Helen Zille on crime statistics: 'black lives, like all other lives, really do matter'

DA Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille has questioned the silence of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and its activists amid reactions to the latest quarterly crime statistics.

In a lengthy Facebook post titled “Black lives, like all other lives, really do matter”, Zille said the murders of women, children and other members of society, some of whom were killed for tenders, deserved to be met with outrage and calls for justice. 

Zille said if crime statistics were categorised into racial groups, they would reveal the majority of black people as victims and perpetrators of crime.

Failure by the government to highlight this resulted in the deaths of black people going unnoticed and unsolved, which deprives a whole community of justice and a firm stand against crime, she said.

She added, incidents of micro-aggression often interpreted as racism are blown out of proportion to cause public outrage. 

“A friend and colleague of mine contributed to this gruesome statistic during the past three months. He was a former DA councillor who worked tirelessly to expose corruption in the allocation of housing in disadvantaged communities. In March he was assassinated at point-blank range. A few weeks later, three young women who witnessed his murder were also shot dead, presumably to stop them from identifying the murderers.

“Most of these murders are never solved. You would think that these murders would be a priority for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement if they really believed that black lives matter.”

Zille said BLM activists were quick to react to murders of black people involving whites as perpetrators to advance their political agenda that had nothing to do with protecting the right to life. 

Contract killings had become prevalent in Nelson Mandela Bay where competitors assassinated rivals for tenders, Zille wrote. 

“If BLM were serious, they would expose every one of these gruesome killings and help to bring the perpetrators to justice. This might help bring down the horrific murder rate of black people by black people. Not because of their race, but because of a simple fact: all lives matter.”

Zille engaged followers, black and non-black, who disagreed with her.

One user, Haseena Majid, said the system was in favour of non-black South Africans, which had a ripple effect of compromising the lives of black people. Non-black people, said the user, were afforded privileges on the basis of compromising black people.

In response, Zille asked: “look at the murder stats. What is the greatest threat to black lives?”

Another user, Sboniso Zondi, suggested Zille lacks an understanding of the BLM movement, saying it is not intended to imply that other lives matter less.

Zille responded by saying the murder rates were not reflective of the values of the BLM movement. 

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