I read Jon Cayzer's On race, the DA is on the wrong side of history in Politicsweb. This is a version of an email I sent him.
Until the beginning of this year - now almost never - I regularly read PW but became increasingly put off by its right shift (from centre-right) since c2018. But I'm glad I took a rare peek and saw his article.
Cayzer is a former speechwriter for the DA and IFP. He's currently a PhD candidate and lives in London. His previous article, The end of a party, was also about the DA's decline.
Except for one or two people, trying to engage in civil debate on PW's comments is impossible - like wrestling a pig; both get dirty. As a despairing PW commentator (a lawyer) wrote before disappearing, "PW comments is where rational debate goes to die among the [far-right, racist] vitriol". (The same can be said of associated BizNews.) Cayzer should be commended that he did and kept his good humour.
Both articles are trenchant analyses of the DA over the last decade, particularly since Helen Zille became party leader. As a former insider and scholar he provides details the public don't have. I find most so-called media analysts' bewilderment about Zille's and its slide insincere because it was evident to me as an informed member of the public 2010-12 already.
An aside, I was not aware John Steenhuisen was a member of the NP but it figures. The DA is a haven for NP refugees, few of whom can be said to be centre liberals. A senior manager at the Western Cape government, who comes from (Jan) Smuts' family, told me the WC DA - its power base - is a NP, racist "boere" stronghold beholden to agri-interests, their backers. (A whistleblower, the WCG persecuted him on trumped-up disciplinary charges, which is their thing except when it concerns Zille, for three years for publicly criticising her. The Labour Court threw it out.)
Most whites support the DA, though. They're moderately conservative to rightwing like journalist Ed Herbst who wrote this fulsome praise, taking a swipe at me in the process (disclosure: I'm not a journalist or analyst but wrote a few op-eds including published in PW; I'm an armchair activist and urban economist), PW's publisher and contributors, eg RW Johnson whose support flip-flops, IRR and white business establishment.
BEE, EWC and race-based policies (and farm murders!) are a red flag to them. I agree while it has served its purpose a long time ago and is not an effective route for black economic advancement, BEE is not at the top of the country's priorities and is not the thing impeding growth, development and opportunities, which significantly is the economic model that includes white economic control and and concentration. While the ANC keeps BEE because it serves its patronage networks, whites too, at least on the right and now the DA, cannot let it and their obsession with race go. And they never see the other side of white society's bad choices. These imbalanced forces are pulling the politico-economy out of equilibrium.
Like Zille's colonialism tweet, and while there may be some truth to it, ie in an ideal world where race is not a constant factor, taking example from her malign lead, the DA are tone deaf to the realities of race, racial disparities and historical white apartheid privilege that cannot and has not being ameliorated, for the improvement of the majority of non-whites, in one generation. And with the ANC's incompetent and backward ideological policies and white intransigence, it won't get better soon.
In its formation as neo-conservative Trumpist Republican-like party over the past ten years, the DA is displaying baasskap[1] over citizens that, it must be said, other politicians - ANC, EFF, etc - also do. It's evident in their combative and questionable accountability in the WC and Cape Town. For the DA it's egregious because they claimed and are supposed to hold to the liberal ideal. They've committed the same sins as the ANC, and NP before that. I agree history is leaving them behind.
Both articles are trenchant analyses of the DA over the last decade, particularly since Helen Zille became party leader. As a former insider and scholar he provides details the public don't have. I find most so-called media analysts' bewilderment about Zille's and its slide insincere because it was evident to me as an informed member of the public 2010-12 already.
An aside, I was not aware John Steenhuisen was a member of the NP but it figures. The DA is a haven for NP refugees, few of whom can be said to be centre liberals. A senior manager at the Western Cape government, who comes from (Jan) Smuts' family, told me the WC DA - its power base - is a NP, racist "boere" stronghold beholden to agri-interests, their backers. (A whistleblower, the WCG persecuted him on trumped-up disciplinary charges, which is their thing except when it concerns Zille, for three years for publicly criticising her. The Labour Court threw it out.)
Most whites support the DA, though. They're moderately conservative to rightwing like journalist Ed Herbst who wrote this fulsome praise, taking a swipe at me in the process (disclosure: I'm not a journalist or analyst but wrote a few op-eds including published in PW; I'm an armchair activist and urban economist), PW's publisher and contributors, eg RW Johnson whose support flip-flops, IRR and white business establishment.
BEE, EWC and race-based policies (and farm murders!) are a red flag to them. I agree while it has served its purpose a long time ago and is not an effective route for black economic advancement, BEE is not at the top of the country's priorities and is not the thing impeding growth, development and opportunities, which significantly is the economic model that includes white economic control and and concentration. While the ANC keeps BEE because it serves its patronage networks, whites too, at least on the right and now the DA, cannot let it and their obsession with race go. And they never see the other side of white society's bad choices. These imbalanced forces are pulling the politico-economy out of equilibrium.
Like Zille's colonialism tweet, and while there may be some truth to it, ie in an ideal world where race is not a constant factor, taking example from her malign lead, the DA are tone deaf to the realities of race, racial disparities and historical white apartheid privilege that cannot and has not being ameliorated, for the improvement of the majority of non-whites, in one generation. And with the ANC's incompetent and backward ideological policies and white intransigence, it won't get better soon.
In its formation as neo-conservative Trumpist Republican-like party over the past ten years, the DA is displaying baasskap[1] over citizens that, it must be said, other politicians - ANC, EFF, etc - also do. It's evident in their combative and questionable accountability in the WC and Cape Town. For the DA it's egregious because they claimed and are supposed to hold to the liberal ideal. They've committed the same sins as the ANC, and NP before that. I agree history is leaving them behind.
Cayzer replied to me. "BEE and employment equity for the DA et al is the gift that keeps on giving". No serious person disagrees the two interventions have been disasters, in design and "Putin-like implementation". He said the DA are playing a "twisted game" to stoke minority fears that blacks are "inherently corrupt", and about the ANC's "elite enrichment, venality and mobilisation of racial narratives". The debacle suits them and ANC. The DA's "sleight of hand uses it as a fig leaf to cover up their increasingly Trumpian offering and to negate the need for authentic redress [which] requires a new economic policy and vision".
Endnote
[1] The worst master is a former slave. Many black and brown South African politicians and bureaucrats are as bad if not worse than their apartheid masters. They display the same baasskap to citizens and especially people of their own race. It's arguably worse now because the country has a fine constitution that defines and promotes administrative justice and outlaws the domination and supremacy among South Africa's ruling class that was prevalent during the National Pary's authoritarian rule.
There were no laws during apartheid that guided the state's conduct with citizens, but the regime treated whites and other races – not blacks, though – with obsequious respect (for whites) and civilly when it came to daily administrative business. Now, though, the ruling class are above the law and are bad governors; it's the new apartheid except it's levelled at all citizens, black, brown and white.
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