Merit and justice should trump revenge

ON February 8, DA leader Mmusi Maimane delivered a speech about the DA’s mission to “Rescue South Africa’s lost black generation.”

As usual with politicians here, at the outset he attempted to ingratiate and to shift responsibility by stating: “We have not done enough to roll back apartheid’s legacy of injustice”.

He proceeded: “It’s unfair that a black child is a hundred times more likely to grow up in poverty than a white child”, ignoring that our black population is doubling every 30 years, and the white population is tiny.

He worries about “Born free blacks”, but sees nothing unjust about allegedly “Born free” whites being denied employment or advancement in public services because they are white.

Maimane’s rise to stardom seems tainted with the culture of entitlement for blacks only. Probably Zille was deposed because she’s white. And although the DA is “the official opposition”, it accepts the alarming consequences of BEE, EE, and expropriation of white-owned land without demur.

This might be reasonable if the ANC was managing well, but daily in the press we see news of corruption, incompetence and destructive protests about black people’s rights.

The official opposition needs to get real and honest, and declare that merit and justice are more important than revenge for apartheid.

Acknowledging that South African education is a disgrace, Maimane declared: “We will invest in training existing teachers with excellent skills, particularly in maths and science.” How many teachers with excellent skills can there be in a country where the matric pass mark for maths is 30%?

He added: “We will make it easier for excellent teachers from other countries to help plug skills gaps in our education system” – but didn’t specify how. Probably by extracting much more tax from the 8% of our population that pays income tax, getting virtually nothing in return.

Ironically, many excellent white teachers, artisans and managers were driven out of SA by policies the DA supports. ROGER LAYZELL

Durban