*The Democratic Alliance thrives on racism in the Western Cape: * *Let’s deepen our struggle for a non-racial South Africa, particularly Western Cape*
Western Cape province represent the microcosm of the contradictions that exist in our country and the main challenges of all progressive forces who espouse a non-racial, non-sexist and a democratic South Africa. In our embraced constitution part of the values which are cornerstone as articulated, emphasize the commitment to human dignity, through the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, and quite critically a commitment to a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. In the context of this argument I want to pick up two citations from the constitution and out of all that I could quote from, I choose the constitution that was facilitated by the democratic government as led by the African National Congress while the Democratic Alliance has been attempting to isolate it from the African National Congress in order to use the same constitution against the ANC and project a picture that suggests the same pioneer of the constitution is working against it. Firstly there is a broader consensus that our constitution is an outcome of sacrifice primarily from the oppressed in the context of the Apartheid South Africa, the negotiated settlement exposed an inability of the oppressor to lessen its power in recognition of the needs of the oppressed. In their recognition of their struggles for democracy and freedom the people of South Africa appreciated the need for some compromises in order to advance their struggle and later create a hegemonic environment for their broader struggles to achieve socio-economic freedom which was interlinked, hence the progressive circles characterise the 1994 error as the democratic breakthrough, because through that democratic breakthrough a space could be created to reconstruct South Africa which the South African constitution represented that facilitation of the democratic breakthrough. Taking one step back in advancing two steps forward, the question is why the constitution emphasized a commitment to human dignity through the achievement of equality and the achievement of human rights and freedoms? And how did human beings lose their own dignity in the country of their birth? And who facilitated the process of taking away the dignity of the people of South Africa? In all these questions the response thereof is where the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) hypocrisy is found, because in a process of restoring the dignity to our people it is the need for a process of deconstructing the existing constructs that are embedded within them and allow the people to be agents of social change in their current challenges. On the Contrary the Democratic Alliance is so quick to say to everyone forget about Apartheid - we are now 20 years into democracy. It therefore wants to thrive on the lack of analysed realities of South Africa and what created them and why all of us we need to deconstruct its embedded structure. For instance the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape does not want to speak about the effects of the Group Areas Act in the communities of the Western Cape, the force removals of the people from the now V&A into the far areas of the city an act that was facilitated by the Apartheid government, which its effects still leave in our people particularly with the majority in the Western Cape both coloureds and Africans. The dishonesty in unmasking the real history of dispossession of the working class majority in the Western Cape perpetuated through racial laws confirms their commitment in thriving on racism, this is in running away from the risk of losing what they consider their vote, therefore it chooses to say “forget about apartheid we are now 20 years into democracy” how hypocritical can they be. The instillation of critical consciousness within the broader majority will ultimately expose the Democratic Alliance and its hypocrisy. We have been commemorating 100 years of the enacting of the 1913 lands Act and within the Western Cape we have not seen any act from our provincial government neither the City of Cape Town to have programs which narrate to what extent the 1913 land Act meant in the context of the Western Cape, while the African National Congress government Nationally continues to reflect on our history and the effects of that particular Act to the people and this is through exhibitions and talks in educating the nation on broadly what the Act meant to them. Perhaps this government does not really want to narrate to the people what restoring their dignity mean in economic terms and redistribution of the land which was taken away from them through Apartheid and colonial laws, because their slogans is “forget about what created your existing realities” and in essence the DA fails to confront the real issues in South Africa, because they speak to their members having to lessen their economic power in the interest of the broader majority of South Africans and particularly of the Western Cape people in this instance. They can’t go to communities in the province and explain to them what the declaration of the Cape as “coloured labour preferential area” meant and what are its legacy within the City of Cape town, its people and Western Cape in general, and this further expose its inability to deal with real challenges in reconstructing the Western Cape as the province. In the past 6 years they have proved incapable of leading a process of reconstruction of the province, and their inability to confront our historical realities created by Apartheid colonialism lead them to seek to isolate the former President of the African National Congress and the chief commander of Umkhonto Wesizwe former President Nelson Mandela, in their process of narrowly in furthering their ends, yet they cannot exhibit the legacy City of Cape Town as the “segregation city”, this is not a task they are up to because they thrive in