A picture of Nelson Mandela flashed up on the screen situated at the front of the Democratic Alliance’s gathering at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg and was instantly met with a roar of approval from those gathered there. In that instance I realised why I have always had the highest regard for the leaders and members of the Democratic Alliance; their decency and integrity.
Here was the former president of South Africa, a leader and lifetime member of their biggest rivals — the ANC — and yet they could appreciate and endorse what he had achieved for their country. Contrast this with the Republicans who attended Senator John McCain’s magnanimous speech in accepting Barrack Obama’s victory in the race for the US presidency and you get the picture.
Where the DA preach strength through diversity it is not mere lip service to an electorate but, as seen above, a living thing which their faithful practice spontaneously and without restraint. It really was a marvellous moment and brought no little goosebumps.
The morning started with a viewing of South Africans from all walks of life and any category you could think of, setting out their dreams for South Africa. This was followed on stage by various DA leaders giving their dream of what a South Africa of their choice would entail.
It was brilliantly done and if you weren’t feeling emotional by the time Helen Zille walked out to thunderous applause you’d best check with your doctor about early symptoms of psycopathy.
ZILLEMANIA
The message was clear; the time for opposition is passing; a new dawn is here.
The party would be standing firm on its core values but a new mindset and reality had arrived.
The Democratic Alliance, armed with its new logo of a morning sun, was aiming at governing South Africa. Helen Zille, Mayor of the Year and leader of the DA was adamant that if a Senator from Illinois could make history in the United States of America then “yes, we can”.
“Yes we can!” the faithful roared back.
Can they?
OBAMANIA
My regular readers know that I was highly visible in my support for Barrack Obama. This included appearing on the BBC in a number of discussions, writing numerous pieces and featuring on Obama’s official and supporting sites. Throughout, one thing struck me as vital to success, which the DA must learn now:
DON”T JUST SAY IT — BELIEVE IT! If you believe it, and I mean really believe it, your conduct, your body language and your campaign will reflect that. Obama’s supporters and his party got behind him and tackled everything and everyone. There were no red states and blue states, simply voters who could be tapped. Republican policies? Sez who? You got to triangulate a little, crib a little, take what’s good and spin a little, that’s the story of, that’s the glory of, love.
If the Democratic Alliance believe in themselves they must be in your face. When Chiefs play Pirates, Zille and co should be there. When the issue of Zimbabwe is being raised the DA should be in the townships asking the residents to tell the SABC or e.tv or anyone else what they think of exiles bribing city councils for houses and then explaining to them what the DA thinks of all this and their plans on service delivery.
Obama credited his electorate with an understanding of the issues that McCain did not. McCain spoke down to them about Joe the Plumber so they could identify with him. That’s garbage. The electorate understand when they are being shafted; simply speak to them. Obama castigated his own community and picked up flack from the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He spoke up to them, expected better from them so he could make it better for them.
The DA owns the moral high ground but has a credibility problem among the masses because they lack some real blood and guts speakers who can get in there and sell what is a good product. That is where they are going to have to recruit, recruit, recruit and recruit some more. There are tons of highly educated, resourceful and exiting black leaders in the new South Africa. Forget the garbage about black diamonds being rare. Come and sit in my canteen and you’ll realise that the country is flooded with them. Intelligent, well spoken (other than those Kaiser Chiefs morons like Sibusiso) and married to the same views that the DA holds dear.
If they can harness dynamic, young black leadership and marry it to their core values but with a nothing-less-than-victory-attitude …
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32 Responses to “Democratic Alliance: Zillemania, yes she can”
The DA’s liberal non-racialism, as espoused by its Prog and DP predecessors who fought Apartheid, is the actual redress that South Africa needs from a racialist past.
I don’t know why, but it is the ANC that is constantly perpetuating the Apartheid logic of racialism.
The DA is descended from Helen Suzman and the Progressive Party, and before that from Alan Paton and the Liberal Party. They are therefore perceived to be a white party. Obama’s main electorate were white - they voted for the man not the colour. S A’s main majority is black - they vote for the colour not the woman.
“Here was the former president of South Africa, a leader and lifetime member of their biggest rivals — the ANC — and yet they could appreciate and endorse what he had achieved for their country…”
Ag! Get over yourself…Mandela has become bigger than the party, the country, the continent… he’s parallel with the Universe. So, it wouldn’t make any sense for your “so called” decent supporters to boooh at his picture. Actually, if they did, they were going to loser their percentage faster than they’re now losing.
Yes, she can…(get a total of 8% of votes in the next elections).
Ordinary South Africans are no fools, they know where their slice of bread is buttered…Clamour & rant won’t dupe them.
