I made a mistake thinking Athol Trollip was still a senior member of the DA. To be honest, it’s hard to keep up and I’m not really all that interested. The comings and goings of crosstitutes are rather a bore, writes Gasant Abarder in a new #SliceofGasant.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
A kind tweep Jonathan Berger responded to my tweet and pointed out my error that Trollip was actually with ActionSA now. I was lamenting Trollip’s remark of ‘go back home’ to a Zimbabwean living here who had dared to comment on Trollip’s leader of his new party.
I apologised and corrected myself immediately, making sure to tag the DA in my quote tweet.
Helen Zille came for me hours later telling me to ‘keep up’ – despite my apology. The floodgates of Zille’s army of trolls came for me too. It was exhausting.
This is the same Zille, who has since blocked me on Twitter like the party leader, John Blockhuisen she remote controls, who had nothing to say when one of her minions, Ghaleb Cachalia put his foot in it. Cachalia – who had himself thankfully blocked me a while back – lampooned people with autism.
That was a week ago. In fairness, as the old cliché goes, a week in politics is a lifetime.
Trollip, now that I’m up to speed, Helen, is now with Action SA and he is doubling down on the bigotry.
He is not ‘Black Like Me’ or like his party leader Herman Mashaba. Mashaba is black, like me. But unlike me, he doesn’t like blacks who aren’t black like him. Wait, before I go cross-eyed, that means he intensely dislikes blacks from Zimbabwe, Malawi, the DRC and any other from the African diaspora.
Elsewhere, on the projectile vomit that is our political landscape is that fine example of humanity called Gayton McKenzie, who is slightly less subtle about his dislike for brown folks who are not like him. He triumphantly announced he would like to drive out Bangladeshi nationals from the Central Karoo municipality where he is mayor.
The DA themselves have also been willing bed partners to a collection of MAGA-like splinter parties consisting of two people with a fax machine like the Cape Independence so-and-sos, who want a Republic of the Western Cape (sigh) and who had more posters than votes.
They were also keen on those rare specimens of humanity called the ACDP (who are anti-everything vaguely resembling a humane approach to life like COVID vaccines). They also had coalitions with parties they purportedly despise in order to hold onto municipalities.
The ANC are like fish in a barrel right now. But these opposition party jokers can’t even capitalise on the train wreck that is our governing party, lest they be regarded as woke (the word mouthed with wrinkly, pursed lips).
Anyone who votes for the ANC must like living in the dark – literally. They must love having billions stolen from the public purse. They must love being sitting ducks to killers and an assortment of other bloodthirsty thugs because the governing party can’t be bothered to keep us safe.
And yet, the jokers on the opposition benches just keep scoring their own goals.
I’ve made a number of friends from other African countries who now call South Africa home. A Malawian is in my class at university, another from Zimbabwe was one of the best brand and marketing specialists I’ve ever worked with, and two more Malawians are a handyman and a cleaner respectively who regularly work for our family.
We engage outside of workspaces. A Pakistani man cuts the little hair I have left and does a killer cutthroat shave and head massage. A Bangladeshi shopkeeper often sees me in when I’m a few coins short of buying something at his shop down the road. My favourite conversation daily, when I worked in the Cape Town CBD, was with a Somali who ran a number of spaza shops in Cape Town.
They are law-abiding people, wanting only the best for their families like the rest of us. Though they come from such varied, cultures and traditions, yet they all experience the same open hostility many South Africans show them. It is fomented from the very top by those who claim to represent us.
Politicians need to be held to account for their xenophobic tropes. They go mysteriously silent when their incitement leads to violence, as we have often seen in this country.
Where does this hatred come from? Is it really just a shameless effort for votes? Or is it a throwback from the days they hated blacks like me, who they say is not really black like me, and they now have a new target that betrays a deep sense of self-loathing?
Also read:
Apartheid was better? If you’re asking that you’re a johnny-come-lately!
Picture: Unsplash