LETTERS
Give it up Zille and just leave already
WHAT is the easiest way to soil a good professional and political legacy?
Send a racially insensitive and politically stupid tweet and work tirelessly to defend it, even when there is overwhelming evidence that the tweet you sent was plain rubbish right from the start.
This is what Helen Zille is doing, excellently.
She is one of the most influential people in South Africa. The full story of this country cannot be told without mentioning her name – in a positive way.
Well, all of that is about to end, courtesy of her dumb tweet that sought to glorify colonialism and project it as something that was not that bad after all.
Instead of apologising and withdrawing from the ensuing criticism and debate, Zille has been trying her level best to defend her tweet, making life difficult for the DA and its leader Mmusi Maimane.
The new word she has introduced in this disastrous debate is the “re-purposing” of colonialism. I do not know what “re-purposing” means but whatever the meaning, it doesn’t help dig her out of the mess she should have stayed away from.
She’s making life difficult for Maimane, who is trying his best to assert his leadership in the DA and win the confidence of the black middle class, especially with the many troubles (self-made) Luthuli House is contending with. Accusations have been levelled at Maimane by his political opponents and critics in the ANC that he is a rented black man, who had no real political authority and that he was parachuted into the leadership position on cosmetic grounds.
Without any doubt, Zille’s rock-star behaviour can serve only to give credence to the accusations. What should Zille do? The answer is easy. I can say to her as someone who can speak Xhosa: “Ixesha lokuhamba lifikile. Hamba Ngoku.” Simply put, the time for Zille to go has come and that time is now.
For her to continue putting up an unnecessary fight over her insensitive tweet and in the process expose the party she claims to love to such political damage tells a story of someone hell-bent on soiling her legacy.
There is nothing good about colonialism, especially if you understand that apartheid came as a direct offspring of the colonialism you so desperately try to defend.
Before you know it, Madam Zille, you will be remembered as another white leader who defended colonialism (and by extension apartheid) rather than a feisty journalist who exposed the brutal manner in which Steve Biko died at the hands of the apartheid police. Hamba sisi before you become a further political liability to your party. Highveld, Centurion
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