She should just pray that she doesn’t get relegated to the league of Azapo’s, PAC’s, UIFs and all other 2% parties…Looking at things, she’s one leg there…
But if she needs to win at least 30% of electorates, it means she would have to win the votes of:
* Carpenters, which are for ANC,
* Taxi drivers, Truck drivers, Street vendors, shack dwellers all for ANC
* Steel fixers for ANC.
* Pensioners for ANC,
* Students for ANC,
* Veterans for ANC,
* Insulators for ANC,
* Bricklayers for ANC,
* Plasterers, Joiners, Painters, Electricians all for ANC,
* Black diamonds for ANC
* Surveyors & Engineers for ANC,
* Advocates & lawyers (like you Traps) for ANC,
* Mineworkers for ANC,
* Teachers, Nurses, Doctors for ANC,
* and even Unemployed SAs, for ANC…
A great article and wonderful advice. I have not heard Helen Zille speak but the press tends to focus on her negative utterances rather than her positive ones, so many people believe she is just being obstructionist and there is no place in the DA for them because she is racist and anti ANC and of course a privileged white female.
So you were there as well Traps? What an interesting event I tell you! And you are spot on in your assessment of the party leadership, members and possible future - if they heed those wise words!
Two things impressed me the most about the whole event:
1. The respect the DA members and leaders showed for elders, notably Joe Seremane, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela (by the way, Evita was quite popular too!)
2. The diversity of the function and the transformation of the DA from an elitist Houghton clique to a party that embraces our common South African history of struggling and overcoming, and the vibrancy of our cultures in the way the members sang and enjoyed the event.
Marius Redelinghuys on November 15th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
The disillusion with the ANC is real and deeply felt. Shikota as an alternative is not real at all. I get no sense of anything other than “disgruntlement” and the realisation that (having been too close to Mbeki) they have no future in the new ANC.
This opens up a massive opportunity for the DA to offer the only alternative with experience of governing.
THEN when the time is right (and only then) they can talk coalition with Shikota and, by selectively using people from Shikota to help govern (not jobs for pals, please!) we could be blessed with changing ruling parties from time to time, and an ANC that shines up and actually tries to deliver in those provinces it will still govern!
What a novelty for Africa! Here’s hoping!
(the black diamonds are almost all in joburg. elsewhere, not so much.
one of the things i routinely say about cape town is that middle class black people in this place are either foreign, work for the government, or were bribed to move here by a company needing to make its BEE credentials.)
i like the new obama-esque DA logo. but it’s funny that COPE has largely co-opted the old DA logo for its colors.
I’m still not seduced by the DA. The belligerence is a total turn-off to me and many other black voters I know. I’m not sure what has changed about the DA, other than the logo and slogan. I will be carefully watching Zille in the next few months.
Traps, I haven’t got TV because I just work around the clock. But I’ve read your piece here. I can’t remember when last I was so deeply moved. The finest, greatest quality in a society is the applied mind and the applied conscience, and, from what I read, there were powerful signs of those expressed at the gathering up there in Johannesburg.
My own slogan is ‘Replace the old order with the new; replace the parties of war with the parties of peace.’ The ANC, as the historic opponent of apartheid in South Africa, is indeed a relic of a party of war - the other of course being the extinct unlamented Nats.
We have just had Armistice Day (or ‘Remembrance Day’). It is most pertinent to reflect on that. All the warring parties are no more — Kaiser Wilhelm, Von Moltke, Bismarck, King George V, Haig and Kitchener, and the two British PMs, plus the French, Italian, Austrian, Russian, and ‘Empire’ warlords. And the governments and ruling parties of of the time. And of course all the poor dead soldiers and others, killed by their own governments (apart from the poor old enemy chaps).
So history’s lesson is that, when the fighting ends, the order of war is replaced with an order of peace. The men and parties of war are replaced with men and women and parties of peace. Lo! The Nats are history. But then why are we still dominated by the other party of war, the ANC? This party behaves as though it owns SA as the ’spoils of war’. Do the King’s Royal Rifles, or the Gold Coast Regiment, or the Transvaal Scottish, etc, lay claim to Flanders’ fields as the spoils of war? Indeed, the individuals are probably all passed on by now, and and many of the regiments no longer exist. Lloyd George never claimed Calais back as a British enclave (of course, the Alsace-Lorraine matter flared up again; rotten management at Versailles.) So, yes, the ANC has long passed its function and its use-by-date. Viva a new order of non-racialism, and an open and democratic society, in which opportunities are genuinely created and are available to all!
