GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Populism is the root cause of the DA’s problems

A recent internal letter by two DA MPs, Gavin Davis and Michael Cardo, titled Real Progressives Reject Groupthink, has served to make public those fears of some inside the party, that "progressives" want "race quotas applied to the party’s representatives in Parliament and other legislatures".

Read: Let's keep racial nationalism out of the DA 

The letter suggests that a proposed amendment to the DA constitution, dealing with diversity and to be put before the upcoming federal congress, "does nothing to distinguish our approach from the ANC’s" and "instead of clarifying the distinction between representivity and diversity, it blurs the lines". Thus, the letter warns, "if we embark on this path, we’ll be on a slippery slope towards ANC-style race quotas."

Its publication was met with a considerable response. Many DA representatives weighed in on social media and the media instantaneously took it all to the usual hysterical heights ("Race tears the DA apart," screamed the City Press).

Subsequently, a second letter by Davis and Cardo was published, titled, Promoting Diversity in the DA. 

Read: A better path to diversity in the DA

It proposed a new amendment that revolved largely around a reformulation of the original but primarily turned on the addition of this clause: "The party will take active steps to promote and advance diversity in its own ranks, without recourse to regressive mechanisms such as quotas."

Whether or not the DA ends up endorsing that specific formulation remains to be seen but, one way or the other, it is highly unlikely the party will endorse racial quotas — or that it would have done so before Davis and Cardo wrote their original criticism. If it did, well, it wouldn’t be the DA anymore. And that catastrophe would be that.

But this is more than a storm in a teacup. It is fair enough to argue the original amendment was poorly constructed but, really, it was no different from so much of what the DA has been saying for years now. DA leader Mmusi Maimane himself launched his leadership by saying, "If you don’t see that I’m black, then you don’t see me." There is a strong case to be made the amendment is no more than an extension of that sentiment, whatever you make of it.

Were the party secure about who or what it was, party representatives would have faith that the dangerous ambiguities contained in that original amendment would be ironed out on the congress floor. What is revealing about the Davis and Cardo letters is that such faith appears to be in short supply, at least among some.

Davis and Cardo certainly fear the DA’s internal zeitgeist is changing, to such a degree that, come congress, it might well take any dangers inherent to that particular amendment to the worst possible conclusion: racial quotas.

In their first letter, the two describe their fear as follows: "Recent media reports suggest there is a ‘progressive’ faction, incorporating a so-called ‘black caucus’, that wishes to steer the DA’s federal congress in April towards particular outcomes."

They write: "The ‘progressives’ (who are almost always quoted anonymously) speak a sort of dialect of ANC-ese, in which terms like racial ‘transformation’ and demographic ‘representivity’ are parroted unselfconsciously."

These two groups, they believe, are responsible for "racial groupthink and racial identitarianism" inside the party, and that their agenda must be opposed, as it is antithetical to the DA’s principles and values — which, of course, it is.

—  Populism is infused into the DA’s politics. It is how it plays the game these days. And for an age it has been met by nothing more than silence or consent by the leadership.

There are some problems with the approach adopted by Davis and Cardo. The first of these is giving credence to ideas like a "black caucus". For all the talk of a "black caucus" inside the DA, no one ever has any details about it. Who are its members, when does it meet, what is its formal agenda? None of these details are ever provided — including by the likes of Davis and Cardo — because a ‘black caucus’ simply doesn’t exist. Or, at least, no one has ever been able to provide any hard evidence of its existence outside of media speculation and hearsay.

Questions around SA’s racial legacy and how to address it are incredibly complex, even within a liberal framework. The danger of validating some mysterious, unseen, presumably racially organised group inside the DA is that any approach that is deemed disagreeable — and within a liberal framework there are different legitimate approaches to the problem — can then be framed as advocating the racial agenda of a "black caucus".

It is how you reduce internal debate down to binaries. Us and them, for an against. And besides, if it doesn’t exist at all, then stating the opposite is intrinsically destructive.

Certainly the media, which seems generally only capable of analysing the DA through an essentialist, racial lens, will now inevitably assume all black members are in some way affiliated with a "black caucus". The irony of that is that Davis and Cardo would have helped fuel and engender the very problem they seek to counter. Without hard evidence, ideally one should argue against the more fundamental threat they identify in principle.

