Where’s Wally? Liberals in the DA

See articles by Tony Leon, Gareth van Onselen, RW Johnson and Helen Zille.

The battle by these protagonists over who is a true liberal is bemusing. What liberal tradition do they or the DA represent? Today a wide range of ideologies that vehemently contradict each other are thought of as liberal, from social democracy to libertarianism. But two common principles underlie all liberal ideologies: (1) Freedom should not be restricted by the state without a compelling reason. (2) The state should be transparent and accountable.

Against these principles, the DA and the above people have often equivocated, or failed outright. They have not stood at all consistently for liberal positions on vital contemporary issues of freedom and openness:

• The DA declines to take a position on two of the most basic liberal causes: opposition to the death penalty and a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. The DA FAQ states, “when it comes to issues such as abortion and the death penalty, we let our members vote ‘with their conscience’”, followed by a “woolly liberal” excuse for why they do so.

• Tony Leon supported the death sentence in 2004.

• He also gave DA MPs a free vote on gay marriage. The DA FAQ is particularly woolly on this, “We don’t have an official policy regarding gay rights.”

• RW Johnson has said illiberal things about people with HIV over the last two decades. I recall many years ago as a young gay man emerging from the closet feeling deep anxiety after reading a nasty Johnson piece on AIDS in a Sunday newspaper.

• Helen Zille called for mandatory HIV testing and for people who know they have HIV who transmit the virus to be prosecuted.

• The DA joined the ANC in opposing IDASA’s legal challenge which sought to bring transparency to party funding.

• While the DA has opposed the Protection of State Information Bill, it has also withheld public information in the Western Cape.

• The DA led City of Cape Town has cracked down on sex workers harshly.

Some of the above might be understandable, even justified (though not in my view), but none of it can be defended as liberal.

Van Onselen describes those who “feign a liberal outlook while lusting after nationalism’s baser instincts in private, which they couch in ill-defined terms like ‘social justice’ and ‘liberal egalitarianism’.” I don’t properly understand what he means; he is impenetrable most of the time. But I suspect he’s taking a dig at the social justice organisations and people who have been at the forefront of struggles for gay rights, women’s choice to have an abortion, sex worker decriminalisation, immigrant rights, the rights of people with HIV, the need for political party funding to be disclosed, the rights of prisoners and the rights of workers to organise.

I don’t recall van Onselen or the DA being at the forefront of any of these struggles. Some DA MPs have strong liberal records, like Mike Waters on gay rights, but this is not the party norm.

That the DA and the protagonists in the current debate are more accurately described as conservative than liberal doesn’t make them bad people; some of them are admirable some of the time. They simply shouldn’t claim to be something they don’t have a good track record of being.

Also see Jonny Steinberg’s excellent article Zille, Leon have yet to show they understand.

Geffen is the editor of GroundUp.