Dispelling the Mazibuko myth
In his regular BDLive column the respected albeit controversial political commentator Gareth van Onselen claims that Helen Zille's quick exit from politics may have been partially calculated to preempt former parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko from entering the DA leadership race. Of course this isn't Van Onselen's only line of attack on Zille, but the most interesting one. And despite Mazibuko clearly putting herself out of the race, the issue presents a good opportunity to get real about the issues facing the DA as it chooses a new leader.
The excitement over Mazibuko's political career among liberals in and about the DA is quite understandable: the idea of a razor-sharp, gutsy young black woman leading the liberal charge is almost too good to resist. From what one can gather many liberal lights who are friendly with Mazibuko hope that she will return from her Harvard sojourn to lead the DA in the right direction - an obvious alternative to settling for Mmusi Maimane, a recent convert from African nationalism and apparently Zille's chosen heir. Indeed Van Onselen has been the most devastating critic of Maimane's ideological missteps and their implication for the DA's liberal tradition.
There is also some justified acrimony about the way Zille has treated Mazibuko, claiming for example that she (Zille) had "made" Mazibuko. Of course Zille did have a big hand in Mazibuko's rise, as is the nature of the rule of the party boss in our system of proportional representation. Unfortunately for very bright and talented politicos, the realisation that your constituency is built from below and not above usually comes too late. So instead of acquiring what Tony Leon calls a "hinterland" beyond politics or indeed building an organic constituency, many spend their time and energy vying for the favour of the national leader, who inevitably have their seasonal favourites.
Zille also had a big hand in Maimane's rapid promotion, and at some stage obviously decided that he was more worthy of her political patronage than Mazibuko. However one bemoans this state of affairs, it's clear that the DA had little choice but to accept Zille's interventionist approach to political promotion, given the rather urgent electoral demand for black leaders. Also remember that the DA comes from a tradition of strong leaders defining the party's brand, a necessity bourne not only of centralised control in the DA's all powerful opponent the ANC, but also of the realities of building a electoral coalition from very disparate cultural and ideological constituents.
But how does Mazibuko's record stack up to Maimane's, and what evidence do we have for believing that the one has more liberal substance than the other? But first, why all this fussing about ideological sincerity and authenticity? For one, many believe that to be of any use to South Africa, liberals must stay true to their essential belief in the primacy of the individual. Politics, at its best, is about choice and no alternative government could hope to dislodge an incumbent, and govern better, without offering something compellingly different.
That difference, for me and many other DA members, is neatly summed up by what Karl Popper, the author of the DA's avowed ideal of an open society, identified in the negative: opposition to 1. Collectivism, or group interests trumping those of the individual as a matter of course; 2. Tribalism, the idea that the individual only has value and purpose in relation to membership of his or her group; and 3. Historicism, the belief that history follows a predictable and calculable trajectory.
Of the three enemies of an open society in South Africa, tribalism stands front and centre as the biggest and most formidable. Everything of political significance, from the #RhodesMustFall campaign, to the brutal xenophobic attacks on foreigners in townships to the determination of economic policy, employment equity and black empowerment in particular, are driven by a perceived zero-sum game between (racial) tribal interests. Indeed no other narrative has been so prolific in and definitive of South African politics as the Battle of the Tribes.
It is what brought the National Party to power in 1948 and kept it there until FW de Klerk relinquished white power in the early 1990s. It is the shift in tribal power resulting from De Klerk's apostasy that put the Nats out of business, and made most Afrikaners the very unlikely converts to the liberalism of the DA's predecessor. Today tribalism is what powers the almighty ANC, including its ground war about two weeks before every significant election. Even the notionally open minded Cyril Ramaphosa warned about the imminent return of the Boers if ANC voters dared to slack in their support for the liberation movement at the last election. Despite the vicious clashes between Julius Malema and the ANC, the EFF stands solidly, and far more openly, in the tribalist tradition of the ANC.
So how DA politicians have positioned themselves on the issue of tribalism, namely either inside or outside of the ANC's orbit, is arguably a reliable indication of whether they have what it takes to make a substantial difference. And unfortunately Mazibuko's performance in this regard as DA parliamentary leader was disappointing. The one issue which stands out, and can neither be blamed on Zille's interference nor her inattentiveness, is the handling by the DA parliamentary caucus of the now forgotten Employment Equity Amendment bill. It was on Mazibuko's watch that the party erroneously voted in favour the bill in Parliament, and also initially defended this humongous ideological muddle-up.
The bill represented wholesale endorsement of the ANC's tribalist notion of demographic representivity - legislated race quotas, and the idea that one's job prospects can justifiably be limited to the membership of one's tribe in relation to that of other racial tribes. It represented an especially stinging betrayal of the DA power base in the Western Cape, where the ANC is keen to apply national racial demographics in determining job based racial quotas and so shaft the province's "coloured" majority.
Back then Mazibuko pooh-poohed claims that the party was backtracking on its previous voting record under Tony Leon's leadership. Quite remarkably she claimed that she had not been a DA member when the party first opposed the idea of demographic representivity in 1998, as if this was remotely relevant. Even after Zille intervened to correct the party's position in favour of its previous opposition to race quotas, Mazibuko lead attempts to have the DA accept the centrality of race in its redress policy. Two of her statements around this time encapsulate the DA Federal Council's (implied, if not express) rejection of socio-economic instead of race based redress measures.
The first was that "poverty has a race", so as to endorse the view of Wilmot James that race was an acceptable (and by its nature, absolute) proxy for empowerment, ignoring the fact that many a fortune had already been made on the basis of racial preferment. The second, that "race matters", was presumably a repudiation of liberal commentators like James Myburgh and Tony Leon, who believed that race mattered a whole lot less than South Africa's racial nationalist movement insisted. Indeed Mazibuko seemed determined to break with the hitherto DA instinct of moving further away from race as a measure of policy and government action. So when it comes to positioning the DA outside of the ANC's analysis of politics, on a critical ideological fault-line, Mazibuko faltered.
This is not to trash Mazibuko, who undoubtedly has a bright political future ahead of her, or to detract from Van Onselen's very legimate criticism of Maimane's ideological muddles. But it does show that the problem facing the DA, both in repudiating the force of tribalism in our politics and offering a compelling alternative, is not as easy as discounting one possible future leader in favour of another.
The risk of artificially projecting beliefs and aspirations onto one candidate is just as much of a risk as electing someone who Van Onselen claims is an empty vessel. The idea that the individual not the tribe should be the touchstone of society is an argument liberals must win the hard way, even inside the DA. It will not be determined by the party's coming leadership election.
Cilliers Brink is a DA councillor in the Tshwane Metro. The views expressed here are entirely his own