hiding it, a history that we need commemorate about the city. In its emphasis on the constitution it isolates the protection of democracy, from the creation of the non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, because the protection of its power is based on a pertuation of a racial superstructure within the Western Cape. Our history reveals that in the Western Cape under the racist Apartheid South Africa whites were privileged with access to the most privileged suburbs, education, jobs and positions, even to the extent of exclusive access to beaches, theatres, parks and public toilets. Blacks, conversely, were excluded from these by law, ruthlessly enforced by the police. Coloureds and Indians enjoyed more privileges than Africans, but all “non-whites” (in the context of Apartheid) were disadvantaged and disenfranchised politically and economically, therefore currently reflecting on this assertion; · On Jobs, in the recent reports by the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) 2012-2013 in perpetuating the above assertion which leaved in the Apartheid South African, the Western Cape Province has the most representation of Whites at the top management level for both males and females. White males occupy almost two thirds of top management positions in the Western Cape, this exactly prove that the Democratic Alliance narrowly for its electorate which is mainly constituted of white liberals it has done nothing to reconstruct the Western Cape in its tenure because both in addressing employment equity, and in promoting the existing legislations by the national government “because it thrives on racism” and white supremacy. · On education, the Western Cape continues to be rated within the top performing provinces in the country in terms of the matric pass rate as continuously released nationally, but little is being said that the high passing rate is a result of primarily the performance of the schools in White suburbs, the schools that enjoys the privileges which they gained under the Apartheid South Africa, save the hard work of the teachers in our communities who have no much access as the schools in White Suburbs have. But the democratic alliance wanted to close schools in our areas and not in the historically advantaged suburb’s, save the fight by the African National Congress with the Save our Schools Campaign with all the education activists who stood in protection of the right to education for all South Africans and children in the Western Cape, which the DA resort some in labelling them as refugees in their country, because if any government would be acting in reconstructing the Western Cape then more resources would be concentrated in giving capacity in the historically disadvantaged schools and improving quality of education for all the learners, not to close schools when the population continue to grow in our communities. · On health and public toilets, reflecting on the legacy of Apartheid, in the communities that were disfranchised by the Apartheid our hospitals (Jooste Hospital) are to be closed, and this is a hospital that services part of the bigger sections of the City of Cape town, including Nyanga, Gugulethu, Phillipi, Mannenberg, a complete act to deny our people a right to health and an act against the will of the people, which in the historically advantaged suburbs their hospitals are allocated more of resources, a clear perpetuating of the Apartheid legacy. Institutions that support access to health are being under resourced communities with health committees, their committees receive less funding. Since their rule there has been a protracted struggle for access to sanitation, from the struggle against open toilets and the recent struggle against “Pota Pota” which is dumbed as the return to the undignified “tshembas” of the Apartheid years, this is another indictment on the DA and its inability to restore dignity to the people of the Western Cape, but the Provincial government without really dealing with the real issues raised by the residents in those areas they come with every trick to shift the goal post out of the undignified and less humane conditions which it has subjected our people to, the Mayor of the City of Cape town proudly wears a sanitation mask when visiting communities, a clear recognition of the inhumane conditions which they have subjected the people of the Western Cape to, In all sites therefore the Western Cape thrives on delivery of Services to the historically advantage communities at the expense of the historically disadvantaged, and this is protection of its constituency. In arguments on Gender Relations and speaking on White Privilege a scholar Peggy McIntosh makes this argument “I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's status, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's power” in light of this argument therefore, in the reconstruction of South Africa and Western Cape in the context of the article those who are privileged should be able to recognise that they are privileged, and not only recognise that some are disadvantaged, be willing to lessen their economic power in empowering the disadvantaged. Our task as activists and revolutionaries in the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist and the democratic South Africa within the context of the Western Cape should be that of instilling consciousness on the people and generally the marginalised and the poor, through deconstructing the constructs of the Apartheid South Africa and constructing the new South Africa which is espoused by the freedom charter, pursued through the National Democratic Revolution and broadly accepted by South Africans in our constitution. *Written By Lungisa Mzizana a member of YCL and SACP Branch Wilton Mkwayi and also RTT of the ANCYL Dullah Omar Region, writing in his personal capacity.* -- Lungisa Mzizana Cell: 0833968644 Email: [email protected] -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. 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