ON THE WATER
NEELS BLOM: The ANC-DA axis’s dance on hot air
‘By purging the party of Zille, the DA tries to buff its image as an apologist for colonialism, but what it wants to be is the ANC, with poncy manners’
Everyone has the right to speak in democratic SA, yes? Even people who really should shut up and cut bait, but it doesn’t mean their opinions are worth the hot air on which it wafts. It is right there, prescribed as a human right, in Chapter 2 (16) of the Constitution. This right also confers upon you, citizens and dear guests within our sovereignty, the right to make a fool of yourself. Just ask Helen Zille, DA stalwart and soon-to-be cutter of bait on the party’s supposedly liberal boat. Zille’s folly was to defend what in SA is the indefensible, yet she was well within her rights. And it is our right to disagree with her, and to say so. It may be so that Singapore, for instance, takes a more nuanced stance towards a colonial legacy, but in SA, it seems there is no analysis of history other than argumentum ad populum, aka the bandwagon fallacy. The apartheid regime practised it in a culture of authoritarianism and fear, plus bootlicking; the ANC government is doing it in a culture...
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