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.

“ANC DELIVERY! HOUSING ,HEALTH CARE AND SCHOOLS?”

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”.

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.

Gezundheit.

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.

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…

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?

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