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The crumbling lie of a pro-black DA

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Bafana Nhlapo
Bafana Nhlapo

The lie that the DA is an all-inclusive, pro-black, diversified and equal opportunity party is fast crumbling.

The long-term public relations project that once projected three women of different races on billboards across the country to advance a false narrative of a pro-women and racially inclusive party has finally run its course.

In its stead, the real DA emerges. A liberal party that is set to defend the interests of pre-1994 looters and their offspring.

The recent events have made this point very clear.

As vastly reported, there was an exodus of DA Council Members in Cape Town reminiscent of the overdue exit of the children of Israel escaping a brutal regime of Egypt.

Similarly, they cite the Pharaoh-style racist oppression and segregationist approach in the affairs of the party.

But the truth is that this is not new. The DA has always stood in defence of white privilege and the evidence has been right before our eyes.

But perhaps the obsession with the cadre from Nkandla had allowed some of our fellow citizens to forgive them in view of their shared hatred for our former president.

Now that their common enemy is gone, perhaps it’s time to place on record how the DA has been choosing white privilege over black & female progress for many years.

Let us start with the simple one.

The DA exists in a country whose demographics consist of 80% black Africans and 51% of the population female.

When you watch them in the National Assembly or observe them during rallies, you would be forgiven for believing that their membership and leadership is in line with the demographics of the country.

However, nothing is further from the truth.

In fact, this is part of an orchestrated narrative to project the party as inclusive and pro-black when it is not.

The DA has 89 seats in the National Assembly.

While they strategically get their black representatives to sit within view of the camera to parade a lie to the electorate, you’d be surprised to know that only 27% of the party’s members of Parliament them are black Africans and less than 33% of them are women.

The DA is also official opposition in six provinces, having the highest proportion of representatives in Gauteng.

In a province with almost a 50-50 split of gender and over 77% black Africans, the DA shockingly manages only to have 26% female representation and less than 22% black Africans.

If one is not inclined to believe the message that black leaders in the DA are puppets of a white exclusionary agenda, these numbers start to reveal the accuracy of such sentiments.

Coupled with the above, the Western Cape is the only province governed by the DA.

It holds 26 out of 42 seats. The demographic patterns in the province are vastly different from most of the country, with 17% of whites in Western Cape.

Yet in the DA-run provincial legislature, white people constitute close to 40%.

All these numbers clearly reveal the DA’s rejection of black and female leadership.

It also, in practice, advocates for white representation in a black majority country that has its roots in the system of Trusteeship advanced by the colonial rulership and rejected by the ANC Youth League in 1944.

Secondly, the ANC put in place the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment policy in 2003.

Despite its challenges, the policy has been part of the collective efforts to improve prospects for black people, allowed black businesses to get potential revenue and pressured the private sector to employ more black people, females and persons with disabilities.

To strengthen the policy, amendments were proposed and brought forward by the Department of Trade and Industry, but the DA rejected the proposals and policy in totality.

While they claim that there are better ways in which black people and women can be empowered, the DA has until now, not made any policy proposals to that effect.

Instead, its leader, Mmusi Maimane confirmed this by saying that the party needs to craft its alternative to this policy - yet they have failed to propose anything for about 15 years of the existence of the policy.

All they have relied on is the trickle-down jargon reliant on economic growth and increasing employment which (while important) has never been proven to be effective in dealing with inequality.

Thirdly, the issue of Hellen Zille and the cardinal sin.

The struggle for the liberation of South Africa, Africa and the diaspora emanated from the fact that a white cohort of people arrogated themselves to be superior than black people and fought against any possibility of equality.

In material resources, social and cultural standing and religious standing they exaggerated their importance and undermined the existence of others. This is what characterised colonialism and imperialism.

That is also a central reason the material circumstances of blacks are that of massive poverty and landlessness while most white people live in privilege and economic abundance.

Despite this, Hellen Zille managed to find a way to praise this mass-killing system of oppression and in the process insulted black people across the country and in the continent.

Regardless of her sins, Zille kept her position as a DA premier of the Western Cape but she also unrepentantly went on to restate her claims, and the pseudo-black leadership of the DA has still not acted to this date.

All these remind us of the type of party the DA is.

It reminds us that flowing in its blood are the blue, yellow and orange colours of the oppressive National Party and that the massive public relations project to paint it as a progressive party cannot change its underlying culture.

It is time that the DA takes the country into their confidence and reveal the true interest they are pursuing.

Nhlapo is a former student activist. He was the Treasurer of Sasco in Gauteng and a National Executive Committee member of SAUS

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