South Africa has among the highest levels of media freedom in the world, especially assessed in its legal and political context.
This gives the media the right to report without fear of censorship, prosecution or other retribution. It does not mean freedom from scrutiny. Especially for “commentators” and “analysts”. When you enter the battle of ideas you must be prepared to battle with others who challenge your interpretation of “truth”.
So when Peter Bruce takes to these pages to suggest some sort of sordid (and false) Shakespearean plot among senior figures in the DA, he should expect to be challenged.
In his January 26 column, Peter refuted a statement I made on radio during the course of this contretemps. He clearly did not like my saying that “I am one politician who gets into trouble for telling the truth.”
Bruce disagreed, and used the example of Mmusi Maimane’s departure from the DA to do so. But all he did was prove my point — that journalists keep repeating each other’s false narratives until their urban legends assume the status of “truth”.
Bruce fell into this trap when he challenged my statement that “we [the DA] did not ask Mmusi to resign. He decided to resign.” That is the truth. In fact, he resigned despite the fact that I put a lot of effort into persuading him not to, as did the DA’s federal executive.
Bruce claims Mmusi had no choice but to leave the party because a report by a three-person committee (appointed by Mmusi himself), delivered a scathing critique of his leadership and proposed he resign.
What Bruce conveniently ignores is that this particular recommendation had not been accepted by the DA federal council.
On the morning of the first federal executive I was due to chair after my election to this position, I phoned Mmusi and asked whether I could meet him to discuss the agenda.
He said “sure”. We chatted cordially and the discussion inevitably turned to the committee’s report, and the proposal that he step down. I stressed that the party had not yet accepted it, and it was not necessarily the end of the road for him. I urged him to give us time to explore alternatives. He undertook to think about it.
I committed, in all sincerity, to support him to continue to play a crucial role in the party. I assured him that I would never hold a grudge against him for suspending me unconstitutionally and seeking to expel me from the party I had helped build. I had also allowed myself to be humiliated by agreeing to apologise to him, to avoid a showdown in court (which I would almost certainly have won).
Do Bruce and others feel no qualms about their game of bashing South Africa’s second largest political party, that consistently defends nonracialism and the rule of law in an increasingly populist and anti-constitutionalist political market?
In the fedex meeting itself, we sat alongside each other and engaged cordially, though some other fedex members, especially Athol Trollip, were clearly prickly. After all, I had just beaten Athol for the third time in a tough electoral contest.
About two-thirds of the way through the meeting, I received a WhatsApp from my son saying: “I’m sorry things are turning out this way, Ma.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I replied: “What do you mean?”
He replied: “That Mmusi is resigning and blaming you.”
I was gobsmacked. I stopped the meeting, turned to Mmusi and Athol, and asked them: Is there perhaps something that you should be telling us?
A hush fell on the room.
They responded by ducking and weaving, so I read my son’s message and asked them, directly, if it was true. From their demeanour, we could see that it was. Their plan was to go along with the meeting and then, at the lunch break, hold a press conference to announce that they were resigning. Obviously designed to inflict maximum damage on the party.
The fedex tried to dissuade them from this course of action. We said the report did not have to mean the end of their political careers and that we were committed to work together and heal the party. We gave them time to think about it. They returned and said they had not changed their minds.
The meeting adjourned and the scale of the deception was revealed. The media had been invited to witness the DA leader light a metaphorical bonfire in the foyer of the DA’s head office, using the DA’s equipment, with a podium dramatically draped in black to conceal the DA logo. His actions and words exemplified the ringing condemnation his own appointed panel had made of his leadership.
Here he was, deliberately portraying himself as a victim of villainous colleagues, when the opposite was true. But it played well with the media. At the height of woke madness in 2019, the entire media corps leapt to tell the tale of white villains and black victims.
In his final act of betrayal of the party, Mmusi announced that he believed that the DA was not the vehicle to build “One South Africa”. He followed this by announcing he would resign as leader but remain DA parliamentary leader and leader of the opposition. Really? After such a self-serving act of betrayal against his parliamentary colleagues? They rightly drew the line. And Mmusi resigned.
That is the truth, as it has been told before. Yet the commentariat continue trotting out their own version. Why is that? I can only conclude that the facts disrupt the narrative that South Africa’s most diverse political party is somehow the racist one.
Do Bruce and others feel no qualms about their game of bashing South Africa’s second largest political party, that consistently defends nonracialism and the rule of law in an increasingly populist and anti-constitutionalist political market?
Alas, Mmusi and Athol (and several others) went their separate ways and now wander around in South Africa’s political abyss. Where they will be joined by many columnists and analysts who have woefully misinterpreted the political terrain in South Africa for at least a decade.
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