transfer to them of massive assets at no cost.”
However, to “the oligarchs”, says Mbeki, “of course, these assets were small change”.
The white monopoly capital is replete with ANC leaders as chairpersons and non-executive directors. Besides representing pseudo-transformation, some of them facilitate corrupt multimillion-rand deals between the government and white monopoly capital.
Ironically, the DA says it is investigating whether Zille has to face the music. There is nothing to investigate because Kohler-Barnard’s case has set the precedent. As I’ve explained, Zille echoed Kirk’s views.
The reality, however, is that subjecting Zille to a disciplinary hearing would be futile. The hearing is more appropriate to rein in young leaders such as Ntuli and Van Damme, not her.
I concur with former DA member-turned-columnist Gareth van Onselen that Zille’s world of politics is gone, but she does not want to relinquish the grips of power, “Not without a fight”, as the title of her autobiography suggests.
By hand-picking Maimane as her successor, Zille thought she would lead the DA from the grave through him. Her plan has backfired, as Maimane has his own vision.
Consequently, there are two centres of power within the DA, represented by Maimane and Zille, largely bordering on co-operative factionalism, albeit it is not playing itself out in the public domain as is the case with the ANC.
The DA is in a first phase of factionalism - co-operation - whereas the ANC is in the third phase, degeneration.
As I explain in the article, “President Zuma has proved to be a law unto himself” and other opinion pieces, history is likely to repeat itself in the next elections. The DA is likely to form a coalition government with smaller opposition parties to edge the ANC out of power with the EFF’s support.
To do things differently, the DA should recall Zille as premier and replace her with Maimane. This would help the party on two fronts. First, it would show responsible leadership, an important aspect of leadership that is lacking in the ANC where a spurious apology or sorry suffices to evade accountability.
Second, the premiership will help Maimane gain valuable experience in government and prepare him to become president in 2019.
Screaming from an oppositional bench is different from leading. Maimane needs experience in government.
* Tshabalala is an independent political analyst.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.