‘That which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary’ John Milton, Areopagitica (1644)
Counterpoint, a new occasional feature on the Daily Friend, seeks to match the wisdom Milton expressed in his great defence of free speech that the best ideas emerge from scrutiny and argument. Guest opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the Daily Friend or of the IRR.
I am almost amazed at the reaction to Helen Zille’s saying more race laws have been passed by the African National Congress than were passed under apartheid, especially by some members of the Democratic Alliance (DA).
There has been no interrogation of her remarks, but just the usual accusation that she is ‘racist’, ‘reactionary’ and so on.
What has happened to free speech in this country?
Similarly, when she said colonialism wasn’t entirely bad and had some merits, there was total condemnation – but, again, no debate on colonialism and its effects on the country.
The reaction was similar when she said the Western Cape had to deal with ‘refugees’ from the Eastern Cape. There was no interrogation of the total ineffectiveness of the Eastern Cape government and its failure to provide for its citizens.
Why is nobody doing any homework and interrogating her remarks?
One thing that has sorely been absent from the New South Africa is open debate. Zille has been trying to start a debate but there are no takers. Instead, slogans are shouted and anything out of the mainstream is decried as ‘racist’.
Ongoing dialogue
As a country, we need not one national debate but an ongoing dialogue, something we have never attempted. There are so many things that need to be debated, and heading the agenda is the question of race.
The African National Congress (ANC) is as obsessed with race as the National Party was. Why do we still have race classification 26 years after democracy?
The United Democratic Front (UDF) did so much to create a non-racial South Africa – a conscientised society without hierarchy, and with real grassroots democracy without the toeing of any line – only for this to be crushed by the ‘four nation’ theory of the ANC, which couldn’t deal with what it encountered after returning from exile. It thus insisted on continuing with its Stalinist dreams for the country, which its members had concocted with their Soviet teachers.
With the level of conscientisation in virtually every township in the 1980s, which the South African Defence Force was unable to deal with, the securocrats recommended talking to the ANC. Why, one wonders, not to the UDF?
ANC leaders like Mac Maharaj started returning from 1988, more out of a concern to assert ANC hegemony out of fear for the UDF.
Statement is not incorrect
As for Helen Zille’s remarks about ANC troops in camps and factional infighting, you have only to read Stephen Ellis’s External Mission to realise that her statement is not incorrect.
One should take note of our history, of Trotsky’s and Stalin’s personal involvement in the South African situation, going back to the 1930s; Trotsky with the Unity Movement in the Cape and Stalin with the South African Communist Party (SACP). Are people aware that the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) was specifically created by Stalin and his cohorts for South Africa? As we did not have a sufficient black proletariat, the ANC had to seize power through the NDR, which the ANC and the SACP are still trying to carry out, despite the total failure of the Soviet Union after just 70 years. When will they realise we are in the 21st Century?
The problem in the DA is that after Tony Leon and Zille, none of the other leaders have had balls. The party phoned me last year asking for my support and I replied that I’d do so when a leader like Zille emerges, who actually has balls.
There is no vision other than competing with the ANC. Any mention of race and they all fall apart. Where is the vision of the UDF, and of Madiba, of a non-racial, non-sexist South Africa? Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a vision for building a non-racial South Africa which has since been totally undermined by the likes of Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and the exile cabal.
Destroyed the country
They have destroyed the country and, with Covid-19, their total failure is there for all to see. That’s why troops have had to be called in to enforce the lockdown and why we have had to revert to 1960s-style apartheid measures such as curfews, and booze and cigarette bans. What a con job!
The better life has not come to the vast majority of our society; they have been left in an uneducated mess in townships. Education, as Madiba preached, is the way out of poverty. But the education system we have, run by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, is totally unfit for purpose. Some argue that it is worse than Bantu education. And so we have a situation of high expectations based on race but with no skills to match a sophisticated economy. How can we even dream of the 4th industrial revolution when we have such a lack of skills?
In most other countries which are draw-cards for foreigners, the locals have developed skills and moved up the economic ladder. In our country we have skilled people coming from other parts of the continent and competing with locals. And what happens? Xenophobia develops out of the fear among our people of being unable to compete with more skilled foreigners.
An irony
It’s an irony that UDF leaders like Cyril Ramaphosa, Pravin Gordhan and others are now having to save the ANC after Mbeki did his best to keep Ramaphosa out of the leadership, and with Zuma doing the same with Gordhan. And what about the development of fascism with the likes of Julius Malema and his red berets, straight out of the womb of the ANC? And all the looters in the ranks? As the Covid-19 pandemic devastates the country, we hear daily of the huge theft of UIF funds and other resources meant to provide relief for struggling businesses, and of the inability to implement so many other relief measures.
Thank goodness for our civil society and the private sector. It is because of them that we have been able to survive two bouts of Stalinist governance under Mbeki and Zuma. They operated in a world of their own. It is only the strength of civil society and business that has enabled us to survive and not to succumb.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
If you like what you have just read, subscribe to the Daily Friend