Carrim reply belies reality

In a self-defeating critique of the EFF’s Floyd Shivambu for a supposed tirade against the presence of a Treasury official who is of Indian origin, ANC standing committee on finance chairman Yunus Carrim revealed how disconnected he is from reality.

How can Carrim retort to Shivambu that “you cannot exclude non-Africans simply on the basis of their race”, and cite in support the past struggle contributions of a bunch of dead ANC luminaries (including Dulcie September) to bolster his argument? An object lesson for Carrim: we are all Africans — Shivambu was clearly referring to the marginalisation of black South Africans. His own party also frequently dumps racial minority members from ANC election lists. How does he explain away the culling of coloured ANC councillors in Tshwane?

Let him produce one currently sitting coloured councillor who made it onto the electoral commission-submitted list in 2016 and again after 2017’s list revision. If she were alive September herself would have been culled.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC Gauteng provincial chairman, Paul Mashatile, approved this “ethnic cleansing” both times. Let them produce any racial-minority ANC metro councillor in the national capital. They cannot.

As the Peter Gabriel lyric on the murder of Steve Biko runs — there is only one colour, and that is dead!

D Brouwer Via e-mail