GARETH VAN ONSELEN: How the ANC has blinded the media to its own racism

Upfront, it is necessary to say this column an admission of defeat. Quotas or demographic representivity or whatever euphemism one wishes to use for social engineering is anathema to liberal thought. Being forced to produce an analysis of this sort, then, is a concession to orthodoxy which, implicitly or explicitly, remains generally beholden to this kind of thinking. Sometimes, however, the only way to make a point is in terms your opponents understand.

That said, given the current demand — that the leadership of the official opposition not suitably "racially representative" — it is necessary, for the sake of context, to look also at the racial profile of the ANC’s leadership. It is the ANC which has fuelled this narrative and, as a result, infected much of the mainstream media with a disease the symptoms of which are now fully manifest.

That the ANC advocates racial quotas is beyond doubt. Its rawest, bluntest articulation came from the ANC’s then-transformation chair, Enoch Godongwana, who said to the Black Management Forum in November 2013, "[Apartheid architect Hendrik] Verwoerd used the quota system therefore we should too! We unashamedly say we will use quotas in every sector of the economy."

The implication that race should trump both democracy and merit is obvious. And it is ubiquitous

This belief belies the ANC’s commitment to "non-racialism". The party will, of course, argue it is rather evidence of it but, as with everything from affirmative action to the composition of sporting teams, to ensure demographic representivity you need to classify people by their race; make that defining and relegate individual character to the gutter. Legally, the ANC avoids an outright apartheid-style approach to this by allowing people to self-identify. And it gets away with that simply because no one has ever challenged it in court.

To implement quotas, one must inevitably turn to the country’s demographics. In March 2014, former president Jacob Zuma framed Godongwana’s sentiment more formally, like this: "We have to build an inclusive economy which creates jobs but more importantly an economy that reflects the demographics of the country."

The 2011 census found that, at the time, 79.4% declared themselves to be "Black African", 9.2% "White", 8.8% "Coloured" and 2.6% "Indian" or "Asian". Those percentages generally hold today.

This, then, is the ideal the ANC pursues, at least ostensibly. In turn, this is the "science" that underpins the relentless call for the DA to become more "diverse" — significantly, in spite the character of the DA’s own support base (it currently has the support of about 6% of all black South African voters). It must, the call is constantly made, better reflect the country’s demographics.

There is no end to the pressure put on the DA on this front. It is relentless. And, following the party’s recently concluded federal congress, it has found new life. This tweet, from eNCA’s Nickolaus Bauer, exemplifies the demand:

The implication that race should trump both democracy and merit is obvious. And it is ubiquitous. The mainstream media would seem united in the analysis and it applies it constantly on social media and in its commentary. It has led to some ridiculous sentiments. For example, take this remarkable observation from one Bukani Mngoma, a political analyst commenting on the elected DA caucus leadership in eThekwini, in March, which was deemed "too white":

"Yes, [the DA] may argue that it is the outcome of a democratic process but they have let democracy over-ride demographics."

With that comes the equally pernicious idea that only one race can represent the interests of that race. And that, too, is a one-way street so far as the DA is concerned. Cyril Ramaphosa can be a boon for "white business interests". He can represent their desires, no problem. But Mmusi Maimane cannot represent the interests of, say, aspiring black entrepreneurs. No, you need to be in the ANC to do that, or the Black Management Forum. So the ANC can do both. The DA can only ever do one, even when it is, on the facts, not interested in race per se, but in poverty and inequality.

All this has caused the DA to melt somewhat under the pressure, to the extent that its congress, originally conceived of as the platform on which it was going to promote a new policy direction for voters, but which inevitably devolved into an entirely inwardly focused discussion on demographic representivity and diversity and where the party should draw the line in the sand. However, the issue here is not the DA’s response, rather the standard applied to it and why it is not applied to the ANC itself, in any equitable manner.

The DA is genuinely founded on the principle of non-racialism. It fights for it every day, often in the face of a rampant impulse towards black nationalism 

Because you can say what you want about the DA, it has bent over backwards to try and respond as best it can to the demands made of it. It may not totally represent the country’s demographics, but it is a country mile ahead of the ANC when it comes to racial diversity. And, the point is, it is trying, all the time, to diversify more. It doesn’t always succeed and whether or not it should bow to the pressure at all is another discussion, but respond it has.

And while there might be some pragmatism involved, diluting the DA’s principles, it is not fundamental. The DA is genuinely founded on the principle of non-racialism. It fights for it every day, often in the face of a rampant impulse towards black nationalism. That is unequivocal. None of it is good enough.

It elected a black parliamentary leader; she was a puppet. It elected a black leader; he is a front for white interests. Its rallies and marches are now overwhelmingly populated by black activists — they are too black, where are the whites? It elected a black head of the DA Women’s Network and a black youth leader; they are excluded from any analysis of its leadership structure. It can propose massively extending the child support grant, but it is not "pro-poor". Its flagship governments have two black mayors, a coloured mayor, a white mayor and a white premier — not good enough! Nothing is ever good enough.

