Let’s call it what it is. The Democratic Alliance, while cloaking itself in the language of a “non-racial party,” seems to be a master at playing a very specific, deeply ingrained racial game. It’s a strategy that doesn’t just acknowledge our nation’s fractures; it actively exploits them, preying on the subconscious biases that apartheid so meticulously planted in every South African.
The apartheid government’s most potent weapon was the swart gevaarthe fear of the Black danger. Today, that fear has been repackaged. It’s no longer shouted from racist platforms but whispered in polite company, simmering in private WhatsApp groups and bubbling up around braais. The DA, critics argue, has become the subtle conductor of this ugly orchestra.
The BEE Battle: Meritocracy as a Trojan Horse
Nowhere is this clearer than in the party’s relentless push to scrap Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE). By positioning “meritocracy” against laws designed to address centuries of engineered inequality, the DA taps into a powerful and damaging narrative.
It’s a narrative that whispers: “They” are lazy. “They” are corrupt. “They” only enrich themselves. This is the politics of “othering” that apartheid perfected. It ignores the reality that the current system was built to make “white right,” systematically stripping non-whites of their land, dignity, and opportunity, while creating a brutal hierarchy with Blackness at the very bottom.
By framing B-BBEE as a corrupt failure that only benefits “ANC elites,” the DA cleverly sidesteps the policy’s original redress purpose. It reduces a complex tool for economic inclusion to a simple story of patronage, a story that resonates powerfully with the prejudices many still hold.
The “White is Right” Governance Strategy
Look at the evidence in the Government of National Unity. The DA didn’t just ask for powerful ministries; they installed white men at the helm of the most symbolically charged departments.
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Home Affairs, a national symbol of bureaucratic failure, now has Leon Schreiber.
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Public Works, a notorious site for corrupt tenders, is led by Dean McPherson.
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Agriculture, a sector haunted by the specter of land reform, is under John Steenhuisen.
This is not a coincidence. It’s a tactical move. The message it sends is clear: to fix the mess, you need a competent white man in charge. This is reinforced in their governance strongholds: a white mayor (Geordin Hill-Lewis) runs Cape Town, and a white premier (Alan Winde) runs the Western Cape. The party then points to these areas as proof of their superior governance, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where “white is right.”
Even their mayoral candidacy in eThekwini, where they chose Haniff Hoosen, feels less like a commitment to non-racialism and more like a cynical calculation to appeal to the city’s significant Indian demographic.
Helen Zille’s planned run for Johannesburg mayor, a self-styled “white saviour” riding in to rescue a “crumbling” metro from Black-led governance, is the logical endpoint of this strategy.
The DA’s genius lies in its ability to deny it’s playing the race card while simultaneously dealing from a deck stacked with racial anxiety. They present themselves as the adults in the room, the party of merit, all while quietly reassuring a segment of the population that some people are naturally more meritorious than others. In a country still bleeding from the wounds of its past, this is not just politics; it’s a deeply dangerous game.
{Source: Timeslive}
