Madam Zille, I beg to differ - Dr Iqbal Survé Oped

IT CAME as no surprise to me that Helen Zille tweeted about the benefits of colonialism as she returned from Singapore, on the eve of Human Rights Day.

Her tweet that generated most condemnation was: “For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water etc.”

Zille is, of course, in good company with this tweet. She is in the company of the likes of Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, Ian Smith, Cecil John Rhodes, David Duke of the KKK, and our very own racists like Verwoerd, Vorster and PW Botha.

Madam Zille, I and millions of others beg to differ with you and your racist and colonial ideological bedfellows.

One of the worst legacies of colonialism was the breakdown of families, as fathers were forced to work as migrant labour in mines, far from home, for very little pay. This system was entrenched under apartheid. But its origins can be traced back to Rhodes.

The subtext of her tweet is a sentiment shared by many conservative members of the white community, hankering for the good old days under apartheid “where things were much better for them”. According to many such apartheid apologists: “Under apartheid there were better schools, better universities, better hospitals, better piped water and less corruption (really?) – and all of these would not have been built if apartheid was not there.”

The obvious counter to that is, of course, that under apartheid most South Africans did not have access to any of those basic rights. It was only under the new democratically elected government that the majority of people were afforded the right to housing, water, electricity, education and medical treatment.

A sad reality is that we should not be surprised that Zille and others believe in such a subtext. Entrenched in power, surrounded by like-minded advisers and minions, they become emboldened enough to allow their real personas to emerge from the shadows.

The question is, who are you to decide that colonialism was not allbad, Madam Zille?

It is now, in the time of social media, when you have thousands of followers, and you are drunk on power that you can feel free to tweet your opinion on colonialism.

Did you feel the brunt of colonialism? How did it affect your life?

I would guess that you and your families were beneficiaries of colonialism through the apartheid spatial planning, academic institutions reserved for whites, hospitals and other important life amenities preserved for a select few – white people. Should we therefore be surprised that you see the benefits and not the failings of colonialism?

I can tell you how it affected me and millions of other South Africans. And the effect was definitely not pleasant. We eked out a living, battling the odds, living as second-class citizens in a country that should have belonged to all who live in it. Many talented and bright black pupils were denied the right to study at white-only universities such as UCT and Stellenbosch, only because they were black.

Many, including my immediate family, had to leave SA and study medicine at overseas institutions under difficult conditions and return to SA to service their communities. When I and a handful, through our own perseverance and hard work, were admitted, we were made to feel unwelcome and repeatedly told by some white lecturers and professors that we were the “lucky 10 percent and should be thankful”. In fact, so drunk were they with their colonial mindset that, in whispering tones, they gently discouraged us from dissecting white cadavers (dead bodies) lest it infuriate our fellow white students in the anatomy class. This is the madness of colonialism.

I, and neither should you, the reader, be surprised by Zille’s tweet. When she reluctantly handed over her crown to the DA’s first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, a Twitter storm broke when her mentor Allister Sparks likened her to apartheid arch-architect Hendrik Verwoerd. Yes, her mentor Sparks thought Verwoerd and Zille were smart politicians, which is the equivalent of saying Hitler was a smart politician.

It is people such as Zille who want us to believe that Africans, and African society, have not shown any progress, and that the masters of colonialism and apartheid were really good people who brought progress to Africa.

We are asked to ignore the savagery, brutality and havoc that colonialism brought to peaceful communities and civilisations which existed for thousands of years and which produced immense knowledge, innovation and prosperity.

We are asked to ignore that it is colonialism and slavery that decimated millions of Africans and forced them to sail in the dungeons of slave ships across the oceans, away from their loved ones, and to work under the most brutal and horrific conditions.

This is the real colonialism as it is the real apartheid which resulted in the massacre of 69 people in Sharpeville in 1960; which confined millions to the homelands; which forcibly took productive land away from the people, and imprisoned or killed the very best leaders. This is why we celebrate Human Rights Day on March 21 to prevent this from ever happening again.

Struggle giants Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada were imprisoned on Robben Island for decades. They, and scores of other Struggle icons, were denied their fundamental right to live with and see their families and friends.

This, Madam Zille, is the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, two sides of the same blood-spattered coin.

Cape Town today symbolises in many ways the thinking of Zille. The City is lauded by Zille and others for the “progress” they have made in traditionally white areas, investment into the province, lack of potholes and so forth. But if Zille and her colleagues will only step out from the sanctuary of Leeuwenhof – Zille’s official residence – and Wale Street, to see for themselves the abject poverty that still exists in communities like Khayelitsha, Hanover Park, Manenberg, Mitchells Plain, Gugulethu and Langa.

Many members of the black SMME business community in Cape Town speak openly about Zille and other DA politicians hosting business meetings, lunches and dinners at Leeuwenhof and other places of government in Cape Town, with hardly any or token representation from the black business community.

One of Independent Media’s titles, the Cape Times, has been a victim of Zille’s moral bankruptcy and fascist censorship. She has constantly written and tried to project the title in a negative light. Using her power, she has banned the Cape Times and the Cape Argus from being subscribed to and distributed in provincial offices. This is a woman who is only in power in the Western Cape; imagine if she was in power nationally, what kind of power-drunk and neo-colonial and neo-apartheid decisions and censorship we would have to deal with?

There are those who would argue that the ruling black government of today, the ANC, has let us down. This is true and tragic, and a slap in the face of those of us who are democrats longing for social justice in our country, and who actively supported the ANC’s quest for freedom and liberation. The most recent Sassa debacle is an indication of how we as black people have let ourselves down. But we have to fix it together with our progressive white compatriots, and we have to make sure that we deliver the fruits of freedom to the majority of the population.

To be clear, Zille, as a colonialist apologist, does not reflect the views of all white people since there are many white people who gave their lives, fought for freedom to overcome the effects of colonialism and apartheid. But Zille leads millions of people in the Western Cape, most of them classified as coloured under apartheid, all of whom were badly affected by colonialism and apartheid and who, to this day, bear the scars of slavery and injustice.

A “Twit”, for the purpose of this article, is a term I coined to describe a tweet made by a person that has idiosyncratic beliefs. It may or may not exist in the Oxford dictionary.

Dr Iqbal Survé is a philanthropist, a black intellectual, businessman and medical doctor. He is the Executive Chairman of both Independent Media and the Sekunjalo Group. He writes this opinion piece in his personal capacity, and it is not necessarily the view of Independent Media. For more, go to http://bit.ly/2n3T1at

Cape Town today symbolises in many ways the thinking of Zille. The City is lauded by Zille and others for the ‘progress’ made in traditionally white areas, investment into the province, lack of potholes and so forth