Racial division and integration dominate Maimane speech

Issues of race have dominated Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane’s speech at the DA Federal Congress underway in Pretoria.

In a speech on Saturday, Maimane said, “Three years ago, in my first speech as DA leader, I spoke of being moulded by experiences as a black man. I said if you don’t see I’m black, then you don’t see me. But the flipside of this is also true. If all you see is that I am black then you don’t see me either.”

Maimane, who has been nominated party leader unopposed, says his blackness doesn’t add to or substract from him humanity.

“At the end of my life, I will be judged on whether I was a good husband, a loving father, a loyal son, a patriotic South African, someone who contributed to society. None of those will be defined by my blackness.”

But for many, Maimane says this is a radical and subversive idea, “because it is a threat to the racial solidarity and group think. “

“It is a threat to the politics of divide and rule. It is a threat to the old order of things.”

The DA leader has criticised what he has termed “the empty promise of a dawn” advocated by the ANC, saying the country needs total change.

“How can we speak of a new dawn when our cabinet is still crammed full of corrupt ministers, and when our Deputy President has a cloud of allegations hanging over his head? How can we speak of a new dawn when the same government that shot and killed 34 unarmed mine workers and left 144 mental healthcare patients to die agonising deaths is still in office? How can we speak of a new dawn when our children are still dying in pit toilets at schools across the country? How can we speak of new dawn when our farmers continue to be brutally murdered?”

Hitting out at the EFF’s call for Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip’s removal, Maimane says, “When they say they want to cut the throat of whiteness, or kick a hard-working mayor out of office simply because he’s white, they are dragging our country back to the place we should never return to.”

However, Maimane never spent much time discussing the thorny issue of land or land expropriation without compensation, only saying, “We need a plan that gives people ownership of their land, and then protects the property right of all South Africans.”