Maimane – SA needs new political identity

This according to Mmusi Maimane, DA’s candidate for Gauteng premier, who was delivering a speech on race and identity in South Africa at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.

Grappling with how to forge a way towards a new political identity, only months before the national election, Maimane said the country’s politics did not have to be a choice between “black and white, rich or poor, Zulu or Xhosa”.

“We can forge a new kind of politics based on a shared identity that takes nothing away from the individual identities we choose for ourselves,” he said.

The DA has been repeatedly accused by other political parties of being a “white party”. Following the DA’s short-lived political marriage with Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele, the ANC attacked the opposition party, claiming it resorted to “renting a black face” to attract black voters.

Additionally, statements released by the ANC Youth League addressing the opposition party’s planned march to Luthuli House accused the DA of “renting foreign black people” to take to the streets during its action.

However, Maimane said the country needed leaders who would be committed to embracing the individual rights and identities of all people rather than focusing on racial mobilisation.

“I’m anti these leaders that mobilised on based race… this is a black party, this is a white party, this is an Afrikaner party – it’s not good for our democracy.”

During his speech, Maimane positioned himself not only as a politician but as a father, a man in an inter-racial marriage and a black South African.

He told the audience about his childhood in Dobsonville, Soweto, which moulded his perceptions of white South Africa based on stereotypes and encounters, often characterised by fear.

“My first memory of white people was of South African Defence Force soldiers occupying the streets during the state of emergency.

“They would conduct make-believe sting operations and fire toy guns at us township kids to entertain themselves. I don’t think they ever realised the fear they instilled in us with these games.”

Maimane said that as South Africa strived to redress the evils of apartheid, “we must not allow anger and victim hood to obscure our view of how far we have come, and how much better life is in a democratic South Africa”.

However, he acknowledged that South Africa remained “a nation of insiders and outsiders”.

“Poor people are overwhelmingly black and black people are overwhelmingly poor… what angers me more are those who say that racial solidarity will improve the lives of poor South Africans.”

Maimane said he was committed to building a political project based on “individual freedom and individual power”.