The pressure remains. All the time, every day. A relentless, endless harping on. The unyielding measuring of race, of the party’s leadership, never satisfied, constantly bemoaning its current state, over and over and over again. You would think the DA was the only party in SA struggling to embody an entirely nonracial character. And you would be right, because, effectively, it is.

The ANC, which generates and fuels this pressure on the DA, cares nothing for its own demands and no one ever applies them to the party.

Consider this: since 1994 it has elected six different leaderships — the party’s "top six", the pinnacle of power inside the ANC.

That is 36 positions. Not one of them, ever, since 1994 has been a white South African. If you go by SA’s demographics, at least three of them should have been.

The ANC has never elected a white head of the ANC’s Women’s League and never elected a white head of its Youth League. In 2014, no white person was elected ANC premier. Here, after the 2014 elections, is the composition of every ANC provincial leadership position: Provincial Leadership

That’s 45 in total (a chairperson, deputy chairperson, secretary, deputy secretary and treasurer for each province). Not a single white person.

One could go on. The hypocrisy is astounding. The ANC’s constitution states that the party is "a non-racial and non-sexist and democratic liberation movement". It says, "in its composition", it shall, "be democratic" and "non-racial", among other things. These are the party’s own constitutional promises. They count for nothing. It cares nothing about non-racialism when it comes to its leadership. So far as that is concerned, it is a "black party", for black South Africans, possibly with some minor role for Coloured South Africans.

And no-one cares. No-one puts pressure on the ANC to "widen its appeal" to white voters. No one is constantly bemoaning how racially exclusive the ANC leadership or support is. The closest the media has ever gotten to monitoring its compliance with demographics is to criticise its gender representativity — which gives the game away, because it proves the media is in the quotas game. But when it comes to race, the ANC is given a free pass.

Why is this?

The primary reason is because all this talk about race and the DA is not indicative of any true aspiration towards non-racialism. The DA could, artificially, produce a leadership 100% compliant with the country’s demographics. It would make no difference. It’s not race so much of the commentariat has a problem with, it is the idea of the DA, of opposition and of a party that dares to suggest the ANC does not hold the moral high ground — that it is a contested terrain and the governing party holds no monopoly over SA’s best interests.

Because the party has a stranglehold on morality and the mainstream media, generally enmeshed in and deferential to the ANC’s world view, tends to see the world through the ANC’s eyes

That is why any change in the composition of the DA’s leadership is dismissed out of hand as puppetry or fronting. It can never comply because the real belief that underpins all of this is that it is held hostage by a "white mentality", elitism, neo-liberalism and various other ideological poisons it is constantly diagnosed with.

Just look at the EFF, a party which boasts a totally mad economic agenda, designed with the primary purpose, if ever implemented, of totally destroying the South African economy, and the prospects of the poor and disenfranchised — the overwhelming majority of which are black South Africans. It matters not. The EFF is also a "black party" and that kind of racial exclusivity means its bona fides, when it comes to non-racialism, can never be questioned. Non-racialism means "black" and from there, all legitimacy flows.

This week the Mail & Guardian (M&G) ran a totally fabricated story about the late Judge Ramon Leon, father to the former leader of the official opposition, Tony Leon. It was a story born of one thing: ANC propaganda. Lies, manufactured and disseminated by the ANC, as part of its agenda to destroy and de-legitimise the opposition. The M&G ran with it because it felt true. Because the ANC had spilt so much poison into the M&G’s ear, it believed the lies.

It feels true to deny the DA is growing its support among black South Africans, however incrementally. It feels true to misrepresent the DA’s changing character. It feels true to say the DA serves the conspiratorial fantasy that is "white monopoly capital" with its fictitious villains, Johan Rupert and the Oppenheimers, pulling strings in the dark. It feels true to say black DA leaders are puppets. And it all feels true, because it is what the ANC says. Because the party has a stranglehold on morality and the mainstream media, generally enmeshed in and deferential to the ANC’s world view, tends to see the world through the ANC’s eyes.

It is pathetic. Totally and utterly pathetic. A self-reinforcing, vicious circle of untruth that pays no heed to the facts, refuses to acknowledge change and damns any real prospect of a democratic plurality in SA; never mind non-racialism. It has produced a kind of prevalent tunnel vision in which the ANC has defined the terms, excused itself from the rules, and ensured the far end of the lens remains exclusively and absolutely focused on the DA.

It is, in the final analysis, self-destructive. But then again, it feels so good. And the ANC is the machine that regulates the national mood.

• Van Onselen is the head of politics and governance at the South African Institute of Race Relations.