OLIVER DICKSON | Both the ANC and DA are stoking fires that burn SA's hopes and dreams

About 15 years ago, satirist Zapiro published his infamous “Rape of Lady Justice” cartoon in the Sunday Times. In it, he depicted Jacob Zuma unzipping his pants about to rape a woman pinned to the ground by several of Zuma’s erstwhile comrades, Julius Malema, Gwede Mantashe, Zwelinzima Vavi and Blade Nzimande. The woman was blindfolded and wore a sash with the inscription lady justice on it.

Zapiro, rightfully, faced an endless backlash with many academics and activists describing the cartoon as tone deaf and in bad taste. And of course it is if you consider the context of rape in South Africa. Women being raped is ubiquitous and inscribing that sort of imagery into the public discourse is inconsiderate to the trauma rape survivors live with every second of their lives.

That dialectic around the cartoon made it clear that there is a reasonable and acceptable limit to artistic and creative expression in political discourse. The essentialisation of rape is a clear crossing of that line.

The question at hand today is whether the DA has crossed that line in its recent campaign ad depicting the burning of the South African flag as a metaphor for what it believes is what the governing ANC is doing to South Africa.

The DA is facing a similar backlash to that of Zapiro 15 years ago, with President Cyril Ramaphosa describing the ad as treasonous and the minister of arts and culture, the corruption-accused Zizi Kodwa, announcing that he will be taking legal action against the DA.

I think the president and the minister are wrong and opportunistic in their overreaction.

Let’s for a moment consider the context.

Yes, South Africa comes from a racist and painfully violent history, but the depiction of the burning of the flag certainly does not necessarily inscribe that trauma into the national discourse. The specific act of burning the flag is not a historical feature as a symbol that accompanies the violence of our history.

The brandishing of the apartheid flag certainly is a symbol of that violence and trauma. These two things are being negligently, lazily and opportunistically conflated. The ad is, in no doubt, controversial, but it is not essentialising a specific trauma.

The message the DA is attempting to convey is quite clear, the flag represents the people of South Africa and their aspirations, sacrifices, hopes and dreams and all that makes up our country. The DA believes that the ANC has misgoverned South Africa to the point that the hopes, dreams and aspirations of South Africans are being burned by the governing ANC, perhaps even a metaphor for the country quite literally burning, as it did in July 2021.

This is a reasonable political position to have and express. The ANC is not so much hurt by the desecration of the flag, but rather that the DA has 'touched them on their studio' by depicting the state of affairs as such. This is a powerful election campaigning message that indubitably emotively moves people, in either direction. The ANC is desperate.

Is this ad unpatriotic? Absolutely not! The ad is not an endorsement of the burning of the flag, neither is it untimely or casual. It cannot be ignored that we are at the crescendo of electioneering.

—  Oliver Dickson

Is the ad another case of the DA being tone deaf? No! Criticism, like this, against the ANC is neither new nor unfounded. The DA and its leaders are often tone deaf, such as when Helen Zille insisted that “not all things about colonialism were bad” and then doubled down in the heat of debate when she argued that the brutal exploitation of defenceless black labourers who built this country was a good thing because “look at all these roads and bridges”.

A general description of the DA is not unfounded and without merit, but this specific ad does not expand that set of data points.

Is this ad unpatriotic? Absolutely not! The ad is not an endorsement of the burning of the flag, neither is it untimely or casual. It cannot be ignored that we are at the crescendo of electioneering.

Is this a good campaign ad? Perhaps not, perhaps it is not even a strategically wise ad because many of the misgivings the DA accuses the ANC of flow through the crevices of the DA and where they govern. The DA-led multiparty government in the City of Tshwane quite literally presided over the avoidable deaths and illness of the people of Hammanskraal as they were provided with unsafe drinking water. The people of Gugulethu and Khayelitsha quite literally burn to death in shack fires in the Western Cape while the DA routinely underspends on social provisions in the province that could be appropriated for human housing in informal settlements.

The DA and the ANC could be described as stoking the same fire that is burning the hopes and dreams of South Africans.

 * Dickson is a political analyst who features on SAfm and SABC News. He is also a media strategy, political risk and policy consultant. He writes in his private capacity