Helen Zille and the fake liberals: Part 2

In my previous post I wrote Helen Zille and IRR et al are not true liberals. I continue with this theme.

In an article first published in Rapport where she’s a regular contributor, Zille wrote of South Africa’s “culture of unaccountability”. Quoting her “lodestar” political analyst and writer Francis Fukuyama, she said a “democratic society must get three key things right: the rule of law; a capable state performing its functions reliably and efficiently; and a deep-rooted culture of accountability, a deceptively simple formula [that’s] how devilishly difficult it is to achieve”

Indeed, for her it is because as I said before, despite presenting herself as having an “innate understanding of good governance, a liberal principle, in key areas she herself failed” in her role as premier of the Western Cape.  I mentioned two examples but there are others.

As she indirectly says, the test of liberalism is defending freedom of speech, accountability and transparency.  But she’s no defender. In 2012 she or her cohorts with her approval banned senior Western Cape employee Dr Bool Smuts, a whistleblower and critic, and ANC member of WC legislature, Max Ozinsky from a public forum on predators she called connected to the CapeNature pro-farmer policies cull.  I too was denied because I was a critic of her government’s complicit regulatory capture of CapeNature. The invitees generally were smarmy praise singers, including then Cape Argus environmental writer John Yeld, who sang from the same sheet as she.

Later her government hounded Smuts on false disciplinary charges that three years later the Labour Court dismissed. It cost tens of thousands in wasteful and fruitless legal costs. But this is Zille, litigating at others', usually taxpayers', expense to fight her battles.

Last year as premier Zille took on review the Auditor-General's qualification of the WC Department of Agriculture and public protector's finding that she pressurised the Western Cape Education Department awarding her son a contract.  The former was not about the substance of the finding, which was given after a rigorous audit process (disclosure: I’m a former contract AG auditor), but vanity to ensure she had a clean administrative record for posterity.  And involving herself in her son’s business affairs with her government was improper. But this is Zille’s ego, believing she knows better than everyone else.  

Not one for self-irony, Zille despises the audit profession, which she doesn't understand, because it was inconvenient to her then administration, but like the DA, grovelled for and boasted about "clean", i.e. unqualified audits.

Neither of these and other incidents speaks of accountability but a willingness to suppress and set good governance aside when expedient or for self-interest.  

She glibly writes about liberal values and accountability (see her discontinued From the Inside column in Daily Maverick; incidentally, now she no longer writes for them she's fair game in on their pages) but dispenses with them when she chooses.  She doesn’t have the courage of her convictions, for example, she gave a half-hearted apology for her colonialism tweet while insisting she did nothing wrong.  She didn’t defend her beliefs and refuse to apologise, not that the DA would have fired because she was untouchable (compare their treatment of Patricia de Lille on fictitious charges).  

But she couldn’t take the chance and sacrificed her principles for political ambition and a very good government pay cheque. She lacks courage and honour to take responsibility for her (and her then government's actions) but accepts praise for her successes.  And her fans lap it up without seeing her inconsistencies and dishonesty.  

As novelist Donna Leon (2018) wrote, slightly paraphrased ("he" for "she"), "she never misses the opportunity to claim praise for herself given to the organisation for which she works; she has a black belt in shifting blame or responsibility for failure to shoulders other than her own".

This is the calibre of general the fanatical Zille’s Army would unquestioningly go into battle for, one who would abandon them at the least sign of trouble while she sought refuge with whichever side – then DA leader Mmusi Maimane, now the IRR where she’s policy fellow – offered the best terms for her own survival. 

Another Zille defender and fan is Politicsweb contributor Marie-Louise Antoni who usually writes sense but this time falls prey to the strident conservative/right-wing drum examples of which are seen on Politicsweb of late.  This week she wrote liberals are under attack from the left, examples of which are articles by Daily Maverick staff contributors Ferial Haffajee (also see Michael Morris’ rebuttal; it’s becoming a full-time job to defend her) and Rebecca Davis.  

