Helen Zille is no liberal.

This is the text of a letter I wrote to Michael Morris[1], the Institute of Race Relations' head of media, to his op-ed in Daily Maverick.

I read your response to Ismail Lagardien's critique of Helen Zille[2] on Daily Maverick today.  I thought of writing but they rarely publish letters[3] from Joe Soap. And like most of South Africa's media, fear and resist the free and robust exchange of ideas in readers' comments (to another article, the editor noted they're neither left nor right leaning, however, restricting free speech is typical of both the far left and right).

While I disagree with Lagardien’s generalisation, as the socialist I suspect he is, about "liberal" economics, I agree Zille has moved to the right. I've been saying so since c2011 when my concerns about her matured, long before it become de rigueur and when she was considered an oracle and darling by those who criticise her now that she’s no longer premier and "opinionista". How quickly allegiances change and fickle the media is. I wrote to DM three or four times over the past one to two years inter alia criticising her in her position as the Western Cape government's top administrator, but the letters/op-eds were not published.

Like the DA, she claims a perfect, innate understanding of good governance, a liberal principle, but in key areas have themselves failed. I've personal reasons too for questioning her understanding of governance (including her laughable and ignorant suggestion international standards of auditing should be abandoned because they were inconvenient to her and WC government): a mess in the Western Cape Health Department, which the TAC reported in 2018 is failing the public, she failed – no, refused – to attend to as premier that's presently exploding like a cluster bomb in the Health Professions Council, Office of Health Standards Compliance and Cape Town Inquest Magistrate.

In refusing to investigate matters I notified her of (it affects my family), she violated her obligation under the law, instead pre-emptively choosing to protect the reputation of colleagues and her government rather than protect the public. In this she was no different to ANC politicians she despises.

The other matter the toadying media including your then employer and Argus colleague John Yeld largely dismissed was the regulatory capture of CapeNature, which she denied at the time. But documents prove her cabinet colleagues pressurised and colluded with CapeNature’s board which she could not have been ignorant of.

I defended her colonialism tweet – her right to say what she wants within reason and the truth colonialism had unintended benefits. But like her black privilege tweet (I wonder if she noticed the similarity to her colonialism comments), she didn't appreciate the nuances of each, reductively attributing personal factors – people's ability to overcome obstacles and prosper like Singaporeans or South Africa's black middle class – over historical and social legacies and ignoring people’s unique circumstances.

Refusing to stop, consider and acknowledge her comments are perhaps unwise and inflammatory in a particular context, and that human and personal development are not as clear-cut as she and many ideologues believe, is a characteristic of Zille – her mulishness, self-righteousness and hubris that she's always right and everyone is wrong including on subjects she has little to no qualifications in like auditing and public and development economics. That’s why I sarcastically call her “Oracle Helen”, a perception she has of herself, encouraged by the adoring public and media including Daily Maverick which allowed her space. If her From the Inside column said so, it must be true.

Her position and arguments are typical of the right-wing that gives preponderance of weight to nature over nurture, i.e. natural qualities – hereditary, personal, economic – triumphs over all odds despite mitigating social environmental factors when, in fact, a person’s development is a function of the two. This is evident at opposite ends of the economic classes, e.g. the anecdotal wastrel scion of old money who dies of a drug overdose in a back alley, and the child of the ghetto who becomes a world-renowned scientist, humanitarian, etc.

If we're known by the friends we keep, then Zille is associated with conservative to right-wing commentators – "Zille's Army" I call them – who applaud every utterance and who espouse reactionary views – hers and others’. (Incidentally, I don't agree with Lagardien who termed her "alt-right", which are a loose affiliation of right-wing and far-right; Zille's more mainstream conservative/right-wing.) Her media admirers include David Bullard, who is associated with IRR, Ed Herbst, Jeremy Gordin and RW Johnson.

