I agree with Helen Zille a little bit.
I know that’s probably going to get a few backs up, but if you’re prepared to hear me out, then you’ll hopefully understand where I’m coming from.
Last week Zille again implied in a few tweets that the legacy of colonialism was not all bad.
And predictably, the Twitter lynch mob started baying for her blood again.
The premier has been here before and the Public Protector has already ruled against her; so who am I to disagree, you must be wondering!
Well, because of Zille’s use of specific words, and a casual interrogation of logic.
She is NOT saying that colonialism itself was a good thing.
What she is saying is a certain part of its legacy has proven beneficial.
Let me put it this way: Henry Ford was a horrible anti-Semite, who informed Hitler’s Nazi ideology.
He made life easier in the 20s by mass producing cars, which made them highly affordable to the common man.
He also believed in paying his workers exceptionally well and them working only five days a week for eight hours a day, which were ideas his fellow industrialists found distasteful at the time.
So you see, while his political ideology was reprehensible, we continue to enjoy aspects of his legacy today.
Again, you can distance yourself from an ideology, while still enjoying the fruits of its labour.
But these positive contributions only count in a capitalist society.
And since ours is still in its infancy with many challenges, Zille does need to choose her words a lot more carefully.
Because context is everything, here’s my suggestion to her:
Firstly, think very carefully about starting your comment with anything resembling colonialism having been positive in any way.
Clearly you will immediately render some of your audience temporarily deaf to the rest of your thought.
Accept colonialism was in fact a handy device of capitalism.
The roads, healthcare and education “benefits” you mention, weren’t the results of benevolence.
They were common-sense necessities to move raw materials around efficiently, keep the workforce relatively healthy, grateful and subservient and ensure bureaucracies were maintained according to colonial standards.
Colonialism, and its distant master imperialism, was the evil slave of greed.
And many people around the world continue to suffer the consequences.
But I concede in a free market capitalist society such as ours, some of its aspects have indeed proven beneficial.
Zille, your critics are understandably as reluctant to acknowledge this as they are to establish a different political system, where those aspects wouldn’t matter.