Zille still supports ‘colonial project’
IT’S NOT tweets about her “positives from colonialism” that should get Helen Zille suspended from the DA’s executive committees, or whatever leadership positions she occupies.
It’s her supreme support for the maintenance of white economic power, white business control and white privilege in the Western Cape that should have Helen Zille banned for life from the DA.
You can see from her tweets how Helen Zille thinks, her acknowledgement of the good and respect for colonialism, how she believes, despite apologising for her tweets, that “if it weren’t for colonial rule, Africa wouldn’t have advanced”.
Indeed, Helen Zille is correct about colonialism. That’s if she is thanking the colonial project, a violent and horrendous interaction for black people, for enabling whites to get rich, take land away from indigenous and authentic owners and set up capitalist empires through the extraction of Africa’s natural resources and much more.
What is frightening and vastly evident is how Helen Zille, through her control of the DA in the Western Cape and government portfolio as Premier and mayor (Cape Town mayor before premier), ensures the continuation and support for the colonial project. This essentially being about white economic and business power!
Look at economic development in the Western Cape in post-apartheid South Africa. It’s the white people who are controlling the economic and business power.
In Cape Town, who is owning developments on the lucrative land that is the Atlantic Seaboard, in the Cape Town CBD and gentrification projects? It’s all white people!
This white-dominated ownership is allowed and supported by the DA in the Western Cape, with Helen Zille as premier of the Western Cape. You can see where Helen Zille’s “tweets” are coming from, how they are being played out and what impact they have on economic and land control in today’s Western Cape.
How does Zille explain this white economic power being maintained and supported in the post-apartheid era? How does Zille account for the invisibility of black business and non-black land and property ownership on the Atlantic Seaboard and CBD? Why are property and rental prices so exorbitant in Cape Town in areas close to the CBD and Atlantic Seaboard and the Winelands outside Cape Town?
It’s because of the colonial and apartheid heritage and inheritance! White people still have the money violently attained from oppressing black people and making blacks work for profits accumulated for whites!
But the DA under Helen Zille in the Western Cape is not doing much to change this white economic control. The DA isn’t sharing and assisting black people to get into prime land and property ownership.
So it’s not so much about her insensitive and pro-colonialism tweets that Helen Zille should be forced to apologise and be suspended from the DA. It’s because of how she uses the power of office of the Premier in the Western Cape to support and advance white economic control that Zille must be removed from office.
Through her policies and actions, Zille has shown she’s not existing for the people of the Western Cape, irrespective of class and race, but for the economically privileged from the colonial and apartheid projects, i.e. white people.
I challenge Helen Zille to account for the consolidation of white economic power in the Western Cape, and her strangulation of black economic advancement.
“Colonial supporter” tweeting Zille must not counter by saying tenders for business are “open to everyone” and the “best tender wins”. Does this mean “the best” are white businesses? Yes, black and emerging businesses get some work here and there from the DA-controlled city of Cape Town and Western Cape Town. But these are the small monies for small projects. It’s the Atlantic Seaboard, CBD and gentrified areas where you see the white economic stranglehold viciously and, at times, inhumanely at work.
Don’t suspend or discipline Helen Zille for her favourable colonial tweets. Take action against Helen Zille for her purposeful support for the consolidation of white economic power in the Western Cape. Cheryl Roberts Cape Town