But that does not mean the impulse to which they refer does not exist. It surely does, only its legacy is far more explicit and less subtle than their issue with the congress amendment. It also doesn’t seem to break along racial lines.

On October 1 2016, for example, the DA federal executive announced the following: "In the coming months, the party will finalise a diversity plan that will require DA structures — from branch level to national level — to set targets for the recruitment and development of excellent black candidates for public office. These targets, and the progress made towards achieving them, will be reviewed regularly by FedEx [federal executive]."

That undertaking, which has quietly vanished off the DA’s agenda since, was by some considerable distance, far more egregious and dangerous than the current constitutional amendment as it stands. The DA might have quibbled about "targets" not being "quotas", but to measure targets you must measure race and from that point on, you are a hop, skip and a jump from quotas.

But this was met by total silence from the DA, certainly Davis and Cardo expressed no concern with it. No brave, effectively public letter taking a stand. If their analysis is to be believed, then the "progressives" had captured the entire DA federal executive, as far back as 2016.

You can’t have your cake and eat it: you can’t argue the current amendment represents a "possible" gateway through which racial populism might walk, but then have nothing to say about a formal party decision to endorse racial targets, as a similar gateway.

Why the previous silence though? Perhaps both have decided not to stand again for election in 2019. Few things elevate bravery levels more than a clear vision of the exit door. Perhaps they feel a tipping point has been reached. Either way, better to have the conversation than not. But it needs to be extended somewhat.

You see, the root cause of the DA’s problem is not groupthink and racial identitarianism; it is populism. The truth of the matter is that the DA and its leadership have adopted a populist attitude to so many matters of principle, for so long now, it was only a matter of time before it attached to race, in a fundamental way.

Under the leadership of Helen Zille and then, particularly, under the leadership of Maimane, the DA has been taught for years now that populism pays. If that impulse towards racial populism does exist inside the DA, it is only because the party is following its leaders.

I have written about this before, but consider the following DA positions:

• The embracing of the National Development Plan (meant as a wedge issue to isolate President Jacob Zuma but which constrained the DA’s ability to differentiate itself from the ANC economically);

• The unqualified praise of Thabo Mbeki (in order again to damn Zuma by implication, but which hypocritically associated the DA with many of our contemporary problems that have their genesis in Mbeki’s tenure);

• Voting in favour of affirmative action in Parliament (although later rectified, it was clear from the committee minutes the decision was born of a desire not be seen as antitransformation);

• The failed merger with AgangSA and its leader, Mamphela Ramphele, (designed to realign the opposition and artificially introduce a senior black leader into the party hierarchy, but in the party’s haste, it ignored her character and inexperience, resulting in the merger’s collapse);

• Relative silence on key free-speech issues, such as the controversy around The Spear, Zapiro and Rhodes Must Fall (intended to avoid racial controversy and the wrath of the mob, but which effectively sanctioned a public repertoire that has become as destructive as it is repressive);

• The membership of abaThembu king and convicted criminal Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo (an attempt to demonstrate its growing appeal to rural voters, particularly in the Eastern Cape, his conviction was indulged along with the consequences of it for the party brand);

• The introduction of racial targets inside the party, to achieve better demographic representativeness (although defended as different from quotas, the difference is hard to determine and the introduction of race into an organisational culture is a dangerous precedent for a merit-based institution);

• An authoritarian social media policy (designed, understandably perhaps, to regulate the party message and brand, it has suppressed a diversity of opinion and introduced much fear and division);

• The personal politics of its Maimane (seen as a messiah of sorts inside the DA, the party’s "first black leader", his problematic personal convictions and associations have been indulged and overlooked without criticism);

• Coalitions and the EFF (in many ways the party’s ideological counterpart, its working agreement with the EFF has curtailed its ability to criticise the EFF’s more outlandish behaviour and policy).

These and a thousand other bits of populism — from Maimane’s tweet in which he feigned being the gang leader of some vigilante mob, about to stone criminals, to his policy proposals that the DA would double the spend on social grants and the size of the entire police force — all without explanation or a proposed budget — to his attendance of Angus Buchan’s homophobic rallies, even to the way the DA decries the outlawing of the word "rubbish" in the national assembly, only to ban it in its own parliament in the Western Cape.

