Cape Town - There was no need to use race as a measure of disadvantage when more specific indicators are available as tools of developing redress policy, the Democratic Alliance's Gwen Ngwenya said on Friday ahead of the official opposition's weekend policy conference.
"In the case of inequality, we can pin it down. So for me it is not so much whether race is or isn't a proxy. The question is, do you really need proxies for disadvantage when there are so many excellent studies that can tell you in less murky terms, that can really explain what in detail what disadvantage looks like?" Ngwenya, the DA's policy head, told a media briefing.
"So it is not a matter of saying okay, the majority of the disadvantaged are black."
Though the policy documents of the DA acknowledge that the majority of poor South Africans are black, the DA's inquiry went towards other markers of disadvantage, such as malnutrition, stunted growth, high mobility costs and access to health care.
"If race is the outline of the picture, these indicators start to colour that picture in and say, okay, what are the specific challenges they are grappling with on a daily basis."
Ngwenya said the discussion as to whether race was a proxy for disadvantage had become "distracting".
"I know many people kind of end up becoming entangled in that web of that discussion, but I think it moves us away from the challenges people face because we end up in a very abstract and intellectualised conversation that actually isn't rooted in the problems people are facing."
She stressed that, going into the weekend-long conference, the DA's position was firmly that there was a need for affirmative action but that its vision of the outcome of that policy, unlike that of the ruling party, was the creation of equal opportunity.
"We do support affirmative action, but it is a mistake to think that the way we do affirmative action in South Africa is the only way that affirmative action gets done; and there is a policy conception of affirmative action that we do support, and that is the one that encourages equality of opportunity."
Day two of the conference will be allocated to the subject, under the heading of "Economic Justice". It is the title of one of three discussion papers, the other two dealing with principles and values, and with local government.
Divisions on race-based redress have haunted DA policymaking for a decade at least and some 200 candidates are going into the weekend's conference with the party's stance on race in general dragged to the fore by the resignation of its leader in Gauteng, John Moodey, earlier this week.
Moodey's departure has been accompanied by mud-slinging over charges against him related to revealing an alleged sex-for-jobs scandal embroiling DA deputy chief whip Mike Waters.
But he also voiced discomfort at the direction the party had taken, in an echo of the parting shots of former leader Mmusi Maimane and former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba when they left.
Moodey took aim at the tweet from federal council chairwoman Helen Zille in which she asserted "there are more racist laws today than there were under apartheid… But permanent victimhood is too highly prized to recognise this."
Zille's stance on black empowerment legislation led to a damaging fallout with former protégé and party leader Lindiwe Mazibuko in 2013. The compromise that emerged at the time, as voiced by Mazibuko, was an acceptance of race as a proxy for disadvantage.
Moodey this week said Zille's tweet had caused "irreparable harm to the DA brand and racial harmony in SA, yet she remains in office".
The party, in return, accused Moodey of "playing the race card" to avoid the charges against him.
The outcome of the policy conference will feed into the party's manifesto for next year's local government elections.
African News Agency (ANA)