Jaspreet Kindra
Senior Democratic Alliance leader Dan Maluleke has conceded there are “cultural” differences between white and black members of the DA, and that the two groups perceive South African politics differently.
Maluleke, a Democratic Party MP, said he is planning a workshop to provide a “chance for Tony Leon and others to acclimatise” themselves with the culture of the African DA members. Maluleke spoke to the Mail & Guardian after fronting a DA press conference in Johannesburg this week which emphasised that the DA is not a white elitist party and is making inroads in black communities. Similar conferences, also addressed by only black speakers, were simultaneously held in Durban and Cape Town.
Maluleke’s comments were echoed by a DP member of the Gauteng legislature, Themba Sono, who found “vast” cultural differences between blacks and whites in the DA. “We come from different political backgrounds and experiences. It will take quite some time before the meeting of the minds, hearts and souls of the blacks and specially English-speaking white South Africans,” Sono said.
“Because of their experience of discrimination, blacks are very sensitive to any perceived white superiority. This flows into our political culture.”
He said: “When Defence Minister Mosuioa Lekota says there is more cultural affinity between Afrikaners and Africans, he is telling the truth.”
In his official statement at the DA’s Johannesburg media conference, Maluleke said people in the ANC and the media liked to pretend that the DA was an exclusive white club that served only elite whites. “This is profoundly insulting to the DA’s many African public representatives. It is also untrue.”
Maluleke said that since the beginning of the year the party had launched, or was in the process of launching, 146 branches in black communities. By May next year it would have 250 black branches.
The M&G has seen a DA notice sent out on behalf of the party’s labour affairs spokesperson, Nick Clelland, to white senior DA councillors informing them of the press conferences. It reads: “Across the country the leadership wants to show the face of the party … Nick wants as many councillors as is possible to attend to show their support for the DA, the vision of the DA, the DA leader and our black DA members, who may well be feeling vulnerable. The message will be to counteract the racial tag the NNP is trying to stick to the DA.”
The notice adds that Clelland, a former parliamentary adviser to DA leader Tony Leon, needs three party members at the press conferences to speak in an anecdotal way about how the DA is growing.
NNP leader and former DA member Vincent Thusi described the conferences as a “veiled attempt by the DA to hide its true colours. The party’s internal problems can only be resolved if black people feel they own it,” he said.
Criticising DP elder statesman Helen Suzman for saying the NNP’s withdrawal from the DA was “good riddance”, Thusi said Suzman’s comment “stigmatises black members and the Afrikaner community who voted for the NNP”.