If you have endorsed the ANC’s economic plan, sent a provincial leader to personally welcome a convicted criminal into the party membership, introduced racial targets for election, uncritically praised the former ANC president, clamped down on internal free speech, pandered to homophobia and proposed to double social welfare spend — in Zuma-like, free higher education fashion — then why not endorse quotas? You are most of the way there already.

Race is implicit to many of those positions. Take Dalindyebo, for example. He was so welcomed because he was deemed a black, rural authority figure in a key strategic province for the party. Groupthink underpins that assumption: that because he was a black king, black people would vote for the DA in the Eastern Cape in greater numbers.

Thus, his conviction was excused in the most tortuous fashion. Hell, perhaps the even more problematic assumption was that he might instruct "his people" to vote in exactly that way.

But even on more formal issues of race, there is uncertainty.

Maimane is on the record as saying: "Affirmative action is something the DA supports. We’ve maintained that affirmative action works this way: if there are two candidates of different races and they appear for the job, pick the black one. We will support it; we wouldn’t abandon the policy."

Liberals will have a profound problem with that. It appears like an absolute endorsement of racial quotas. Maimane didn’t even suggest the two candidates were "equal", although many liberals would contest that too, as not possible in reality. Like so many other of these positions, it was met with public silence.

The DA’s congress will also be a measure of that promise. Was it a statement of principle, carefully thought-through and supported by ideological precedent, or an expedient soundbite given to a newspaper, to avoid a negative story?

One could go on and on. Populism is infused into the DA’s politics. It is how it plays the game these days. And for an age it has been met by nothing more than silence or consent by the leadership.

Maimane must be the only leader in the modern world to have been elected to lead a party — for three years now — without a policy platform he can call his own. That is a populist feat almost without parallel.

Political analyst Prince Mashele currently has the ear of Maimane. Before that he wrote speeches for Thabo Mbeki. After that, he advised Mamphela Ramphele on the omni-shambles that was AgangSA. If EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi is to be believed, Mashele, "asked (begged) myself & CIC to join EFF" ahead of the 2016 elections.

Mashele seems to have advice for all parties across the ideological spectrum, from racial nationalists to social democrats to liberals. Possibly even fascist socialists. It is typical of how Maimane panders to all-comers.

That doesn’t preclude the DA acting in principled fashion — it does that too, but essentially, a lot of fundamental issues over the past five years have been decided upon by what is pragmatic, not what it is principled. That attitude was always going to swallow up race, as it grew and grew. If it has now incorporated race — and its attendant passions, like racial identitarianism — nothing is more poisonous or destructive.

But that is a symptom, not a cause. The truth is, the entire DA leadership is culpable in this. They have all played their part, in one way or another.

Both letters by Davis and Cardo are entirely correct: the DA should not, under any circumstance, endorse or pander to demographic representivity or quotas. Although, frankly, it would be electoral suicide if it did and the end of the party as a liberal institution. And it is good and necessary to take a principled stance against any populist racial impulse inside the DA in favour of this, whatever its cause or character. That kind of thing will eat the DA up in months, not years.

But, the core problem — rampant populism — runs far deeper than mere race, and amending the constitution on this particular issue in no way gets to the heart of the problem.

Like a game of whack-a-mole, you can be sure it will just pop up somewhere else, soon enough. And no doubt Maimane will be leading the charge.

That, ultimately, is where the DA needs to look: to its leadership and to the internal culture that has been engendered — one where market polling determines so much positioning, where Maimane’s populist impulses go unchecked or commented upon, rhetoric trumps considered policy, tactics dominate strategy and short-term gains outweigh any long-term vision or purpose.

The DA’s upcoming congress is going to be the test for a great many things. It is a chance for the DA to return to its founding values and principles, or present yet another sacrifice to the gods of popular appeal.

Demographic representativeness and diversity would now seem to be on the alter. Already pretty chock-a-block with other DA principles, the world will now be watching to see if someone applies a light to the latter, in favour of the former. Davis and Cardo will be hoping they have snuffed out whatever sparks there are.

• Gareth van Onselen is the head of politics and governance at the South African Institute of Race Relations