DA must shut up Zille permanently for Maimane to stand a chance in 2019
Zille spectacle causes doubt over whether Maimane is really in charge
The spectre of Helen Zille continues to haunt the DA.
The Zille affair manifests a complex tangle of grooming, racial guardianship and the irrepressibility of the human spirit.
When you have groomed someone, you expect them forever to be grateful for the favour you have bestowed upon them. This is the first golden rule Mmusi Maimane has violated in the wake of the Zille Affair. He refused to pay homage to Zille.
The white groomer (Zille) tweeted in praise of the very system (colonialism) that left the groomee’s (Maimane’s) people permanently scarred.
To expect Maimane to defend Zille in her selfinflicted troubles would be to force Maimane to commit treachery against black people.
Had Maimane done that, he would have sold his very own soul in the marketplace of grooming – like black people who sold their own people during apartheid.
Beyond the realm of personal dilemma, the Zille affair is a proxy for a larger dynamic in the DA – racial guardianship.
We all know that Maimane would not be leader of the DA if he was not blessed by the white guardians of the party.
The thought of Maimane telling his guardian (Zille) to resign is as nauseating as the idea of an unthankful visitor telling the owner of the house to get out.
Being a liberal – if indeed she is – one would have expected Zille to know better – that the human spirit is rebelliously irrepressible.
Freedom is its essential nature.
To expect Maimane to walk around the palace that was announced publicly as his own, while constantly fearing that some other white owner can snatch it back any time is to undermine his fundamental humanity.
Once in the palace, a man wants to feel a genuine sense of ownership. He wants to feel that he is truly in charge of the DA.
Zille’s political stupidity is astounding. She allowed her arrogance to push matters to the point where the public is forced to ask: Who is in charge?
The problem is that ours is a society divided along racial lines.
When Maimane is undermined by an arrogant white groomer, black people get seriously offended.
Indeed, some conservative whites secretly ask: Who does he think he is? This question is written all over Zille’s face whenever she appears on TV to explain why she will not be bullied.
But we live in troubling times. Our country is collapsing under the weight of a liberation movement that has gone mad.
This is exactly the time when black people, who had found it difficult to entertain the thought of giving opposition parties a chance, are seriously considering it as a real option.
The fact that the DA is the largest opposition party and that it is now “led” by a black leader counts strongly in the calculus of black people who are weighing their political options ahead of 2019.
The other political option for blacks who want to save their country from the mess caused by the ANC is the EFF.
A stupid scandal for the DA, such as the Zille affair, comes like a Christmas gift to the EFF.
The DA must force Zille to eat humble pie and accept that she has lost control of her groomee.
She must shut up.
The public will only be convinced that Maimane is truly in charge if Zille is forced to resign as premier of the Western Cape, on political not pedantic legal grounds.
If Zille does not go, white people will be left alone with their party, while blacks experiment with their own parties elsewhere. History would record the Zille affair among the greatest follies of humankind.