Again, Traps, I say to you bravo for a most refreshing, uplifting, moving and hope-giving article. David M
It’s easy to write off the Shikota rebels as being disgruntled mbeki-ites who no longer have a future in the ANC, but their future would be a lot safer within the ANC than in an untried Cope, regardless of whether it hits it’s projected mandate.
The ANC, in particular appear happy to believe that the defections are disgruntled mbeki-ites who do not matter, as evidenced by their sneering response to the resignation of Smuts Ngonyama “without regret”.
But these people have taken a step into the darkness, out of the safety of the cocoon offered by the ANC. They can obviously see a future, and I, for one, wouldn’t bet that it’s not there.
One of our Universities once came up with a slogan and new brand announcing themselves, “The MIT of South Africa” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). They soon realised their folly. You can’t package another brand as your own. Hijacking and recycling the Obama “YES WE CAN” slogan is both corny and reflects a bankruptcy of originality.
Trying to hijack Nelson Mandela and present the DA as carrying his ‘holy grail’ is a pretty low tactic and certainly will backfire. In the first democratic elections 90% of white South Africa voted against Nelson Mandela and any of the majority black parties. The DA was at the forefront of this move. Even more did so in the next two elections. Not only this, but when Madiba magnanimously suggested that the DA join a National Unity government, they refused. After all in their opinion this was the leader of the nasty ANC and whatever his merits he was the first Commander-in-Chgief of Umkhonto we Sizwe branded as ‘terrorists’. The mainly white male DA voice believed they needed to fight against any broad movement made up of social democrats and communists and in so doing attracted some dodgy characters associated with the worst excesses of the previous regime.
It is a bit rich that a still very unreformed DA in terms of who runs the show, now haul out Nelson Mandela’s picture and claim his mantle. Also by simply putting black faces up on a stage without a complete overall of the party hierarchy in line with national demographics, rings hollow. Furthermore the voice modulation exercise being employed by Helen Zille comes across as stage management.
The one thing that does come across as well thought out and appealing is the DA’s new logo and slogan, which contrasts with the poor branding, acronym and name of the new party COPE.
As leading political commentator Adam Habib said of yesterday’s DA launch, we need to put the razzmatazz and veneer aside, and then the DA looks pretty much the same as it always did. It will have to do something much deeper than ‘SPIN’ to convince the electorate otherwise, particularly in the face of the new player on the block. It needs to position itself at the social democratic edge of liberalism, rather than the conservative libertarian end of the liberal democrat tradition. Without this shift it will remain a party of the past rather than the future.
Objectively, Helen Zille has a number of good points as a political leadership person and front person for the DA. But the sting in the tail, or pitfall, may well also be the ‘mania’ in Zillemania and the inability of the DA to really change.
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on November 16th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Wow, is this the delusion that helps white liberals feel better. Zille will NEVER rule this country. She inherited a party of Suzeman who said that black people were similar to children in their intellectual and emotional desposition. A party that sought to and continues to attempt to ‘civilize’ the natives. Zille has become a defender of the constitution. What a joke. Why didnt she give years of her life in solitary confinement and torture like Jacob Zuma for this much loved document. The sunset clause in the constitution is a historic compromise/betrayal which has allowed the tiny white minority to continue owning and controlling the economy of this country. She wants to debate Jacob Zuma to make herself feel more important than she really is. Zille is no Obama- not that I am an Obama fan neither. See you at the poles when the people, not the media, speak!
Great article Traps. It is really a new dawn for South African Politics. For those who believe that the DA will be relegated to the same division where AZAPO, PAC are residing, they better think again. The DA is here to stay. We believe we will stay. Staying? Yes we Will.
mundundu, the “black diamonds” who were at the Constitutional Hill where from Alex, and some as far as Hammanskraal. I asked a few of them and they had hired kombis to attend the “relaunch”. I spoke to a few of them and I wouldn’t want to call them “black diamonds”. Let’s not debate the definition of black diamonds anyway.
Marius, the culture and vibrancy of singing is still rooted and was provided by your Alex and Southern Gauteng recruits - your hardcore Houghton boys and girls are still not accostumed to this singing business. Sheila Camerer even remarked on saturday “Ain’t it amazing that they have been singing tirelessly the whole time”.
One thing about Zille that i stood out is her ability to mingle and mix with everyone - I am sure she posed for photos with literally 60% of everyone who was there. A down-to-earth person in my books…
Can they ? I know they are trying to ditch the “Houghton boys” image but it will take them a few years unfortunately…Zille’s dream of being “the government” and ditching the opposition tag is far-fetched and still a long way from being realised. No, they can’t !!
