POLITICS © TNA ManufaCTURING FONG-KONG HISTORY Helen Zille and the Struggle for Liberation Zille’s distortions are founded on a theory conveniently crafted to inflate the importance of the DA and exaggerate the contribution of conservative liberals to the struggle for freedom. By Eddy Maloka he public anger over the abuse She cited what the PP’s first leader, lines of the Freedom Charter: “We, of history by the Democratic Jan Steytler, once said in 1959: “In the People of South Africa, declare for TAlliance (DA) is expected. But future, colour and colour alone should all our country and the world to know DA leader Helen Zille has been in the not be the yardstick by which people that South Africa belongs to all who business of manufacturing fong-kong are judged”; and made a startling claim: live in it, black and white, and that no history of the struggle for some time; “In the iron grip of apartheid, this was government can justly claim authority it’s only that she has gotten away with radical, subversive even, coming from unless it is based on the will of all the this in the past. An example is her a white South African. In fact, today we people”. speech delivered in November 2009 at look back on Jan Steytler's words and Furthermore, what Zille failed a function to commemorate the 50th realise that he was more than 50 years to mention about the PP is that it anniversary of the Progressive Party ahead of his time”. represented a conservative brand of (PP) which is full of distortions and in This is not true. Steytler couldn’t liberalism at the time. A few years some cases even blatant lies1. In that have been ahead of his times because before coming into being, in 1952, a speech, she traced the political lineage by then the liberation movement had Liberal Party (LP) was formed which of her party to the PP: “The PP became the Africans’ Claims of 1943 and the adopted a franchise policy of universal the PRP [Progressive Reform Party] Freedom Charter of 1955, both of adult suffrage, something liberals of and then the PFP [Progressive Federal which contained elaborate ideas of a the PP’s creed were not prepared to Party] and then the DP [Democratic non-racial future with a Bill of Rights. accept. The PP believed in “qualified Party] before we became the DA”. Steytler was just echoing the opening franchise” with educational, property 28 THE THINKER POLITICS and income requirements that ridicule Helen Suzman in his New Year team, led by the formidable Colin Eglin excluded the majority of black people, Message of 1 January 1971: together with Ken Andrew and others especially the poor. “Vorster, Klopper, Helen Suzman who ensured that there were significant The LP made genuine effort and lesser agents of colonialism, have checks against power abuse…” to collaborate with the liberation turned Africa into a veritable hunting There is no space here to dwell movement when the PP saw that as too ground for stooges and indigenous on the DP’s role in the CODESA risky, fearing to be alienated from the agents of racism. Mrs. Suzman deserves negotiations. However, one fails to white electorate. The PP chose to work special mention: This sweet bird from understand why Zille would hide the in apartheid parliament, while the LP the blood-stained south flew into fact that the Molteno Commission didn’t. Some of the members of the Zambia and sang a singularly sweet was a flop as its recommendations LP were so radical that they even tried song: which became PP policy were widely to form their own armed organisation, I am opposed to apartheid; considered racist and Eurocentric. The the African Resistance Movement, I am opposed to the isolation of South Commission’s brain and Chairperson, around the time when the ANC Africa; Donald Molteno, had political established its MK. I am opposed to violence; differences with the LP as explained in The LP decided to fold in 1968 I am opposed to guerrillas; his biography: instead of surrendering to the fate I am opposed to the Lusaka Manifesto; “By 1957 Molteno was at odds with that awaited the party following the I am opposed to the decision of the the Liberal Party. Besides his objection passage of the Prohibition of Improper to the moves in the Party to abandon the Interference Act which banned parties Steytler couldn’t qualified franchise policy, he regretted from having non-racial membership. the lack of support for his proposals, as The LP could not accept that it would have been ahead of Chairman of the Party’s Constitutional have to give its black members the his times because by Committee, for a federal solution to boot. But the PP didn’t see anything South Africa’s problems. Finally, as wrong with that and continued to then the liberation one who certainly put a higher value exist. Helen Suzman defended the movement had the on stability and order than the Liberal PP’s stance when she reported to her Africans’ Claims of Party was prepared to do, he rejected Houghton constituency in August the extra-Parliamentary activities 1968: “It [the Act] prohibits multiracial 1943 and the Freedom which certain members of the Party political parties. It has meant the death Charter of 1955, both were engaged in or contemplating. In of the Liberal Party and has deprived October 1957 he resigned from the us of our non-white members. I have of which contained Liberal Party”4. not the slightest doubt that we are elaborate ideas of a Molteno, according to his biographer, absolutely right to continue [as a party] was convinced that “universal suffrage – this is what our non-white members non-racial future with was not only unsuited to South Africa’s wanted us to do; it is very definitely a Bill of Rights. multi-racial society but would alienate what the Government did not want us the white electorate who had to be to do”2. World Council of Churches; convinced that there was a middle way The second distortion: Zille bragged I know the Africans can do nothing to between the stark alternatives posed in her speech that when the founders cause political change in South Africa; by the Nationalists – race suicide or of the PP broke away from the I am in favour of change; apartheid”5. He took his constitutional United Party in 1959 “they knew that Clearly in favour of change but proposals which failed to sell in Parliament could be a powerful tool to determined to prevent change”3. the LP to the PP. At the latter’s first expose the injustice and absurdities of Zille’s third distortion: “It is Party Congress in November 1959 he the apartheid system. This proved to not widely acknowledged that the drafted a resolution which resulted in be a key factor in the growing domestic Constitution that the DA defends the establishment of his Commission and international pressure which today has its roots in the Molteno with the following among its terms of eventually brought about apartheid's Commission set up by the Progressive reference: demise”. Party in 1961… It recommended a • To establish conditions which will This is also not true. In fact, the national convention, an entrenched enable the peoples of South Africa opposite is what happened – the Constitution, a bill of rights, a common to live as one nation in accordance PP and its successor parties isolated voters' roll… The negotiations at with the values and concepts of themselves from the broad movement Codesa that culminated in our Western Civilisation. of struggle when they chose to Constitution and Bill of Rights were not • To enable suitably qualified citizens participate in the apartheid parliament. just a victory for every South African, of a defined degree of civilization They were not even a factor in the they were also a vindication of our belonging to any population group struggle for the international isolation intellectual tradition. If the groundwork to participate in the Government of of apartheid South Africa as insinuated was laid by the Molteno Commission in the country…. by Zille. Hence Oliver Tambo could the 1960s, it was the DP's negotiating • To provide constitutional safeguards Volume 53 / 2013 29 POLITICS through a reform of the Senate and/ theory conveniently crafted to inflate the their opposition to the methods the or otherwise to prevent the exercise importance of the DA and exaggerate oppressed had chosen to fight for of unchecked power by any group the contribution of conservative liberals their liberation. Liberals preferred in order to dominate any other to the struggle for freedom. She argued a gradual process of struggle, under group, white or non-white. in her speech: “From the early 1970s, their paternalistic leadership, through • To decentralize legislature and with the growth of black consciousness, a multi-racial political platform; as executive power by devolving on it did sometimes seem as if we would opposed to the radical, militant, the existing provinces, or other be crushed between competing mass-based revolutionary struggle provinces into which the Union racial nationalisms”; and that: “What under the command of the oppressed may in future be delimited…6. brought people together [in the PP themselves. They did not believe in the As the terms of reference implied, etcetera] was our faith that South agency of the oppressed in the struggle the Commission came out in favour of Africa could defy the unfolding logic for their own liberation. Yet the history qualified franchise.