Two Bits – A remarkable story, well told

There are two kinds of memoirs that I start reading cautiously and find an excuse to put down at the slightest provocation: those by politicians and those by journalists.
Politicians usually have an over-inflated sense of their own importance while in reality their role in their country’s or world affairs will, most likely, be relegated to a footnote in history. Far too many journalists are convinced they can write a bestseller – not this one, I stress – and invariably produce a turgid account of meeting forgettable people, interspersed with riotous tales of marathon drinking sessions, only of interest to those close friends who were sober enough to remember them.
Every now and then a book comes along that breaks the mould. Helen Zille is a household name in South Africa, who has been successful both as journalist and politician. And she has written a cracker.
Her autobiography “Not Without a Fight” is remarkable in several ways. For starters, it is well written. Then, she has an extraordinary story to tell. Finally, she tells it with unblinking honesty, whether it hurts or not.
The book came across to me in four distinct sections, shaped by different writing styles. The first is an easy, relaxed trot through her childhood as one of three offspring of German-Jewish refugees. Then her early years as student, reporter on the now-defunct Rand Daily Mail (where the first signs of her legendary grit were revealed), love and marriage and a few years of seemingly aimless wandering through various jobs, but which set her up for an entry into politics.
The hallmark of the second section is her all-consuming excitement at being handed the near-impossible task of setting up branches for the then Democratic Party on the Cape Flats. These were strongholds of the ANC and gangs, which opposed her with aggression and violence. Her daily life reads like a thriller, from alternately confronting and dodging baying mobs to having her supporters’ houses burnt down, then being threatened, harassed and bullied by everyone, including the authorities.
Rising rapidly though the party ranks, she succeeded Tony Leon as party leader, then became mayor of Cape Town and finally, premier of the Western Cape. This is where the reader discovers a more cautious style, describing the constant double-dealing, manipulation, backstabbing, lying, cheating, undermining and betrayals of daily politics. And that was just within her own party!
She shrugs all this off as ‘normal’ in every political party, but it does bring it home very clearly that there are few lasting friendships in politics, only alliances of convenience. These can shrivel up overnight, as happened with the short-lived alliance with the New National Party under Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who sold the Democratic Party and his own party out for a seat in the ANC cabinet.
While Zille undoubtedly developed a thick skin in the hurly-burly of politics, she cannot disguise her pain when describing what were probably the most serious misjudgements of her political life: the appointment of young Lindiwe Mazibuko as the DA’s parliamentary leader and the short-lived marriage between the DA and Mamphele Ramphela of Agang. These chapters make for the hardest reading, because they describe a trajectory in slow-motion that you know is going to end in a car wreck.
Egos are the central driving force of every politician, but Zille was not prepared for the naked ambition and, ultimately, betrayal of her trust by a young woman who, having been given relative freedom to imprint her personality on the parliamentary party, shut Zille out and appeared to think that she really deserved to be leader of the whole party.
What is really compelling about this book is the way Zille bares her soul about her life, the inside workings, fears and triumphs of politics and how she and many colleagues (and not only in the DA) have devoted their lives to pursuing an ideal. Sometimes to universal acclaim, like the time she was adjudged World Mayor, other times to getting a boot in the face, like she received from Ramphela.
Reverting to her earlier, free-flowing style, in the concluding section she waxes philosophical about the future of the country, especially one governed by the twittersphere of social media and its role in matters formerly confined to the formal political arena, such as the #FeesMustFall movement.
Despite all the trials of running a political party, Tony Leon succeeded in doubling the size of the party he took over, and Zille doubled it again, as well as gaining the Western Cape, and in the last elections, Port Elizabeth and Tshwane (and Jo’burg, though through coalition).
I have never read a more open story by a politician and don’t expect to again until, I suppose, her next book. True to her reporter roots, a prodigious memory and carefully preserved notes, the book is filled to the brim with facts and stories that I doubt will be revealed anywhere else, ever. Well done, Helen, on a very brave achievement. “Not Without a Fight” has got to be top of everyone’s list of non-fiction this year.

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A politician is late for a meeting. He drives into the parking lot, but couldn’t find a place for his car. Then he raises his eyes to heaven and asks God:
“Please help me to find a place. If you help me, I promise I’ll go to church every Sunday and stop drinking.”
Then, suddenly, a free parking spot appears. He again raises his eyes to heaven:
“It’s okay, I’ve found one by myself and I don’t really need your help.”