Politics Notebook | Next to Cyril, Stenie looks like a political parvenu

IN the days before and after the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU), I actually thought John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA, acted statesmanlike. He left the noise and fanfare to the chairperson of the federal council, Helen Zille.

But Steenhuisen, the Minister of Agriculture, is increasingly showing his clay feet. As the leader of the second-largest party in the GNU, he should essentially be a kind of shadow president, but he is starting to look more and more like a dwarf next to Cyril Ramaphosa.

Really just too little gravitas. And I mean political gravitas.

I don’t know how Steenhuisen is performing as a minister — I assume he is doing well, since he is an honest, hard worker but his ministry is only a small part of what he ought to be doing.

His first major blunder says a lot about him: His bizarre appointment of alt-right pod-bro Roman Cabanac as head of his office. Steenhuisen vigorously defended the appointment until the guy’s situation became so untenable that he was asked to resign. And now Cabanac refuses to leave and still goes to office. (As bad as his good friend and fellow pod-bro, Renaldo Gouws, who is now raising funds to take on the DA because they removed him as MP.)

But Steenhuisen’s handling of the Bela bill on education, which critics say could threaten mother-tongue education, is more significant.

It’s been coming for months, even years, but when the ANC government pushed it through, John hid under the bed and handed his microphone to Kallie Kriel of AfriForum and Dirk Hermann of Solidarity.

The Minister of Basic Education in the GNU, Siviwe Gwarube, is also a DA member.

(If ever a difference arises over Israel/Gaza/Lebanon in the GNU, will John crawl under the bed again and hand the mic to the Jewish Board of Deputies?)

The Solidarity Movement's activism over the Bela bill is legitimate, no doubt about it. All supporters of mother-tongue education should be concerned about Articles 4 and 5 of the law, which remove decisions about school admissions and language from the jurisdiction of school governing bodies.

Steenhuisen, Gwarube, and the DA should have pushed much harder for a compromise long ago that could have prevented a serious infringement — a change of phrasing to ensure that haters of Afrikaans (and other languages of instruction) cannot cause damage.

One such proposal is that decisions on language and admissions be made by a department head “in consultation” rather than “after consultation” with school governing bodies, and/or that a workable process be created where such controversial decisions can be effectively challenged and resolved.

But Steenhuisen threw his hands in the air and asked the heavies from Solidarity to intervene directly with Ramaphosa. And then, according to Rapport, Cyril “buckled" under pressure from Kallie and Hermann and delayed the implementation of the two articles. A win for the Boers, hooray.

Now I see that Alida Kok, a political science lecturer at Solidarity’s Akademia, writes on Netwerk24: “No professional political party, like the DA, is really in reality a direct representative of an Afrikaans constituency, and therefore a political party could not stop the signing of Bela.” She is quite pleased with Afrikaans civil society’s “successful influence and potential to build a relationship with the ANC.”

But isn't this true of every other “constituency”? The DA is not a “direct representative” either of the business sector, activists for women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, the taxi industry, the police and military, farmers, journalists, traditional leaders, and so on.

So when new legislation or state actions affect any of these constituencies, must the DA step back and say sorry, we can't help, Cyril, just call the people yourself?

This is a very limited view of what a political party in a democracy like ours can and should do. What should happen is that a party like the DA consult representatives of all constituencies and communicate its viewpoint to the decision-makers.

Of course, these groups, as the business community has long done, can also make direct appeals to the government, but a political party for which voters have cast their ballots must never abdicate its role.

I agree with Pieter du Toit, who writes on news24: “But the DA needs to be careful where it seeks to find its partners. The Solidarity Movement is spearheading a modern-day Afrikaner nationalist project, which comes with all the accoutrements you'd expect. And their belligerence (“aggression", “buckles") will not do the just cause of mother-tongue language, nor that of Afrikaans, any favours.

“Steenhuisen, whose party has had great success in the courts over the last decade, should be mindful of using Afrikaner nationalism to challenge African nationalism. They are both destructive.”

I am afraid John Steenhuisen has been found wanting as the leader of the second-largest political party in the GNU on the way to the upcoming local and national elections. I hear from the inner circle that his cabinet colleagues don’t consider him a serious player.

This is the tragedy of our politics. The ANC is incompetent and corrupt, but its current leader stands head and shoulders above those of the opposition parties: John Steenhuisen, Jacob Zuma, Herman Mashaba, Julius Malema and Gayton McKenzie.

The Mandela leeches

What is of greater symbolic importance for our new, liberated democracy in South Africa than the key to the cell in which Nelson Mandela was held for so many years, and the first copy of our new constitution that he himself signed?

And yet these two items are now in New York. The auction at which they were to be sold off has fortunately been stopped, but the items, along with many other Mandela memorabilia, will not be returned.

The items were offered for sale by Mandela's greedy eldest daughter, Makaziwe, although the cell key supposedly actually belongs to one of his prison wardens, Christo Brand. I agree with prof. Mcebisi Ndletyana of the University of Johannesburg, who wrote on Heritage Day: “No individual is entitled to ownership of the prison key to Mandela's cell or a signed copy of the 1996 Constitution. One needn't be a genius to figure out that the key should have never left the Robben Island Prison and that the signed copy of the Constitution should have been left with the Mandela Foundation for its safekeep."

Jesus was a hippie

One of the many strange phenomena in current American politics is how many Christians, especially the “Evangelicals”, almost worship Donald Trump, even though he is a serial liar and a crook with a messy private life.

But from time to time, sensible Christian voices emerge, like this pastor who says, “Christian Nationalism is not the way of Jesus. It is about the pursuit of power.”

♦ VWB ♦

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