To the right-of-centre, Zille is a liberal icon and oracle and dare not be criticised lest the world ends.

Of course, Haffajee is in no position to cast stones.  She relates Zille’s defence in the Rapport piece of IRR colleague Marius Roodt aka Shelley Garland of the Huffington Post hoax.  But as editor of the since defunct HuffPost, which folded after the Garland debacle, Haffajee herself behaved poorly personally and professionally as I wrote at the time.

In what starts as a defence of Helen Zille rather than liberals, Antoni complains about an allegedly unflattering photo of Zille that accompanies Davis’ article as proof of the "left" demeaning Zille (photo editors choose the images, not writers).  That's subjective. Public figures can't complain of having an “off” day when their photos can't be taken. In the one Antoni refers to, Zille is smiling – she knew and approved of the photograph. She's getting older; we all are. More to the point, Antoni's complaint is proving Zille's vanity for her, like having Morris for the second time defending her in as many weeks.

For the rest, Antoni dredges the old, familiar, but untrue, alt-right white victimhood and fear of being under “attack” that’s happening around the world – of being “overrun” by “others”, rights being trampled upon and so on. In this country it's similar, but opposite, to a part of ANC/left that there are white racists behind every bush. The difference is the conservative/right has short memories of SA's history, forgetting another era when they ruled with a brutal iron fist.

Ultimately, it comes down to what is one prepared to do to defend the line like Horatius at the Bridge, “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds”. Ironically, Morris asks the same question in his latest piece: "what they are for, and what they are prepared to defend".  He's referring to free speech (I agree local media has lost its values) but the broad principle is contained in his question.

So what has Zille, Antoni or IRR’s et al members sacrificed?  Before they were corrupted by material excess, older ANC members understood.  Unlike Patricia de Lille who fought the DA to clear her name on trumped-up charges and was pre-emptively condemned and vilified by them and their supporters especially for her temerity defending herself, Zille capitulated when the commitment to her principles was challenged – her colonialism apology. 

But her initial combativeness and later concession – her ungracious apology, still oblivious to the offense her insistent tweets caused on the subject – brought out her fans in droves in support like this one from Politicsweb editor James Myburgh, typical of right-of-centre media and opinion makers who fulsomely praise her. 

Zille, IRR and DA and their sympathisers are fake liberals. They decry the body politics' alleged “shift to the left” despite the narrative always having been ANC/left.  But hypocritically they deny that so-called centrist organisations and the like shifted to the right too, i.e. if they were ever centrist to begin with.

Criticising the left and criticising those who disagree with them, like I do, doesn't deny the fact people revert to what they truly are when conditions are right, especially in times of crisis. The true liberals deserted the DA when they saw its principles taken over by ex-NP members who hid in plain sight after apartheid ended and the party was hijacked by conservatives.  Now few remain.

If we consider liberals to be holding the middle, Zille, IRR and similar are to the right-wing. They've lost, or never had, the core, principles of the old DA for example. True liberalism as a political belief never really had traction in the country and once conditions were right, right-wing ideologues reared their heads proudly, as they're doing in the US, UK, Italy and elsewhere.

Like IRR writers, Zille and others to the right, Antoni is propagating the egotistical nonsense only they are defending liberalism when a close examination of their policies reveal it's not necessarily so (see here). In a Biznews article IRR “writer-at-large” (large ego) Andrew Kenny said the IRR is the “true champion of liberty” (sic) as if the rest of us are fakes.  

We should create a conducive environment for consensus and progress. The ANC is beyond redemption and we should not look for hope there.

But people in the right-of-centre, or self-styled centrists, who ought to know better like Zille, most of IRR's writers (others in the organisation are temperate and sensible, though) and similar (see PoliticsWeb esp David Bullard) are themselves creating a divisive and polemical environment with their egregious fearmongering that presents the “attack” on liberals as a free for all blood sport.

Expanded and edited from previously posted comments.