Prepared speech by Dene Smuts MP, DA Shadow Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, National Assembly, Cape Town, February 22 2011
In remembrance of Jannie Momberg
The day Jannie Momberg was elected to Parliament as the Member for Simon's Town his victory was the lead front page story of the Cape Times early edition.
He could not quite forgive me for the fact that my own win in Groote Schuur got the banner headline a few hours later in the next edition and bumped him off the front page.
We contested our own constituencies then, on our own manifestos and recognisances. And his included the fact that he had broken with his historic home, the National Party, to contribute to the creation of the DP and thereby to the creation of the conditions that made transition possible.
The old Nats hated the Cape Times for the formidable liberal work it used to do then, hence half Jannie's pleasure at the early front page. And after his own conversion to the DP he personally hated the countervailing organ, Die Burger, which made him so angry over breakfast each morning that it got his adrenalin pumping for the day.
It says something about the road we have traveled that Die Burger soon became the liberal paper. Jannie kept traveling, both literally, to Lusaka, and figuratively to join the ANC half way through his term, with four other DP MPs. He had traversed the entire political terrain from the old establishment to the incoming new. And he did so from personal conviction that it was, for him, the right thing to do.
It is not that he didn't work through the ideological considerations that normally drive defection, as when Mrs Suzman and company crossed the floor to create the Progressive Party, or Dr Treurnicht the Conservative. He did take the ANC's non-racist, non-sexist ethos under review. He said he understood the non-racism but he could not understand what you had against sex!
However the reason why it was for him the right thing to do was that he felt he had an historical debt. In die woorde van sy vrou Trienie, wat vandag saam met haar seun Steyn as my gas in die galery sit en wat sy politieke spanmaat sowel as sy gade was: "hy het net gevoel dis al manier om reg te maak die feit dat hy in die verlede die NP ondersteun het. Alhoewel hy verguising moes verdra, het hy tot die dag van sy dood nooit getwyfel dat hy die regte ding gedoen het nie, en van die groot massa mense van Suid-Afrika het hy baie ondersteuning gekry."
My colleague Marius Swart who is father in law to one of the Momberg sons and who cannot be here today describes how, at Jannie's 70th two years ago, the range of guests, from farmers and sportsmen and women, politicians and friends attested to the fact that he was indeed a bridge builder between the old order and the new.
He argued hard, but always honestly and always with respect for a different point of view. He loved his wife and children and grandchildren with a passion. He loved sport. He loved everything - except all the things he hated! There were no half measures, and as Trienie says, he did nothing half-heartedly.
Parliament was one of the things he loved. He was thrilled to come here in 1989. When he defected three years later, Trienie says he did so without any guarantee that he would appear on the ANC's party list, or that he would receive any post, posting or reward. In the event, he became an ANC whip, and in time was posted to Greece, As for reward: there is a reward associated with ANC membership about which we have only lately learned, from the highest authority. It is the ultimate reward - a free pass through the pearly gates. The ANC may not be able to do much for you down here, but it is said to be an investment in the hereafter. I wonder what Jannie thinks of this election promise, up there. I suspect he thinks he got there on his own recognisances, and I would think that he is right.
Issued by the Democratic Alliance, February 22 2011
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