Helen Zille is proof that you can get away with extraordinary offenses to morality and truth in this country if you are a white member of the DA
16 March 2017
The Congress of South African Trade Unions rejects and strongly condemns the senseless and thoughtless statements by the Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, who claimed that colonialism wasn’t all bad on Twitter. This ranks as one of the stupidest thing that she has said, but COSATU is not surprised by her sheer blatancy and unpardonable statements. Helen Zille has consistently proved herself not just to be a moral cretin and a political idiot but also to be a closet racially prejudiced individual struggling to contain her disdain for black people.
Colonialism was not about civilising the natives as she seems to suggest but was about subjugating and killing our people and plundering the resources of our continent. This period represented a dark and painful past for black people and these kinds of statements are an insult to many black heroes and heroines, who shed blood to fight colonialism and apartheid.
The question that needs to be asked is why do so many white people; DA members in particular, feel that they can insult black people with impunity.
There is no absolute standard of free speech in any society and no law in life or nature that says a group of people may be insulted with impunity. But the DA leadership seems to have claimed this mantle for themselves to insult black people and glorify and idealise the dark past of this country that left many black people dead or indigent.
Insulting black people is not just an occasional breach of taste by the lunatic fringe of the DA but it is a mainstream sport that is played at the highest level of leadership, where DA leaders and their members feel they have got the social licence to say what they want about black people in this country.
On the 3rd of June 2014, Democratic Alliance Deputy Chief Whip, Michael Waters, circulated a racially offensive picture on Twitter, which depicted ANC voters as dogs lining up to vote for the party - represented by a poster of President Jacob Zuma
DA member Penny Sparrow, called black beach goers monkeys and it was their MP Dianne Kohler Barnard, who shared nostalgic comments about apartheid on social media.
The same Helen Zille has previously referred to black people in the Western Cape as refugees , while a DA councillor called black people “dumb idiots that wanted handouts”. We still remember that it was DA Western Cape councillor Theunis Botha, who likened an African ANC MPL Zodwa Magwaza to a baboon
Who will forget that DA Eastern Cape leader Atholl Trollip was exposed as a former slave master, who and his family have a history of abusing and exploiting farm workers in their farm.
It is obvious that Helen Zille’s statements represent a sentiment held by a majority inside the DA. It is also clear that you can get away with extraordinary offenses to morality and truth in this country if you are white member of the DA.
The DA has injected our political discourse with racial bigotry and extreme prejudice directed at the black majority. The DA of course is an offspring of the South African Liberal Party ,which though pretending to be on the side of the oppressed was in reality privately pushing for the status quo, in which Blacks and Africans in particular remained economically and politically subservient to the white populace
The only thing that has changed now is that they have improved their political camouflage overtime for the worst, in that they now use black and African people as the face of their organisation. We are waiting for the black apologists to explain away this latest affront from their madam.
Issued Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 16 March 2017
