White bashing cancer destroys SA from within says Zille

Black students at the University of Cape Town confront a white colleague during recent protests on
the campus; the author says anti-white sentiment is mushrooming at universities, rooted in the
writings of Frantz Fanon. 
Image: DAVID HARRISON

The storm over her tweets about the legacy of colonialism is a symptom of a new racist trend that
evades the real issues by turning whites into scapegoats, writes Helen Zille

Last week, in the Sunday Times's most prominently placed opinion piece, Professor Charles Ngwena
offers "brotherly advice" and asks me to respond frankly to two questions.

Today I answer them in good faith, then pose a few questions of my own.

Professor Ngwena asks what Sharpeville means to me.

The massacre of 69 people protesting the pass laws, in March 1960 (shortly after I turned nine), is
among my earliest political memories.

It revealed the brutal force required to keep people in subjugation, and was one of the reasons I
have spent my entire life opposing injustice and working for an open and equal democracy.

Then Professor Ngwena asks whether I want to become South Africa's Donald Trump.

The answer is an unequivocal no.

My political philosophy is the polar opposite of Donald Trump's - and everything I have done and
said in my political career underscores this. My social media commentary on the recent US election
proves this and a comparison of our Twitter timelines illustrates it.

Now, may I ask Professor Ngwena to help resolve some questions that are puzzling me?

Given the fact that a wide range of liberation leaders, from Nelson Mandela to Kenneth Kaunda,
have spoken publicly about the mixed legacy of colonialism, both positive and negative, why was
there such an eruption when I made a much milder point, stating that the legacy of colonialism was
not only negative?

Why was this comment (one of a series about lessons learnt in Singapore) twisted and distorted in
every possible way to justify accusations of racism against me?

And if it is racist to talk about colonialism's mixed legacy, why do we allow this discussion in an
official history textbook, whose chief author is renowned historian Dr Maanda Mulaudzi?

On page 182 of the matric history textbook, In Search of History    (Oxford University Press), one finds
a prominent question: "Did colonisation have any positive effects?"

Its answer, in brief, is yes, and the section ends with this paragraph: "Colonisation also brought with
it Western education, medicine and technology, as well as language, cultural and sporting links that
have enabled Africa to interact with the rest of the world. Part of the legacy of colonisation has been
the development of Africa into a network of modern, independent states."
Many thousands of children must have studied from this book, which has been in our schools for
about 14 years. And, as far as I am aware, its authors have not yet been reported to the Human
Rights Commission, as I have.

'Transformation' has been replaced by "decolonisation". Stripped of its academic veneer, this means
all whites are colonisers with no place in the new South Africa

Of course colonialism was driven by greed and oppressive intent. It had devastating consequences
that extended far beyond the material to the cultural, spiritual and psychological realms, which
continue to reverberate today.

Colonialism can never be defended, let alone justified.

We can spend much time debating what the world might have looked like had colonialism never
happened, but it won't help us to create an inclusive future.

Depending on the definition of colonialism, only 10 countries in the world have never been
colonised.

Some former colonies have become inclusive, spectacularly successful societies; others are divided,
dismal failures.

We need to understand why.

Two questions are particularly relevant to South Africa today: how can we overcome the devastating
psychological legacy of colonialism?

And how can we emulate the example of those countries that have managed to repurpose aspects
of colonialism's legacy to build strong, inclusive economies?

Singapore (among other countries) has been particularly successful in this quest, and has taken its
diverse population out of poverty in a single generation. During my recent visit, I spent a lot of time
analysing why and how.

Apart from reports and articles, I also wrote a series of reflective tweets on the subject. To my utter
amazement, one of these tweets was decontextualised and distorted, to the point that it became
the focus of a major controversy.

There is clearly something more to this than meets the eye. I think I am beginning to understand
what is really at work here.

Over the past few years, a tectonic shift has occurred in South African politics. The Mandela era has
come to an end. Emerging, from the epicentre of our universities, is a new set of ideas rooted in
Frantz Fanon's writings and codified in "critical race theory" that regards "whiteness" and "whites"
as the key obstacle to the progress of black people in South Africa.

The virus of anti-whiteness (rooted in the negative legacy of colonialism) has spread rapidly through
South Africa's born-free generation, especially the young, educated elite.

It is an attractive philosophy, partly because it romanticises revolution, and partly because it turns
"whites" into an easy target, a scapegoat to avoid facing the real issues that prevent progress and
economic inclusion in South Africa.
The buzzword "transformation" has been replaced by "decolonisation". Stripped of its academic
veneer, this means all whites are colonisers and have no place in the new South Africa unless they
retreat into guilty self-flagellation.

Whites who meekly accept this role, among other attributes, are described as "woke".

The condemnation of a whole category of people because of their (white) race is the new face of
racism in South Africa, and it has taken us a long time to wake up to it.

Like all populist, blame-shifting philosophies, it is catching on fast, and it has potentially perilous
consequences for South Africa's future.

Bell Pottinger, the London PR company hired by the Guptas to turn the tide in their favour, did not
pluck the phrase "white monopoly capital" from the air. They tapped into a pumping vein of vitriolic
race invective currently flowing through South Africa's body politic.

We ignore it at our peril.

There is a genuine risk that it will reverse the progress of our decades-long struggle for a nonracial,
inclusive democracy.

Among the (minor) consequences is the idea that black people can express opinions that whites
cannot. Those who think that the healing passage of time will eventually widen the space for the
debate we need to have, are living in a fool's paradise. As the benefits of scapegoating grow, the
space for debate will shrink.

Let's make no mistake, critical race theory (including its interpretation of decolonisation) is just the
most recent manifestation in a long line of academic fig leafs to justify legally codified racism. I have
fought these in the past, and I will continue to fight them today.

The "old Helen" you say you miss, Professor Ngwena, is very much alive and well and fighting for a
nonracial democracy today, just as I was 40 years ago.

• Helen Zille is Western Cape premier and former leader of the DA