Suzman let us down

MONDLI Makhanya is wrong when he says I raised the issue of Helen Suzman’s support for the apartheid SADF as part of a “desecration-of-Suzman crusade”, “Battles over our past produce no victories for our future” (June 23).

This does not accord with the facts. I made my interjection — “She wanted to kill us”— during a debate in the provincial legislature and was later put out of the house by the deputy speaker for refusing to withdraw it.

My concern is that there is no precedent for the actions of the DA deputy speaker, Piet Pretorius. It is ironic that he represents a party that claims to support an “open-opportunity society”, but he wants to illegally restrict my constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech and parliamentary privilege as an elected member of the provincial legislature.

I illustrated my argument with my personal experience of the effects on the youth of the 1980s of the compromises Suzman made with apartheid to get elected to parliament. Like many other young white South Africans of the time, my views were shaped by having to deal with conscription into the apartheid army in accordance with my conscience. There is no doubt that on this important issue Suzman and the PFP let their own base down.

Although I and many others have respect for the support Suzman gave to political prisoners, this does not mean she supported the political views of the prisoners.— Max Ozinsky, by e-mail