I am ashamed to be white, ANC veteran tells gathering
KWAZULU-NATAL Finance MEC and ANC veteran Belinda Scott is ashamed to be white after utterances on colonialism by Western Cape premier Helen Zille, she said.
In a final push to snatch Msunduzi Municipality’s key Ward 32 from the DA‚ the ANC brought out its big guns including national executive committee member Bheki Cele.
The event‚ billed as a Human Rights Day commemoration‚ planned at the 11th hour‚ came just 24 hours after DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s visit to the area on Monday.
The ANC also roped in Education MEC Mthandeni Dlungwane‚ who is the ANC’s regional chair in Pietermaritzburg‚ and Social Development MEC Weziwe Thusi.
The ward became vacant when former DA councillor Clive Lotz defected to the ANC three months ago.
The ANC used Zille’s tweets to vilify the DA as a party for whites only. Scott and Cele led the assault. “I hang my head in shame that the people in this ward support people like Helen Zille‚ a woman who supports colonialism,” Scott said.
“Many of you young people‚ you must listen to your mothers‚ fathers and your grandparents, and get them to tell you what colonialism means.
“It means killing African people‚ it means treating Africans like animals.
“A leader of the DA this week said what is wrong with colonialism. Shame. But she’s not the only one.”
She also singled out DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard for previously praising PW Botha’s government and the apartheid police in a social media post. Cele also fired a broadside at Zille. “Zille said all black people in the Western Cape are refugees‚ that’s why they are curtailing school intake there and closing every space so that we go back where we come from,” he said.
“But last week Zille outdid herself. She said colonialism was too nice‚ but she forgot they marginalised us and that’s why we still bask in the sun like spiders and lizards.”
The ward is being contested by pastor Shawn Adkin (DA)‚ Merle Williams (ANC) and Sakhile Makhathini (IFP).