That the IRR is conservative/right is undeniable in the tag its writers use in each and every article: "classically liberal" and often "proudly classically liberal". "According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, in liberal democracies, the political right opposes socialism and social democracy. Right-wing parties include conservatives, Christian democrats, classical liberals, nationalists; and on the far-right, racists and fascists." (Wikipedia).

Many among the right-of-centre are notorious for conflating socialism and social democracy and forgetting western-style democracies since World War 2 are founded on social democratic principles. Ironically, they decry the very constitutional laws and institutions they benefit from but would deny the same rights of those they disagree with politically.

IRR fellow and writer John Kane-Berman defended and approved Donald Trump's policy of isolation, protectionism and “economic liberalisation". And he compared Trump's isolationist policies to Brexit and blamed the EU (!) for Theresa May's, her government’s and parliamentarians’, who are confused and divided about what they want, failure to reach agreement over a trade deal after she and her government had already made a deal with the EU.

Trump, who has rightly been condemned as misogynist and racist, and leading Brexiter politicians like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are identified with the alt-right. And in supporting that faction, the IRR agrees with their policies and ideologies.

Now that Zille has joined the IRR when her political career is over, she's publically manifesting her identification with the conservative-right philosophy. Her right shift cannot be held to account by the DA's extant dwindling liberal voters who would be appalled, except those who believe the Western Cape can go it alone as “another country”, among them apparently IRR CEO Frans Cronje. Except her political enemies in the ANC, I don't know what people like Lagardien thought of her ideology until now. But for those like me who never bought her (and DA’s) egotistical self-marketing as the putative defender of liberal social democratic values, it’s no surprise.

Like the IRR’s writers, you use “liberal” liberally in your defence of her (13 times). But I often wonder if people really understand what it means, and when, like the IRR, you label yourselves thus. Perhaps you’re trying too hard and are not sure yourselves.

There are people on the left and right who claim they’re liberals but limit free speech, just administrative action and other constitutional rights. Among the most egregious are UCT during the ongoing fallism, nine out of ten local media for censoring and banning comments and commentators, Zille as premier and her then government, and of course, ANC government and politicians.

IRR’s writers claim it while advocating isolationism and protectionism which is the anti-thesis of the free market it allegedly champions. But the IRR and its co-travellers have never shown where in civilised man’s history markets were unrestricted and why of all human activity the economy ought to be the only one exempt from regulation. Also, the IRR doesn’t explain why it advocates an economic model that largely retains the apartheid-era’s exclusionary high-cost, high-profit one under the fiction it’s serving the interests of all South Africans, one of the two reasons the country’s post-1994 economic development is dire.

These are the contradictions, confusion and dishonesty of IRR, Zille in her own right and now that she’s a member. It’s a match made in heaven for both.

Political dogma is not either/or cut and dried, except for extreme ideologues, but a continuum. Despite the truth she often speaks – it’s foolish to ignore everything she says because in a way she’s the canary in the coal mine of right-of-centre white South Africa’s thinking – Zille is on the conservative-right of the continuum.

In liberal democracies being right-wing was once niche and somewhat infra dig except to the extremist minority who didn’t care. But with the right rallying in the US after Trump’s win and similar politicians and parties in Europe, e.g. Farage’s Brexit Party, it’s now a matter of pride. Zille is displaying her true colours with pride – proudly classically liberal.

Footnotes:

1.  On August 2 Morris replied he would respond.  He hasn't done so yet.

2. Zille, former Western Cape premier, has joined the IRR as a policy fellow. Their current campaign is called "Join Helen Zille".

3. I copied Daily Maverick managing editor Janet Heard.  She replied two days later (it was the weekend) they might "consider" it for publication, not that they would or shall.  And I suspect only because Morris replied endorsing me as his former position as Weekend Argus editor (I wrote letters to them and the daily Cape Argus at the time).  She didn't seem serious – she'd had it for two days but would only consider it – and anyway, as I said, they don't publish no-name writers and the man on the street.  But they do when their named regulars produce trite, insubstantial pieces like this one.  I didn't reply.

Footnotes added.