If I were allowed to have two titles for this piece, I would have easily said: “Comfort in Chaos.” Conor McGregor might have unintentionally described the Democratic Alliance entanglement with the ANC in the GNU when he said: “The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable”.
It is an open secret that the DA has tasted the forbidden fruit in the garden of the Government of National Unity. It is now unthinkable and unimaginable, perhaps impossible, for DA to leave the political and economic entanglement.
Of course, entangled is that fact of finding oneself in a complicated or compromising relationship or situation. Entanglement is the spirit of quantum physics and upcoming quantum knowledges. Like other aspects of quantum science, the incident of entanglement uncovers itself at very miniature, subatomic dimensions. When two atoms, such as a set of photons or electrons, become entangled, they linger attached even when split by sizable gaps. In the equivalent avenue that a ballet or tango arises from individual ballerinas, entanglement result from the connection between atoms. It is what inventors call an embryonic asset. Edgar Mitchell argues that:
“Entanglement can best be understood as this: When subatomic matter is in a process together, subsequently the subatomic particles go apart from each other and go across the universe. When they do this, they will remain entangled. That means if you do something to one, the other one responds immediately, instantaneously”.
For some reason, the DA missed to read some advice on entanglement by Ali in Abi Talib that: “He who busies himself with things other than improvement of his own self becomes perplexed in darkness and entangled in ruin. His evil spirits immerse him deep in vices and make his bad actions seem handsome”.
The DA find itself having to identify itself no longer as an Anglo independent and autonomous entity or even as an official opposition party or a party representing the interest of white only because it has opted for an entanglement of a special type or entangled in a Faustian bargain “by selling its soul to the devil for knowledge and power”. I am declaring this not as my opinion but rather extracting from the impression created by the DA that ANC is criminal cartel, corrupt, morally bankrupt, etc. and above that indicated that ANC cannot be saved and that it can never change (of its vices and bad actions, cleansed of its evil spirits, or that is incapable of soteriology).
Having said all this, it comes to one conclusion: DA is comfortable with the ANC. It seems it has always not been for the people but about the DA. DA in this context as a reference to the Anglo interests and to be more specific the economic interest of Anglo people and its various sectors such as mining, etc.
Of course, we must acknowledge that the DA did not just wake up and decided to join the GNU without a motivation. It must be noted and remembered that since the dawn of democracy whiteness was destabilised and by implication an end to white political rule and equally, we must note and remember that the notion of whiteness has shifted therefore being relegated or demoted socially therefore affecting the economic interests of whites.
The 2024 South African general elections therefore presented the DA with an opportunity to reclaim the white space in an important institution called government. It is not a secret that whiteness is evil as an ideology and as a system, and it is for this reason that Cristian Beltran argued that whiteness is “the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination”. While Damon Young argued that whiteness is a health crisis and Donald Moss argues that whiteness is “a malignant, parasitic-like condition”.
In the case of the GNU, whiteness finds comfort because whiteness always adapt with changing power structures and DA has mastered the art of changing by and within circumstances therefore fulfilling the essence of whiteness adaptation. By using this logic, one therefore concludes that the DA is not really compromised but living its ideology. As DA continues to be in the GNU for the duration of the Statement of Intent of the Government of National Unity. My argument therefore differs with the conclusion by Abbey Makoe in his article published in GSMN.co.za and IOL newspaper on the 10th of April 2025 concluding: Political turmoil: South Africa’ GNU faces potential collapse.
