As the protest against the new basic education laws kicked off in Pretoria today, there was a massive turnout in support, with an ocean of orange shirts and parasols, punctuated occasionally by a peppering of the DA’s blue, and to a lesser extent, the greens of the VF+ and Patriotic Alliance.

But the blue turnout was somewhat muted. As much as I would love to say that it is because Solidariteit turned out a truly earthshattering crowd (it is certainly impressive, all things considered, but it isn’t ANC-scale), it is rather because the DA is lukewarm on the issue.

What initiated this long process, beset as it has been by various hiccoughs, was John Steenhuisen breaking ranks with his party to invite Dirk Hermann of Solidariteit to bargain with the President, a move that gave Ramaphosa pause, and extracted his promise to delay the promulgation of articles 4 and 5 of the new Act, which would strip the powers of the school governing bodies to decide language and admissions policy.

Then, of course, there is the support he managed to garner from Gayton McKenzie and Pieter Groenewald. Gayton has demonstrated a keen eye for such moments.

While several of the main national leaders of the tiny VF+ managed to make it to the protest (admittedly, as an Afrikaans advocacy party, they could not afford not to), it is curious that just two members of the DA leadership were present - John Steenhuisen, and Willie Aucamp.

Here I will make a brief digression on the case of Willie Aucamp, whose career has had a few zigzags.

Under the present power arrangement, he has been given free range to go after Stellenbosch University for its far-left leadership’s mendacious and fraudulent attacks on the Afrikaner heritage of the institution, whereas beforehand, the party had leaned on the institution to abandon Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

But Aucamp was once member of a short-lived Afrikaner nationalist party called the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging together with his father Cassie, who refused a merger with the VF+. Willie was then persuaded to join the ANC by his wife, an old NP lass called Carol Johnson. They divorced the same year, and he left the ANC.

Aucamp restarted his political career sometime after the tragic and gratuitous murder of his daughter by hijackers in 2012, and has managed to work his way up to the top of the DA, fitting in well with Steenhuisen, and is part of his portfolio committee, as well as the Chief Whip.

The key here is that Aucamp appears to be close to Steenhuisen. But despite his position as whip, and despite Steenhuisen’s position as party leader, neither could attract any other recognisable member to attend the most important protest action of the year.

This piece of legislation was stated to be a “red line”, according to Helen Zille: “The Bela Bill is non-negotiable for us. The right of school governing bodies to determine the language policy at schools is a red line for us and the ANC has been aware of that from day one.”

Of course, this is the same woman who has been planning a coalition with the ANC since 2014, had her party on board with the strategy since 2019, was in talks with Ramaphosa since as early as 2022, had drafted the memorandum of understanding weeks before the election, and yet took Sunday World to the press ombudsman for so much as suggesting they might be thinking of it.

And so naturally, one can ask, what did the DA do about it? The answer, it seems, it sod-all. In fact, they appointment to the Ministry, Siviwe Gwarube, actively praised the bill, and told people to disregard critics. She also celebrated the piloted indigenous language policy written to accompany the bill, which pours resources into native language education, but for all languages except Afrikaans, which the policy regards as not indigenous.

This is the party that can move thousands to attend rallies if they wish, even in Tshwane. And yet today, only a trickle showed up. Sure, the event is coded as Afrikaner, but the issue is a striking one - the loss of the ability to control admissions policies affects the survival of all the well-performing schools that remain.

But then again, at no stage has there been any indication that any element of the party besides Steenhuisen and the thin sliver of the party he can command, gives the slightest damn about the ANC’s most destructive policies.

Steenhuisen was even forced to backtrack on his own appointment to the department of agriculture, Roman Cabanac, and not a single member of his party defended his choice, not even Helen Zille, who had used him for her own ends for years. Some even used the moment to discredit his leadership and attempt to nudge the party into a decidedly left-wing position (Chris Pappas, most prominently).

To illustrate the utterly supine nature of the party, Steenhuisen was forced to say in public address not so long ago, that the real red lines are in fact if the ANC either: a) trash the constitution, or b) collapse the economy.

Well, by that point, there won’t be much point in having the DA around, will there?

Not much point in them now either, if the ANC can get what it wants without any pushback. In fact, the only issue the DA as a whole has actually shown serious concern about recently, is Ramaphosa’s comments on Russia, an issue that barely affects ordinary South Africans, and which South Africa wields very little clout in, if at all.

Steenhuisen, of course, is not particularly well-equipped for these situations, and he accused the ANC of being the real counterrevolutionaries, because the “real MK” was trained in Odessa, which is in Ukraine.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the stupid historical illiteracy of this comment regarding the politics of the Soviet Union and the ethnic cleansing of Russians from Odessa last year, and disregarding the fact that actual elements of that same military organisation, who had been actually trained in the Soviet Union.

What is a representative of the DA thinking by using MK as a moral yardstick? Since such rhetorical stances are not out of the ordinary, one must ask: what possesses them to always take on their opponent’s moral frame, their standards of legitimacy?

One cannot hope to present an alternative vision for the future when you consistently adopt your opponent’s moral and political frame as the ultimate criterion of legitimacy. Sure, you can then decry hypocrisy, but you ultimately are fighting for the right to implement their vision.

Sure, for Steenhuisen, this MK bit was a spot of funny banter, hoping to be maximally irritating to his interlocutors. But it is the sort of remark, much mocked by the American right (e.g. “The left are the real transphobes/Dems are the real racists” etc).

For many DA members who have gone through tertiary education, Progress (capital P) is the operating system of their souls, and much like the main character in those cheesy coming of age novels, Spud, imagine being the good white kid who would have fought for the ANC if only they were old enough.

The effect of this shared vision is clear - the DA, for the past several years, no, decades, have only challenged the ANC on some marginal elements of fiscal policy, and on corruption.

They do not consider nonracialism or federalism, or any of the other things we actually vote for them hoping to see, to be high priorities. It is only the least formally-educated among the party (Steenhuisen & co) who appear capable of doing the right thing, which is an indictment on the education they are receiving, and on the future of the party.

And it also shows a weakness in support for their leader, who by all appearances, is making a genuine, if clumsy effort, to do the right thing.

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