The Democratic Alliance has turned the Western Cape province into a colonial outpost

After reading the article posted by the leader of the Democratic Alliance Hellen Zille on the Politicsweb, i became convinced that she is a State patient suffering from racial nightmares. Amongst the farmworkers  in the Western Cape she and her party see around themselves natives from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Pedi, refugees from the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Kwazulu Natal, North West, Limpopo, Gauteng, Mphumalanga, Free State and more importantly natives from Khayalitsha and the coloured  community from the Cape flats.

With this outrage of irresponsible utterances by a leader of her calibre i am convince that racial chauvinism is inherently constituting the DNA of the Democratic Alliance. In fact Apartheid neo colonialism is perpetuating racial fundamentalism in the Western Cape. The DA is determined to turn the Western Cape province as a colonial outpost. Our immediate task therefore is to liberate the people of the Western Cape from Apartheid neo colonial oppression and exploitation.

What the DA seeks to achieve in the Western Cape reflects a deep seated counter revolutionary effort to undermine the democratic dispensation underway in our country. Our people must correctly locate the cynical role of the DA in the current phase of our transition from the racist Apartheid colonial period to the new conjuncture of our democratic breakthrough. The DA will never advance the best interest and the wishes of the vast majority of the people of our country.

One of our most important revolutionary task is to enhance the level of political consciousness of the working class and more importantly the farm workers in the Western Cape, to help them understand the concrete material conditions they find themselves in. Revolutionary theory is a weapon to any revolutionary movement and ideological contestation is the terrain of struggles. It is therefore our foremost important task to equip the working class at all times with the necessary tools of analysis to appraise the objective and the subjective factors, and the extent to which they impact on our daily struggles for the transformation of our society.

The article posted to politicsweb by its leader Hellen Zille about the farm workers strike is a distortion of true historical facts about the struggles of the working class in our country and the region. Even if we condemn the acts of violence and destruction of our economic infrastructure, the strike action by the heroic farm workers of the Western Cape was a milestone achievement to the struggles of the working class. It has indeed confirmed the historic role of the working class as the most reliable motive force, capable of taking forward our struggles to its eventual end.

The distortion of historical facts about the struggles of the people of our country and the region has exposed Madam Hellen Zille as the most hopeless, divisive and racist leader whose preoccupation is nothing else but to reverse the decisive gains of our national democratic revolution. This shallow distortion of true historical facts is a confirmation that the historical mission of the DA is to protect the interest and legacy of Apartheid colonialism. We should without any contradictions support the struggles for the improvement of the working conditions of the farm workers in the Western Cape and else where in the whole country. 

We should understand the unfolding events in the Western Cape from the point of view that Apartheid neo colonialism, working in collaboration with the international monopoly capital, is resorting to hostile methods to erode the unity and cohesion of the South African working class. The one method is that of violence, suppression, bans and persecution and the other method is that of dividing the organization, disrupting its ranks, bribing individual representative with the fundamental aim of holding back the movement forward of the struggles of the working class.

In the words of the leader of the Russian revolution Cde Vladimir Lenin the bourgeoisie is prepared to yield to the workers the right to strike and to organize in trade unions provided the workers renounce their rebelliousness, their narrow minded revolutionism, their hostility to practically useful compromises, and refrain from belonging to political parties. The DA is employing divide and rule tactics in the Western Cape to influence and divert the struggles of the farm workers against wage slavery. The reason why it should be held responsible for the violent protest and destruction of property by the farm workers in the province.

The statement by Madam Hellen Zille confirms that:

1. The DA is not convinced that farm workers should not earn a living wage. In other words Hellen Zille is opposed to the struggles of the farm workers against slave wage. For the DA the demands of the farm workers to get decent living wage is unreasonable.

2. The DA is flaming ethnic and racial tensions amongst the farm workers in the Western Cape. They want the people of the Western Cape province to see themselves competing for the scarce resources and job opportunities with Xhosa refugees from the Eastern Cape, natives from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Workers are divided according to ethnic and racial belonging.

3. The DA is instigating workers into believing that white farm owners are paying better wages than black farm owners. They are laying a charge that black economic empowerment, or the participation of the black people into the mainstream economy of the sector, is the major cause of the decline of the social wage. Here Hellen Zille is instigating hostilities between white and black farm owners and therefore the whole industry.

4. The DA has declared the Western Cape a no go area for the organisation of workers into trade unions and more specifically, COSATU affiliates. In other words the DA is against the effort of our Comrades from the ANC and COSATU to improve the living conditions of the workers of the Western Cape.

5. The DA is against the interventions made by our National government to resolve the socio economic contradictions of the farm workers and the people of the Western Cape province. Madam Hellen Zille has a hostile attitude towards the interventions made by both the minister of agriculture and labour.

Racist tendencies are the inherent characteristic of the Democratic Alliance. We have a task to liberate the people of the Western Cape from the DA neo colonial oppression and exploitation. The struggles for the realization of a non racial, non sexist, democratic and prosperous society is a necessity.

Phatse justice Piitso is a former Ambassador to the Republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP in Limpopo, writing this article in his personal capacity.

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