A pathetic non-apology from the DA for callous race-baiting posters it put up in Phoenix, Durban, tells us as much about the party as the despicable posters themselves.
On top of poles, one of two posters screams “The ANC called you racists” and below it another delivers the divisive messaging ’ “The DA calls you heroes”.
More than 30 people were killed in Phoenix during the July unrest and riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. It is clear from some of the country’s finest reporting across media houses that, while a final authoritative picture has yet to emerge of the most incontrovertible overall set of facts, some members of the community took the law into their own hands, and many people were killed with no irrefutable proof that all killings meet legal standards of self-defence.
Plainly put, this is a community with many fault lines, including racial ones, and vigilantism was undeniably present during the July killings and riots.
The first falsehood in the DA’s posters is the dichotomy of heroes and (by implication) villains. Some of the villains are presumably ANC politicians (from the DA’s viewpoint). Other villains and losers would be the implied legitimate targets of the community’s use of violence.
John Steenhuisen, DA leader, tried unsuccessfully to avoid being skewered on this latter point by denying the messaging in the posters praise those who had taken the law into their own hands.
You don’t need to have more than room temperature IQ to see through the disingenuity of Steenhuisen. He wants to have his DA cake and eat it.
On the one hand, he wants us to believe he cares deeply about anyone who was a victim of unlawful use of violence by community members in Phoenix. On the other, he wants all community members to feel the DA has their backs.
But the messaging on the posters is not narrowly reserved for a non-violent person who stayed inside their Phoenix home and “resisted” by resorting to keyboard activism while watching television.
The “heroes” being constructed and praised by the DA must be, in the practical context of what had happened, the community members who used pangas and other weapons to “defend” their property and lives against anyone entering the community who they had deemed to be an imminent threat.
The bottom line, therefore, is that the DA’s posters are supportive of vigilantism, and it is simply dishonest to pretend the most reasonable interpretation of the posters is that they are praising people who were sitting inside their homes knitting peacefully. The DA regards killers as heroes. That is plainly what these posters convey.
Besides being premised on a false dichotomy of heroes and villains, the use of the posters is also a moral sin.
We should judge the DA not by the party’s professed values, but by what it does when no one is watching.
The decision to put up the posters in the first place is an intentional political act. More specifically, the use of the posters by the DA represents the intentional exploitation of racial tensions for short-term political gain. That shows a profound lack of interest in political morality and an abandonment of any political project that aims at social cohesion.
The posters are an assault on social cohesion. They are also inconsistent with the DA’s pretence that it is committed to non-racialism. It is important for voters to see the DA as revealing their true character and values.
We should judge the DA not by the party’s professed values, but by what it does when no-one is watching. It is important to believe the DA when it shows us, again and again, who and what it truly is.
When political reporters Samkele Maseko and Ziyanda Ngcobo confronted Steenhuisen with excellent accountability questions about the posters, such as whether or not he has any regard for the families who had lost loved ones and whether or not he will apologise, Steenhuisen refused to show any inclination to self-examine. He flatly denied there to be any reason to apologise. Instead he dug in his blue heels while hyperventilating in a familiar performance of recalcitrance.
If tone-deafness was an illness, Steenhuisen would long ago have been in an intensive care unit somewhere. He simply does not want to, or cannot — both equally disastrous politically — tackle the race issues in SA with the requisite emotional intelligence needed from the leader of the official opposition. This benefits an ANC-led government that has a horrible record of little service delivery, and plenty of political vices.
Late Thursday, the DA’s KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, Dean Macpherson (think of him as Steenhuisen 2.0), decided to make matters worse for his party by refusing to apologise but releasing a statement he secretly hoped would land as an apology.
The party, having been rightly roasted across the length and breadth of the country, had decided to take down the divisive posters. But they are so arrogant that they did not admit they did anything wrong.
Instead, Macpherson, whose political skill is even less impressive than Steenhuisen’s, took us all for fools by saying the posters were removed because they “inadvertently caused offence.” He reassured us, as liberals of his ilk tend to, that his “intentions” were beyond reproach.
The guy was not admitting he was offensive and callous. He was in effect accusing you and me of being thin-skinned, and was sheepishly taking the posters down because they were causing a distracting conversation.
The DA leader does not want to, or cannot, tackle the race issues in SA with the requisite emotional intelligence needed from the leader of the official opposition.
There is no moral value in taking down posters if you do not admit the messaging was intentional and morally odious.
Macpherson has no regrets and neither does Steehuisen. The removal of the posters therefore should not be seen as a praiseworthy political act of self-rebuke by the DA. They removed them for fear that further public discussion will damage the election campaign of the party. Don’t fall for their insincerity.
A real and meritorious apology starts with genuine recognition that you did something wrong.
Macpherson, Steenhuisen’s buddy who he had been defending over the past few days even when other DA leaders behind closed doors pushed back, knows he can go rogue because he is “one of the boys” and his family has always been influential within the party.
If the posters were unilaterally designed and put up by party leaders like, say, Solly Msimanga, Makashule Gana or Mbali Ntuli, they would probably already have had internal disciplinary steps initiated against them. But Macpherson need not fear such. The DA, like the ANC, has factions. Macpherson has adequate protection, a luxury many independent-minded black leaders did not and do not have. He is licensed to go rogue. Others aren’t.
Should you vote DA on November 1? Well, you decide whether the political character revealed by the DA resonates with you. Given how criminally bad most ANC-run municipalities are, it is certainly not fun being a South African voter.
- McKaiser is a TimesLIVE contributor and analyst
