South Africa’s politicians need to get back to the ”basics of politics” in the country, Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said on Tuesday.
Addressing the Cape Times Breakfast Club, she referred to the ”great race debate” between President Thabo Mbeki and Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon.
De Lille said both sides in this debate had gone out of their way to prove that their point of view on the issue was the right one.
However, in the process they had failed to engage with each other’s arguments and show the broader South African public that it was possible to debate the issue constructively.
”Unfortunately the current schoolboy type spat between Tony Leon and President Mbeki doesn’t encourage such dialogue.
”In fact I see the current debate as being symptomatic of a growing antagonism that has developed between these two so-called leaders.
”This level of antagonism has grown to a level of hatred on the part of both parties that threatens to polarise our already fragmented society. The only war that we need to be fighting in this country is the war against poverty and both parties seem to have lost sight of that,” she said.
”Unfortunately our politicians seem intent on creating conditions for racism to flourish, through their use of either fear tactics, or in deflecting valid criticism by claiming it is racially motivated.
”This only serves to entrench people in their different racial camps. We desperately need to get beyond this approach.”
De Lille said the Independent Democrats saw themselves as first and foremost South African.
”Any other classification, racial or otherwise, depends on each individual’s choice.
”We all need to take on our identity as proud South Africans and it is important that this is not seen as a racially exclusive term.
”There is a tendency on behalf of government to equate African and black and ID [Independent Democrats] rejects this notion outright.
”We also need to ensure that our laws do not only reflect African as being black. Anyone in this country has a right to call themselves African and they then have the choice to take on any other identity they choose,” she said.
In taking on such an identity though, it was important to realise that it came with a responsibility to try and change the racial nature of society that still largely determined poverty and wealth in the country.
To a large extent, poverty and wealth in South Africa was still racially based and it was pointless trying to wish this fact away.
”The struggle for a non-racial South Africa has to grapple with this reality. If we are committed to the ideals of non-racialism we need to implement the provisions of the Constitution in such a manner that the eight million black people who are currently living in intolerable poverty are uplifted,” De Lille said.
De Lille, a former Pan Africanist Congress member of Parliament, formed her own party and kept her seat in Parliament during the floor-crossing window period earlier this year. – Sapa