Criticism is a Dirty Sport

I've been perusing Zapiro's cartoons. It felt dirty, like viewing a hideous, twisted soul. To get a better picture, imagine those dark horror movies, or even the all-action blockbusters, where the character development starts and you're given a clear indication of the bad guy. They have certain features that mark them out, a twitch, a limp, lip-licking, shifty eyes or an elitist pet that they stroke. At any rate, they're designed with a feature that makes you feel dirty being around them, as though their mind is so dark that you dare not soften in its presence lest you become corrupted.

I paged through Zapiro's latest cartoons, one at a time. Inevitably there are aspects that draw you in - you say to yourself: "Yes, he's so right about Zuma" or "Oh, I understand the shower head he's drawn permanently pertruding from his head". For a while you afford yourself a smile, but the further you go, the more you begin to realise ... this guy doesn't let up. His drawings of Zuma are hideous, everybody gets the sledgehammer, it feels like you're caught in a deathtrap and there's never a softening in his spirit.

I didn't write this peace to slate Zapiro, but rather to illustrate what it's like to be a permanent critic. For a long time the DA have worn the opposition party badge and the feeling has been growing stronger and stronger that they believe their only job is to oppose. Too often you listen to the DA in a debate, and while you agree with their criticisms, you stop at the end and try to recall what solutions they had suggested.

In truth, the ACDP can also be guilty of being constantly critical. It gets tiresome, and moreover, it becomes depressing. I've experienced those branch meetings where you talk about nothing but the evils that are overtaking us. You come out depressed and you find less energy to return.

But what then is the opposite of criticism? Approval? Sometimes. Sometimes you have to summon the extraordinary courage to admire what your enemies have achieved. There are things I admire about the ANC. I respect that they managed to get 66% of the vote - that they could pull together a huge majority spread across 9 different ethnicities. Think about the Rwandan conflicts and you'll understand that kind of significance.

There is another alternative ... to provide a viable alternative. In other words, for every "don't", provide a feasible "do". I've talked about "criticism" in a negative vein, but we also talk about "constructive criticism" in a positive way. The one diminishes and the other enhances, at least potentially, depending on how well you receive it.

My guess is that the ACDP has been better positioned than the DA to be a critic, because the ACDP's approach has been to measure the ANC up against the Bible. If the Bible says that theft is wrong, then the DA can criticise for the sake of criticism. But by having a reference to work against, the ACDP can say theft is wrong, but also has the manual that provides the solution. The Bible has plenty to say about what good morals look like and what kind of life the righteous lead. Do the DA have a manual they work against?

Either way, we have to train ourselves to be solution-minded. People who solve problems become likeable. They also become good candidates to win elections. The ANC won in 1994 because they were the solution to apartheid (at least in the voters' minds), and the ACDP must gear itself to win elections by being the solution to the ANC.

Criminal Proceedings: The Parliamentary Hotlist

There's admittedly a lot of fictitious junk mail that goes around, but I did like this one. I'm not sure how accurate these stats are - if they are true then some serious research has been done with access to detail that the general public probably can't see. Either way, there is a lot of truth here, and while some details are possibly exaggerated, no doubt many are guilty.

29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

That's 373 in total or approximately 70% of the 535 South African parliamentarians. Nobody in South Africa is perfect, including ACDP politicians, but some are certainly more honest than others. If politicians have a bad name, then look no further for reason.

The question is: what do politicians measure themselves up against? Without a moral framework, you could argue that the number of votes you get justifies your actions. Similar excuses might do, but at the ACDP we keep measuring ourselves against the Bible, which has been a worldwide authority on moral values for millenia. We regularly fall short, but at least the standard hasn't moved when we pick ourselves up again.

With a liberal party like the DA, the moral fibre of society keeps getting stretched and worn thinner. If it's not abortion, then it's gay marriage. If it's not disarming of parents, then it's disarming of churches. Very often the ACDP is painted as a group of far-right extremists. The truth is that the ACDP has simply held firm to its values, while the non-value-based parties have drifted so far by now that the difference is scary. And if you don't think the DA are that liberal, do your homework.

"Don't split the opposition"

I was pushing brochures in Howick over the weekend, ahead of the Ward 2 by-election on December 10. To be frank, I'm not fond of putting more "junk mail" in people's postboxes, but you cannot ignore this approach if you really want to get your party's voice heard. We have people saying "where have you been?", and we have to take the risk of using annoying marketing techniques if we're to answer that question.

Either way, I was ignoring the barking dogs at one box and heard a voice: "Why are you splitting the opposition?" It turned out to be an MP from the DA who was canvassing the same area. We had a "heated" discussion for 15 minutes about everything from the death penalty to the DA's so-called "free vote" on anything moral (a mask for their liberal immorality). What irked him the most was that we were splitting the vote in that ward, increasing the chance of a communist ANC councillor being voted in.

The DA love this slogan. Even worse, it seems to work. So I answer it here...

Firstly, which opposition? Why are the DA splitting the ACDP opposition? When it comes down to values, standards, a message that appeals across races, and demographic representation, the ACDP are a better party. The DA are simply not the kind of government I would want to live under as a Christian. The DA MP was suggesting we stand down in the by-election, but I would rather his party stood down.

Secondly, the ACDP are also splitting the ruling party. This was very true in Howick, where we were intensely canvassing the Zulu area with door-to-door visitation. We were in fact working an area the DA are not strong at, reducing the hold of the ruling party. We've also seen huge growth in Limpopo and Eastern Cape, which are strong ANC areas.

Thirdly, how long should the ACDP be standing down? Do we simply keep procrastinating and then stand with a guilty conscience before God when we consider whether we have fought for the unborn, for family values, for safety in our country. The message that the ACDP are not aggressive enough has been heard, and an increase in our marketing aggression includes rivalling opposition like the DA.

I do understand the risk of splitting the opposition, and I would choose a DA councillor over an ANC councillor on most days. The simple question is this: how much splitting are we doing? If the ACDP is content to steal a few votes here and there, then the threat of a split is valid. However, if we push the values we know are strong and purposefully take up the call, we can unseat the DA, replacing them and the ANC. That would split the opposition, but do it effectively. In other words, lukewarm is the worst possible position here. The ACDP needs to go big or go home. In Howick, we went big - the results will be interesting and I'll keep you posted.

DA: No Place for Black(s)?

I personally don't want to be caught up in silly digs at others, but I must say I was a little humoured when seeing the new DA logo. I applaud the party for wanting to freshen up their image and I thought they had a reasonably good new website - at least it looks fresh and in-your-face.

Here's the deal: the new logo makes a deliberate point of including several colours and even looks like it resembles the SA flag in the streams. So I was looking at it and suddenly realised there was no black! This is an incredibly irony, since the DA's primary problem has been to shake off its image as the white party. I don't mean to disparage the non-whites who have joined the DA, but it's no secret that the DA are not demographically reflective of the South African population.

Personally I think the previous logo was miles better, more distinctive in its colouring and design, and easy to recognise. The current logo is incredibly generic. It seems there was a deliberate attempt to mimic the Obama logo, which is reasonable, but the Obama logo also stood out far more. If the Obama logo's red, white and blue was a match on the US flag, why is the DA logo not a match on the SA flag?

Talking about parties and demographics, can you name a party in South Africa that has a better race mix than the ACDP? While parties like the ANC, IFP, DA, MF and VF seem closely matched to some kind of ethnicity, the ACDP draws its principles from the Bible, a foundation recognised by all race groups. While my allegiance to a party like the IFP is more likely to rest on my esteem of the Zulu culture, my support for the ACDP is based on Christian principle, hence the ACDP's non-racial appeal, and why it is so well positioned to become South Africa's party of choice for all race groups ... well except for racists.

What would a DA government look like?

It's a fascinating experience to talk shop with voters who vote DA because they believe the party shares their values. South Africans have a variety of reasons to vote DA of course. Some do generally share the DA's actual values. Others reason that they need to keep the opposition together, while others just prefer to have whites in power.

In the area where I grew up, a rural agricultural area that has been rife with farm murders and attacks, there is a fairly strong DA presence and the ACDP has not had much success. It fascinates us because the area is strongly Christian and would in theory share most of the ACDP's values. It's both amusing and disturbing then to ask why they continue to support the DA.

"Well, they will bring the death penalty back." Uh, no they won't. The DA don't support the death penalty because they are a left-wing liberal party, a stance that traditionally doesn't support it. They just know that they will lose massive chunks of vote if they take up that stance, so they hide behind their "free vote" position. Firstly, that kind of "policy" gives no assurance to voters. Secondly, being a left-wing party, the majority of DA politicians are likely to vote against the death penalty anyway.

This position was classicly illustrated in the issue of gay marriage. The ACDP raised a bill to have marriage formally declared as the union of a man and woman, similar to what has been done in several US states. The DA has previously professed some level of concern against gay marriage, but went on record to say the ACDP step was "too drastic". What on earth? You're either for or against it, make up your mind.

The truth is that to some extent the DA tries to be all things to all men. Traditionally there is battle to some extent in homogenous cultures between the conservatives and the liberals. The DA is trying to win the vote of both white conservatives and white liberals, hence the confusing messages. In truth, they are liberals and openly acknowledge it, and it's not hard to see where this country would head were the DA to get into power. Picture a liberal American or British government and you know ... pro-abortion, anti-death penalty, pro-gay, pro-prisoners rather than pro-victims, increased taxation, increased government control, anti-church, pro-state-controlled economy, anti-free market. Frankly, not much different to the ANC.

It begs the question - if you are supporting the DA, do you really know what they stand for?

More DA Propaganda...

I was fascinated when a DA newsletter was dropped off at our workplace yesterday, and while the other office workers passed it off as political propaganda, I was eager to check out what the opposition was doing.

Two things fascinated and amused me. Firstly, the back the pamphlet quotes South Africa as the 20th richest country in the world. That surprised me, and I wondered on what basis it was measured. So I checked out the rankings in terms of GDP. I was indeed surprised to find that we're ranked either 30th or 27th, depending on whose figures you use, but I'm not quite sure where the DA media engine gets its figures. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)).

The other thing that amused me is no real failure on their part, just a coincidence. On Saturday afternoon, I was walking to the supermarket and noticed some newly planted trees, except they were planted a metre away from a high security fence. I realised that once the trees were full grown they caused a security threat - just climb the tree and jump over the fence. Then I pick up this brochure yesterday, and a DA councillor is proudly showing off his work in planting the very trees I was concerned about!

Frankly, the work the DA are doing in helping the community is commendable, and mirrors some of what the ACDP is doing. My grievance with the DA does not come down to their ability to get down and do some work, but rather with the very ethical and moral framework that their party is built around. If the DA were to come into power, we would see a string of bills flying through parliament to erode the moral fabric of our society ... spreading the scourge of abortion, gambling, pornography and eroding the importance of the family, of parents, of churches and of moral absolutes. The DA are decidedly left-aligned, and when you come down to the nitty-gritty, are not that different from the ANC.