Look, I’m no fan of the Democratic Alliance. And I have long argued that a primarily white opposition party is going nowhere in South Africa in the 21st century. I expect that the ANC-COPE division will serve many purposes, not the least of which will be to consign the DA to its rightful place as a tertiary party that will have to adapt or die. But can we sound the death knell for, or at leasta moratorium on, comparing the DA, or nearly any other current South African circumstance, phenomena, group, party, or persons, to Apartheid as Gauteng Premier Paul Mashatile did this week? It’s an analogy that stands more as accusation than analysis and it obscures more than it enlightens.
