Over the past week the Democratic Alliance's decision to vote for the Employment Equity Amendment Bill in the National Assembly has come under considerable criticism. The South African Institute of Race Relations, the Solidarity Movement, and former Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon have all spoken out against the Official Opposition's support for the Bill.
One of the difficulties facing the current DA leadership is how to publicly reconcile its current support for race-based legislation with the party's historic commitment to non-racialism. As Tony Leon pointed out in his Business Day column this week his opposition to the original Employment Equity Bill in 1998 had been backed by Helen Suzman, the doyenne of the liberal position to apartheid. He also cited the former Progressive Federal Party leader Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert's 2006 call for South Africa to move away from its "stubborn obsession" with race.
In order to establish some kind of backwards legitimacy for their votes in favour of, firstly, the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Amendment Bill and now the Employment Equity Amendment Bill the DA has now twice cited the 1962 handbook of the Liberal Party in its defence.
In an article in June this year explaining her party's decision to vote for B-BBEE Amendment Bill, then before parliament, DA leader Helen Zille wrote:
"Some people will argue that liberals cannot, under any circumstances, support a Bill that includes a race-based definition... But not all liberals agree with this view. For example, many of us believe that the state has a responsibility to broaden inclusion for historically disadvantaged individuals, because this will not happen by itself. In the early 1960s, the South African Liberal Party's policy handbook noted that ‘the state must...not shrink from such measures of intervention as may be necessary to ensure the creation of a non-racial economy with fair distribution and opportunity for all.' I agree with this position."
In an article this weekend explaining the DA's position on employment equity the party's Parliamentary Leader, Lindiwe Mazibuko also cited this document in support of the party's position. She wrote: