Speech delivered by Western Cape ANC MP Freddie Adams in the National Council of Provinces' debate on Freedom Day, April 26 2012

On Freedom Day we celebrate the start of our democracy eighteen years ago, our Constitution, flag and other symbols, and the first elections for all of South Africa's people.

To many South Africans it is the time they were liberated from the oppression, servitude and subhuman lives they were subjected to under Apartheid. This year, we also commemorate the centenary of the ANC who fought for our freedom.

Here, in the Western Cape, we are too often reminded of the pain and indignity of being kept for over 300 years from being full citizens of the land of our birth.

Unfortunately it is not such a joyous occasion for many people of the Western Cape on this day. Although we are very thankful for our rights under the Constitution and the protection it brings, for too many people of the Western Cape it is still not realised in daily life.

It is not just because this is the last province that has not been fully liberated.

Too many people still experience this province as one where people are not really welcome and are viewed as aliens or strangers that are not full citizens.

This is especially true under the DA government in the Western Cape where people testify that they are seen as aliens intruding or taking the place of other people.

We hear the MEC for health saying the people from the Eastern Cape makes others not to get full services and congest the system...

His party repeatedly says people of the Eastern Cape push in at the front of the lines.

We also hear the same mantra from other MEC's that tell us housing, roads and other services are under pressure due the people from the Eastern Cape.

The DA tells people these incomers or aliens are bussed in to outvote people of the Western Cape.

Is it surprising then that DA councillors in Cape Town (Frank Martin in Delft and Charlotte Tabisher in Bokmakierie)have on two occasions led land grabs where people robbed housing because they perceived the incomers to be the priority beneficiaries in the province.

DA spin-doctor Gareth van Onselen even wrote an opinion piece to prove that "a massive influx of people from the Eastern Cape" is the problem in the Western Cape. Imagine that! The DA use the old term associated with the discriminatory influx control legislation of the white apartheid regime aimed to keep people of colour out of white areas.

Thus, it fits the mould that the Western Cape premier Helen Zille referred to isiXhosa speaking school children as refugees.

To add insult to inference, she said those who dislike this term, are indeed xenophobic. She now made a half-baked apology, which is widely rejected, for the outrage in reaction to her remark. None of her party lackeys apologised for coming out guns blazing to defend and justify her "refugees" comment.

She also said it is a false (pseudo) outrage when people objected to this term. Most reacting strongly pointed out that they are not refugees in the land of their birth. Refugees only stay temporarily and then return. They are never full citizens. They are in fact regarded as strangers or aliens.

Even from her party, yes from her very own followers, some subsequently condemned the reference.

She defended the term, with explanations, but she could not convince many that it was not meant to hurt.

When the ANC was founded in 1912 the founding secretary Sol Plaatje voiced the feeling of people who were treated as aliens or strangers by coining the phrase: I am a pariah in the land of my birth.

Now, a hundred years later, Helen Zille says black people are still REFUGEES or pariahs in this, their land.

She touched a very raw nerve. She has by implication said they are not welcome in their own land. They are second class inhabitants - not full citizens.

With this terrible tag, she labelled them as aliens here.

Thus, she and her party denied people their full rights as citizens of the Republic of South Africa. She tells them they do not have the Constitutional right to choose where to move or where to stay. They may not associate with whom they wish, as the Constitution guarantees.

It is a huge infringement on their human rights.

People move or migrate around the world in an age old trend. People are not planted like trees in one place.

It is therefore important to recognise that people may move or stay where they want to.

It is even worse that Zille pointed fingers to the Eastern Cape education system to deflect attention from her real problem here in the Western Cape. It is the problem of inferior services, infrastructure (like buildings) and equipment in Western Cape education.

It is the problem of elite schools of excellence against many township schools that do not get the same support. It is the denial of these people's rights - children living and learning in the Western Cape.

It is denying learners a chance in life. It is the DA double standards where the DA preaches an open opportunity society for all, but does not give people in poor and black areas the same level of service or support as the mostly white areas.

It is thus setting up those children for failure. This is a travesty.

The incident that made Zille use that racist term on Human Rights Day (of all times!), is a picket in Grabouw where people had to go to the streets to get attention for the big problem they have with overcrowding in their schools.

Yes, more than double the number of learners is crammed into a school than what it is built for. Yes, three toilets blocks were converted into classrooms to relieve the pressure there.

There are more such schools in the province. Only now that the protest blew up, did the DA jumped into action.

The DA better redirect its attention to the disadvantaged communities. People will not stand for this kind of discrimination. The Western Cape needs to be finally set free from DA oppression!

The big question is, was Zille's reference an odd flash in the pan? I think not. It is part of a chain of evidence showing many such remarks coming from the same source.

When one looks at it closer, you may find that the very same Zille in the Western Cape provincial legislature said some black women in the national assembly "...take up space there, earn a salary, eat a big lunch, pack in some ‘padkos' and drive off in a C-class Mercedes-Benz without having made any contribution..." (Hanzard, Wednesday, 20 October 1999, Page 597 - ‘Padkos' is food for the trip.)

Then there is the much publicised reference to "professional black" in one of Zille's Twitter twaddle moments that also caused an outcry.

Zille also had a mantra during her 2006 campaign for mayor of Cape Town when she repeatedly said to the ANC it is all about "blacks, blackouts (power sharing) and Blackman" (Ngoro, who on his blog made offensive remarks about coloureds).

When one reads the many tweets and other compulsive replies by Zille to blacks, one is also struck by some of the condescending words added, like "duh" (dumb?).

It reminds me of the old preachers' story who visited a farm to minister to workers. The owner accompanied him to the workers' houses. On their way a few incidents happened and the farmer used expletives after which he apologised profusely.

The wise man after a while said: "When I see a bee coming out of a hole in the ground, I think it is coincidence. When many come out of the hole all the time, I know there must be a nest!"

Zille's many remarks involving black people in the light of what is pointed out above, indicates the possible existence of a nest.

Somebody must stop Zille from infecting more people with her remarks as she fixatedly spends vast stretches of time on social networks.

She mostly wastes the time and money of the province on her personal accounts while she socialises like a quasi-celebrity blowing her own trumpet, instead of serving the people.

The people of the Western Cape must liberate the province from DA discrimination and alienation. The test for racism is how people regard themselves as superior against those they dimly view as inferior.

The DA pits itself as superior. Only the DA delivers services. Only the DA knows all about good governance. Only the DA is squeaky clean. That which the DA touches turns to gold. This is the perception the DA drums up.

Thus the DA province, metro, town, education and everything else is the best in the country and the world. It wants the DA-led Western Cape to be the best-run regional government in the world. It intentionally parades as superior to all others.

Everything the ANC and Africans stand for is said to be corrupt, bad, poor, disintegrating and a disgrace. Thus: Inferior.

It is therefore no surprise that people in the DA - even Zille herself unsolicited (like many examples on Twitter shows) - employ code such as "they" when referring to black people and the ANC.

South Africa deserves better than this naked racism and must liberate the Western Cape of these offensive references. The only way to do this, to get rid of the DA insults and stereotyping, is to vote ANC.

Source: ANC Western Cape

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