Politics.za

One thing that has irked me of late in political happenings is the constant accusation of racism. The ANC does it. The DA does it. Everyone does it and it gets a bit tiresome. That said this opinion piece by Thami Mazwai is so miguided and erroneous I had to do a fisking(Update: It seems I’m not the first, John Matshikiza ripped him to shreds way back in 2000). Mr Mazwai (who is chairman of the South African Chapter of the African renaissance – hold on I didn’t know the African renaissance was an actual organisation with chapters, I always thought it was some ideal to strive for not to mention a useful phrase for Thabo Mbeki’s speeches and if that’s not the case I hereby declare myself chairman of the South African Chapter of Liberal Democracy™) once again uses that old canard that because Helen Zille is looking into the previous administrations dealings she is therefore racist. I’m not going to fisk the entire thing just a few pertinent sentences. Let’s begin.

How do we justify the following?

• Saying she will do a forensic audit on every contract entered into by the previous administration;

Well maybe that’s because not a day before this opnion piece went to print the Saturday Argus released a report about a council offical called Mr Ten Percent so named because of his penchant for taking a ten percent cut of tender contracts in exchange for approving them. Nothing suspicious there.

• The campaign to fire city manager Wallace Mgoqi

Wallace Mgoqi presided over some of the biggest municipal disasters in recent Cape Town history. The Big Bay land sales (and subsequent resales for massive profit), the obviously fronted Numque 20 parking system tender, the stalled N2 Gateway housing project (and the N2 Gateway bus corridor which seems to have been forgotten) and the Jewellery District project in which R8 million rands in consultant fees seemed to have gotten us nothing but plagiarised plans. And then not to mention the city’s massive housing backlog. Nothing worth firing about there.

• The soccer stadium controversy

Can someone please tell me how making sure that the city can afford to build a brand new stadium (in a predominantly white neighborhood mind you, far away from Cape Town’s traditional black soccer stronghold where Zille proposed it might be built) is being racist?

It could be argued that this is sheer cut and thrust, the heart of democratic politics, between the ANC and DA. If this is the case, and I beg to differ, Zille must ensure her words do not stereotype indigenous blacks.

If Mr Mazwai can show a single sentence where Hellen Zille has stereotyped indigenous blacks I encourage him to publish them. That he didn’t in this piece is indicative that there are none.

Yet, Zille has hardly produced a stitch of evidence to justify an audit. The auditor general has also not indicated any untoward business in the metro. To crown it all, ANC administrations countrywide are ruthlessly flushing out corruption, the latest being Ekurhuleni.

Even if you forget the potential corruption issues I’ve listed above the statement is pretty stupid. Zille has not yet produced any evidence of corruption and yet the ANC is flushing it out countrywide? So either there is no corruption, because Zille can’t find it or there is and it’s being flushed out by the ANC.

Does this not also explain why she has her axe out for Mgoqi, as she is not challenging Mgoqi’s ability to perform? Is this appropriate in this day of black advancement and empowerment?

The only thing Zille has challenged is Mgoqi’s ability to perform, that being not very well. Once again if Mr Mazwai has evidence of Zille challenging Mgoqi on anything else but his ability I assume he would have put it in his opinion piece. And there’s also the fact that his renewal contract, signed a day before the elections that the ANC knew they might lose, might be invalid.

Why is it so difficult to accept the decisions of her predecessor in good faith, which, in any case, is a legal principle?

Remember when Wallace Mgoqi wrote that opinion piece in the Cape Times showing what a great job the ANC was doing in Cape Town and the IEC had to ask him to step down as electoral officer because it was clear that he was biased to the ANC. That’s why.

I flinch when I notice how my mother, who turns 80 in a few weeks, glares at Leon when he is on TV, and then see her longingly look at the poker next to the fireplace.

If that’s how his mother reacts just when she sees Tony Leon on TV I wonder how she reacts whenever she drives past the seemingly abandoned N2 Gateway housing project and informal settlement that sits right next door, and which have been there for the past 10 years. He must have to hide all the glassware.

A few interesting points emerge from the Cape Town Metro show. Are the DA’s bedmates happy with Zille’s calls for a forensic audit without adequate reason as this suggests that the previous black administration was corrupt as a matter of course?

Well seeing none of them have objected to it I assume they’re alright with it.

Are they not aware that Zille would never make this insinuation against a former white mayor and administration?

How can Mr Mazwai even make a comment like this and still be taken seriously? Once again he must have scads of evidence locked away but just couldn’t fit it in the space requirements given to him. In that case I bet Mazwai will never write an article critical of a black mayor and administration. I have loads of evidence as well. I just can’t fit it in here so trust me on this.

In short, are they happy with Zille’s archetypal stereotyping of Africans in general and are they oblivious of the fact that it also applies to them?

Again could you please supply a single sentence of Helen Zille stereotyping all Africans.

Are they, more so the black parties, also against black advancement and empowerment as evidenced by the campaign to smoke Mgoqi out?

Getting rid of one city manager who was messing up left and right = Being against all empowerment. Just so we’re all clear on that.

How can people take this piece seriously.