(SABC must throw away that Sophie Mokoena character - she doesn’t have any journalistic skill in her. After the speech, she never bothered to interview Zille for further probing. She just left… But then I digress).
Shaun on November 15th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I refer to your comment about ANC racialism.
Perhaps readers of this blog could answer the following…
How does one know when somebody, under The BEE/ afrirmative action guidelines is “black”?
Is it the same criteria that Hitler used to identify Jews?
If it isn’t, how does it differ?
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on November 17th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Siphiwo Qangani with kangaroos on November 15th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
You write:
“Mandela has become bigger than the party, the country, the continent… he’s parallel with the Universe.”
Trapzagreez with you. He thinks Mandela is the beez kneez.
Of course, he also loves Winnie, so he is above reproach when it comes to
admiring the right people.
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on November 17th, 2008 at 9:05 am
“The electorate understand when they are being shafted; simply speak to them.” But presumably not enough to understand that DA policies will benefit the very rich and shaft the poor and working classes? ‘Equal opportunity society’ = ‘laissez-faire’ in progressive clothing.
“The DA owns the moral high ground”. Really? Which high ground is that. Most ANC leaders fought against apartheid and have kept reasonably clean over the years. Most DA leaders benefited from it and don’t feel obliged to regret that. Floor crossing? Corruption in the Cape? General uselessness? Moral high ground se voet!
What really sparks my imagination is the potential for splitting the vote between COPE and the ANC. How likely and in how many areas could this result in a win of an election ward by the DP?
This simply has to be a very real issue in many voting districts, what a split vote could mean for the ANC could be to the very real advantage of the DP.
Soon perhaps one of the wags will take a look at the last election and with the aid of some serious speculation we could start to see a picture where the DP make some very real inroads?
I think we can, of course we can, you betcha we can!
LOGO!!! “White” sun rising…hmmm short of saying the return of ET (the jockey)…
If you describe Moral high ground as sleeping/siding with forever power hungry politicians who (when were in power, neglected ordinary South Africans with any decent service)…therefore, it means DA is just one extended recycled arm of ANC.
Patric Tariq Mellet on November 16th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
You write about The DAs lack of originality re copying Obama’s… ” Yes We Can!”
But didn’t Obama rip off dozens of pathetic motivational speakers who also used the same hackneyed phrase?
Politicians are inherently unoriginal. If you want creativity and originality they need to bring artists on board. Andy Warhol might help them to see the light?
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on November 17th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
What is becoming increasingly clear is that there will be a lot of coalition governments across municipalities, Provinces and perhaps even at National level. The question is who get to share the cake and what will the size of their share be? Good for the DA to re-launch itself; and brand wise, they’ve done a fantastic job, despite the apparent copy-work on the logo. This time around the DA attempted to be all embracing but the challenge is always going to be whether its message will resonate with a wider variety of constituencies making up the voting public. Cosmetic changes will not help its course.
I do not think though, that copying others is necessarily bad but chanting “yes we can” sounds irritatingly fake when done by people other than the originators of the phrase or chant; and trying to speak like Obama should be an absolute no!no! – All the best to all the political parties and the SABC must comply with its mandate this time. I look forward to the December 16th Conference, of the Congress of the People
The DA did not even exist in 1994. The party that exists now devolved from Helen Susman’s Progressive Party, and before that Alan Paton’s Liberal Party.
Pasile
When did Helen Suzman say that? Can you give a verifiable reference?
Zille was a journalist during the apartheid years, and stuck her neck out a lot. At least she was not “in exile” being supported by Christian Action, and actually here on the ground, like the UDM. It is normal in a democracy for the leaders of the main opposition and the government to debate. Zuma is just scared - Zille would run rings around him.
MKT
When Zille speaks of “being in government” she means a coalition. The DA is already governing in coalition in Cape Town and in many municipalities.
SM
Many ANC “leaders” today were in nappies during the struggle. Many new members have joined for position and power, and nothing to do with ideology. The ANC has to be rated on its performance - which has been horrific with crime and corruption totally out of control, mismanagement and inefficiency in every sphere of governance and the civil service.
The deal was the ANC gets the country and the tax income (now R700 billion a year) and buys land for farming. For most of the last 14 years they only allocated R2 billion a year to buy. Rather spend on arms and weapons which we did not need. And they SOLD massive amounts of state, municipal, parastatal ancd council land! Plus they sold Telkom, Iscor and Sasol! None of the money was used to buy land for farming! And the Land Claims land ( a seperate budget ) has almost all fallen fallow and become unproductive, or is just suporting the inhabitants with no surplus for the cities. Also NO farming has taken place on the vast amounts of land of the former bantustans - also all just lying fallow! Why do you think food costs have gone up? And why do you think SA is importing more food than it exports for the first time ever?
