Biography unpacks essential Zille and more
ALL the pre-publication publicity about Helen Zille’s autobiography, Not Without a Fight, was that it was a political thriller, with exposés that would curl one’s hair and leave an impression that the world of politics is nothing if not exciting.
While that may be to some extent true, it does the book serious injustice if that is the full extent of its appraisal.
Given the deliberateness which Zille reveals in every step of her career, from the reason she became anorexic at a young age to her raison d’être which sustains her even today, it would be superficial to fail to recognise the deeply analytical substance that has propelled her throughout her career.
Never one to flinch from engaging with the issues that confront her, she nevertheless evinces the strategic nous to choose her battles while never losing sight of the big picture that there is a world out there that can be run in a way that provides freedom, fairness and opportunity to all in an equal and open society.
While the opening chapters – like the undercard at a boxing tournament before the main bout – do not contain the excitement and intrigue that the later, more political, chapters provide, they do provide an valuable unpacking of the essential Zille, thereby making her subsequent adventures all the more real and properly contextualised.
While writing for a general audience curious to discover her perspective on how the Democratic Alliance has grown, Zille does couch her narrative in terms which allow those with some familiarity with her party to read between the lines and to confirm views held about events, the unpacking of which has previously been restricted to those selective versions fed especially to the print media, and hence already in the public domain.
A case in point is her description, on pages 449-62, of the reporting of the transition, including Fedex meetings, from Lindiwe Mazibuko’s to Mmusi Maimane’s parliamentary leadership.
One of the early chapters, Hamba Kwa Langa, should be compulsory reading for all aspiring political activists, and even for some of those longer in the tooth, about the difficulties involved in working in challenging environments to lay the foundations for growing political movements in previously untilled soil. The courage and tenacity shown not only by Zille but also by the early DA members in the N2 constituency is certainly the grist for any political party’s branch development mill.
And while several episodes of political shenanigans – including the accumulation ambitions of Badih Chabaan, and the dissembling of Marthinus van Schalkwyk and Kent Morkel, as well as the challenges for party unity and progress under Lindiwe Mazibuko – provide a historical perspective on events at that time and are more than entertaining reading, it is the last two chapters, The Problem with Race Politics and The Struggle for Economic Freedom, which provide the greatest insight into Zille’s thought processes and political analysis skills.
This is because the earlier chapters can be written and read with the benefit of hindsight while the final two are completely contemporary and do not yet have a final outcome against which Zille’s views can be measured.
Both chapters tackle difficult but immensely important topics in present-day South African politics and, in doing so, provide a valuable lodestone against which the reader’s personal views can be measured and assessed.
They both clearly indicate the depth of reading and clarity of thought that Zille brings to her life’s work, never one to be associated with the weak and timid, yet prepared to take calculated risks and follow through on her convictions.
Described in one place as Helen the Second, it is fitting that she be compared with Helen Suzman, alongside whom she deserves to stand in the pantheon of great leaders of a liberal political persuasion in South Africa.
In summary, this book is not just a political thriller, it is an inspiration.
Bill Gould is a DA councillor at Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality and was previously a consultant in Brazil with the United Nations Development Programme as well as a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand He is writing in his personal capacity.