PETER BRUCE: SA’s liberal battlefield
Liberalism is an idea, not a fact. That makes it much more powerful. It must not be hijacked
There’s a war going on, in case you hadn’t noticed, between SA liberals that makes the ANC divisions look dull and tame. In a way, it’s been going on since at least the liberal wing of the United Party broke away to become the Progressive Party in 1959.
Basically the fight is about who is right. Or what a liberal really is. Or even what “truth” is. Walking where liberals make war is like strolling through the smokey aftermath of the Somme — a fetid, grey and miserable battlefield where no surrender was ever possible, where every soldier was fighting for himself and where, unnervingly, every now and then a corpse would stir, raise a muddy fist, scream “I got you!” and pitch back face first into its foxhole...
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