@lyndell… the DA evolved from the DP+FA+NNP-NNP while the DP evolved from the PFP+IP+UDM… where the PFP evolved from the PP+FP… where the PP evolved from the United Party…
the SA Liberal Association and then the Liberal Party of SA… the first multi-racial or non-racial political organisation in SA… of Alan Paton, Peter Brown, Margaret Ballinger and others, chose to close its doors in about 1967 - rather than be party to the apartheid system which prohibited multi-racial politics
incidently the Congress Movement practised its own form of racism… in that Indians, Coloureds and Whites were unable to join the ANC… until 1969 or something…
so the congress movement was inspired by apartheid “separate development” from 1894 to 1969 while the liberals were multiracial from day one - 1903 - until the closed their doors on principal in 1967…
and then the PP went after the liberal vote which had previously been held by the SALA/LPSA… and here we are today…
You cannot rewrite history and make out that the DP was not the DA in 1994. Also be very careful about distorting the progression from the Liberal Party (noting HS was the only Prog for ages) by leaving out the UP element, NRP element and so much more.
Essentially the common denominator of the long thread linking all of these was the concept of ‘Qualified Franchise’ where some blacks ‘acceptable to whites’ were thought to be ‘advanced or civilised enough’ to participate in the electorate and others not. In one word the DA represents the ‘paternal’ mantle in SA’s long political thread. This ‘political option’ is the same one that drives the DA to this day in various modern guises. This is the true story of the DA’s devolution from Smuts to now.
But as a historian I could go back to the first qualified franchise during the responsible government era in the 1800s, or even further back to one of the three types of slave owners which Dr Shell writes about - the Paternalist slave owners. This is the heritage on which the DA is based. The NP was based on the heritage of the VOC Patrician Slave owners, and the HNP/CP was based on the Patriarchal farming slave owners. While each had a varient, all three trends in slave ownership, did not alter the fact that they commonly were slave owners.
On a personal level in 1994 it really gauled me when the DP put up a candidate in the Western Cape who was a security policeman who had infiltrated our political cell during the struggle and had links to another who we believed had been involved in a prominent political murder.
I maintain that the DP - DP/NNP - DA has to change from being a respresentative of white elite interests before they will be taken seriously by a significant section of black society. Even the DA strategist Ryan Coetzee has aknowleged this. It was a critique of Helen Susman herself.
Part of the change is to be honest about those in the DA who have culpability for the past and not hide behind the few lone liberal voices who stood up against tyrrany. Your approach is quite distorted and has the same patronising ring to it as the ‘paternalist’ politics of the DA.
Quite a well balanced comment. Let’s see if Pasile can dredge up anything or was he just spouting the usual rubbish. SM saying that the “Most ANC leaders fought against apartheid and have kept reasonably clean over the years” is a howler of note. Is SM (Silly Mug?) for real? A more corrupt set of leaders would only be found in Zim, Congo, Angola, whoa, where’s this going.
The DA’s Achilles heel, IMHO, is that thay have to some extent taken aboard all comers. If Zille can clean up a little, establish a good set of principals, maybe sanity will prevail.
Please don’t get me started on land issues. A more corrupt, incompetent, lazy and misguided department does not exist (unless it’s the Sudanese Navy). Along with education, health and SAPS these bloated toads will bring SA down to Zim level and keep digging.
Whatever one says about The DA, Helen Zille is the most impressive politician in SA.
She would make mince-meat of Zuma if he had the guts (which he doesn’t) to debate with her on TV.
Continuing with the recent US analogy, Zuma would debate as effectively as Sarah Palin. All that he needs is lipstick, hair-extensions and a wink.
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on November 18th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Lyndall Beddy on November 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
The last thing that The ANC want is “land for farming.” But for those who have not tried out the off-road capabilities of their 4×4’s, there might be some benefit in having “land for Porsche Cayennes”.
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on November 18th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Patric
Where did you get your degree in history, and in what year? Mine is from UCT, 1968.
And the Liberal Party split equally among the Progs and the Communist Party of SA (which unlike any of the other parties, including the ANC, was multi racial).
Just for interest sake - I was at the inauguration meeting of the Liberal Party, in my pram. I would not sleep that night and my mother was keeping the minutes.
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The DA’s liberal non-racialism, as espoused by its Prog and DP predecessors who fought Apartheid, is the actual redress that South Africa needs from a racialist past.
I don’t know why, but it is the ANC that is constantly perpetuating the Apartheid logic of racialism.
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