All Hail The Black Curtain(s)!

Lindiwe Mazibuko's successful bid for the highest DA position in Parliament has been hailed by many in the media and political commentator circles as a momentous event signalling a turn in the South African political tide. 

What most are failing to see, report on or comment on is how carefully orchestrated from within the bid was. The DA announced in September 2011 that it intends winning the national polls come the 2019 national elections. 

To attain this goal, the DA needs to be seen to be transformed. In South African terms, this simply means having apparently high-ranking, visible Black faces within the party - white corporate South Africa has mastered this art and the DA, under the direction of the party's most vocal (and probably able) spin doctor, Helen Zille, is just bound to perfect it.

Until around the 2009 national elections, the DA was, in my view, rightly perceived by many as a ‘white' political party concerned primarily with protecting the interests of white South Africans. Although less widespread, this perception still remains. Understandably, the perception has created a huge headache for the ever-ambitious DA, whose main aim from day one has been to unseat the ANC as the country's governing political party.

The question of how to seriously challenge the ANC at the national polls has been mulled over by the opposition since the advent of democracy.  Anyone who knows anything about the country's political landscape will know that the DA is run much like a corporate entity. I imagine therefore that some white bright spark(s) within the DA must have realised, and convinced others, that to attract the Black "masses" the DA will have to "transform" along the lines of white corporate South Africa.

White corporate South Africa's notion of transformation is having the right number of Black faces so they can attain their desired Employment Equity and Black Economic Empowerment targets as well as secure those much sought after government tenders (or government contracts, in white corporate South Africa speak).

It is even better for white corporate South Africa's "transformation" ambitions if those Black faces do not consider themselves Black as this enables white corporate South Africa to "elevate" those Black faces to higher levels with the confidence that those Black faces will not challenge the status quo, but will instead remain blissful in their ignorance of their positions as (high-ranking) stooges.

Of course, there are a few exceptions amongst such Black faces who actively participate in their objectification if it guarantees them an apparently high-raking position, a fat cheque, that house in the 'burbs and the hot set of wheels to go with it all. 

Something tells me that the race between Athol Trollip and Lindiwe Mazibuko was just for show; to make it appear as though Lindiwe has some political clout. In any event, those who voted in her favour understood the need for the DA to be seen to be transformed - simply look at whom else was voted in and who else was voted out.

The political tide in South Africa has indeed turned.... backwards! The DA is now seeking to convince the Black "masses" that race does not matter in South Africa and who best for the DA to use in spreading this propaganda than the black-faced Ms Mazibuko herself. What a joke - as most propaganda is! Race is EVERYTHING in South Africa. I do not see hordes of white people being economically dependent on social grants or anxiously waiting to be allocated RDP houses or living in the dusty townships of South Africa or being unemployed or occupying blue collar or menial positions that the overwhelmingly white South African economy depends on for its very existence! 

The more visible and audible the DA's Black faces are, or are seen to be, the better the DA's chances of altering its image as a white political party. After all, which self-respecting Black person can forget how humiliating it was to watch Ntate Joe Seremane so meekly dancing to the puppet master's tune?

White corporate South Africa expects is Black professionals to "know their place". The minute such Black professionals reject their objectification as Black Curtains, they are labelled troublemakers and driven out. Similarly, the DA's leader has labelled Masizole Mnqasela a "Verwoerdian" for standing up against the objectification of Black "leaders" within the DA.

Following Lindiwe Mazibuko's successful bid for the DA caucus leader position, Helen Zille is reported to have described Lindiwe Mazibuko's win as "a new era in the DA", adding that the DA had "crossed the first Rubicon".  Against this backdrop, chances are that Mnqasela will soon find himself out in the cold for ‘not knowing his place' and trying to expose the DA's practices, similar to those of white corporate South Africa, in crowning its Black  "leaders" "rising stars".    

The DA can neither claim to be transformed (or transforming) nor be transformed until it truly understands and wants to understand transformation. Calling upon Black people to renounce their Blackness and, by extension, their identity is an insult to the intelligence and culture of Black people. Transformation entails unity in diversity - not seeking to bleach Black people.

Helen Zille and her ilk and cohorts within the DA are themselves the worst kinds of "Verwoerdians". In the same way that Verwoerd's apartheid system, and white colonialism before it, convinced many Black people that they are inferior to white people, Helen Zille and her ilk and cohorts within the DA are seeking to convince Black people that being Black is backward and are thereby sowing divisions along the same lines that white colonialism and apartheid did when they divided Black people along ethnical lines.

Helen Zille and her ilk and cohorts within the DA should remember the saying: "you can fool some people sometimes but you can't fool all the people all the time."

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter