Burning flag a symptom of a party of white men off the rails

The DA wanted attention. No, it was desperate for attention. It wouldn’t have wanted, or been desperate for it, if it were happy with its election campaign performance so far, would it? The overzealous response to its flag-burning metaphor was exactly what the would-be rescuers of us all craved for.

To say the DA is struggling to appeal to the majority of voters read black people in general isn’t to make an original point. PA leader Gayton McKenzie, whose party has been making inroads into the coloured vote, has become DA leader John Steenhuisen’s preoccupation.

McKenzie and Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi, whose party has, among others, been gnawing away at the African base in the Western Cape, have been dubbed “small mercenary parties” by Steenhuisen. Believe it or not, he says they want to loot in the Western Cape because there is nothing to steal where the ANC governs.

So the saga involving the burning of the flag is not really about the flag. It is a symptom of a party struggling with diversity issues, a party in denial about race issues in the country, a party without an appreciation of black people’s trauma of apartheid and what the new flag represents for us.

The DA is a party whose campaign is struggling for relevance at a time when the ANC is on its knees. The flag ad is a symptom of a party largely led by white males that is hurtling off the rails, leaving a trail of self-harm in its wake. This is why it makes no sense to ban the advert for, in the end, it reveals the paucity of thought and leadership within the DA. The burning flag does more harm to the DA’s prospects than to the country’s diversity and unity goals.

The DA’s historical challenge is to keep its conservative, some may say right-wing, support base while making inroads among African voters. The “experiment” with Mmusi Maimane as leader years ago spooked the rightwing elements, which couldn’t stomach voting for a black leader. They gifted the FF+ some modicum of growth in the 2019 elections. Five years later, the DA has abandoned any pretence of trying to woo black votes, which is why the positions that matter are occupied by white men in the DA, or wherever it deploys.

Let me break it down, starting in its laager in the

Western Cape where it is led by Allan Winde. Then Cape Town is led by another white man, Geordin Hill-Lewis, the party’s potential future leader. In the country’s capital, the DA has deployed another white male, Cilliers Brink, who is mayor of Tshwane. For the Zulu kingdom, they have Francois Rodgers. But the face of the campaign in the province is that other white man whose claim to fame is speaking isiZulu more fluently than many black people, Chris Pappas. It gives them a sense of connection with the Zulus who need rescuing.

At national level, of course, they’re led by the, uhm, well, the grade 12 graduate Steenhuisen. There’s a number of other influential white males such as Anton Bredell, JP Smith and Steenhuisen’s lieutenant Matt Cuthbert in other positions.

Who said white men can’t jump? They’re bouncing around the country telling us only they can rescue all of us, with the help, of course, of veteran leader Helen Zille, who isn’t one of the boys now, is she? So there is some less inspired gender diversity, if you will. And if you add talented Siviwe Gwarube, then, ja, well, there’s some redeeming features. So it’s not all white and all male, but it’s overwhelmingly and undoubtedly white and male in a country still recovering from the misrule of white males who considered white females “minors” at the height of apartheid rule.

Meanwhile, the most recognisable of the black leaders that left the DA include Mmusi Maimane, Mbali Ntuli, Phumzile van Damme, Herman Mashaba, Khume Ramulifho, Zwakele Mncwango, John Moodey and Makashule Gana. You may add Lindiwe Mazibuko, Patricia de Lille and others who left before Steenhuisen’s wrecking train arrived at the station.

To pay trenchant and relevant attention to race and diversity issues is hard for many, more so when an organisation’s top team is laden with white males. It’s incomprehensible how the black leaders’ departures I listed could be considered part of a “silly season as Steenhuisen tried to reason, and quaintly dismissed by Zille as “people come and go”. The hubris. Why is it mostly black leaders who can’t stay in the DA?

In last week’s paper, Cuthbert says “it is simply reductionist to assume that South Africans are merely envoys of their race and unable to vote in favour of their interests”. Why would their interests exclude race given the racism this country endured for over 400 years? And who is Cuthbert to pontificate about black people’s interests?

It’s white arrogance. The same arrogance that has rendered the party tone deaf. Even white male commentators such as Peter Bruce and Tony Leon have expressed concern about the DA and its management of race issues. But is the party listening?

The DA could, of course, have used other metaphors to deliver the message. It needed something controversial as a tonic for the lack of resonance of its message. The ANC has messed up but will still get more votes than the DA, even by DA estimates. Why? It’s race politics, stupid.

While SA may indeed need rescue, the DA is a party of white men that seems to urgently need to be rescued from its race denialism. The flag is a symptom of a bigger problem.