The resignation this week of yet another senior black DA leader, Makashule Gana, points to a party that is battling to shed its historical “whites-only” image.
Gana’s resignation, coupled with many others before, signifies a party that is struggling to adjust and embrace the real values of true diversity in South Africa.
Gana is not the first prominent black DA leader to quit the party on the grounds of perceived white domination. Neither is he going to be the last if the party’s current political dogma – which refuses to recognise race as an important factor in the current political discourse – is anything to go by.
Race tensions and the refusal to address these deep political contradictions within the party are surely going to drown the DA as the official opposition – something it hoped to use as a stepping stone towards one day snatching electoral victory from the ANC.
The DA has consistently rejected suggestions that black leaders within its ranks – especially those who are outspoken against racism – are sidelined to make their stay unbearable.
There are a few critical questions the DA needs to address about its race policy if it is serious about quelling the current exodus of black leaders from within its ranks.
The DA needs to address perceptions on issues of representation, for instance. Questions have been raised as to why the party’s mass rallies attract a majority of black supporters and only a few whites, yet whites appear to dominate its representatives in the legislatures across the country. Are these black supporters and members considered mere voting fodder?
The DA would not occupy the second-highest number of seats in parliament had it not been for its black leaders and their constituencies.
The party needs to be honest and explain why its white leaders are so opposed to progressive policies that are meant to redress the wrongs of apartheid and empower black people.
It defies logic why white DA leaders are so hostile to policies such as BEE and employment equity.
Is the DA serious in insisting that the majority of those who have left are lying when they tell us that the DA space is deliberately made unconducive for those people who seek to drive a transformation agenda?
It has become abundantly clear that the DA has failed to handle the race question as one of the crucial political questions of post-apartheid South Africa. The reasons for this failure are all rooted in the party’s inability to deal with apartheid’s economic exclusion and its moral failure to recognise the emotional hurt black people still feel as a result of apartheid.
Those who left and continue to leave the party in protest against racism and white domination must be commended for their political courage and maturity.
We urge them to seek a new path in their journey to promote new national values that encompass true diversity if the country is to build on the democratic breakthrough of 1994.
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