Have you accepted Helen Zille’s apology?

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has publicly apologised to South Africa for her series of tweets suggesting there was some benefits to colonialism. 

But does saying sorry fix everything? 

South Africans are a forgiving nation. We’ve come a long way. We’ve forgiven a lot. I however hold the view that we move on far too quickly from one issue to another. We don’t deal with issues properly. We make huge noises about ills, but very swiftly, we move on. 

And who can also blame us right? So many things are happening in the country all at once. Scandal after government scandal is exposed. We deal with all of it, seemingly at the same time. 

Much attention however has been given to the Zille situation, because we were all waiting to see what the party was going to decide. Will they kick her out? Have her step down as Premier of the Western Cape? 

Well we now know that none of this happened and I am one of the South Africans who remain unconvinced that the apology was sincere. 

 The damage was done, even with Zille afterwards explaining the process which followed and ended with her realising her wrongs. 

We are being played. Big time. 

Politics and politicians never loved us. And this is a prime example of it. 

The DA protected its own interest in my view. It wanted to keep Zille on as Western Cape Premier and is willing to take the risk in the coming months, and hope for the best in 2019. 

Party leader Mmusi Maimane admits that Zille’s comments damaged race relations in South Africa but suggests her apology sets her apart from other politicians in the country. 

It’s as if he missed her tantrums after her original tweets completely. 

He might have also forgotten his own earlier press briefing, where he told everyone how Zille refused to apologise. 

Mmusi  Maimane has previously said that he does not believe Helen Zille is racist. 

But I think her actions did more than just damage race relations and its going to be hard for the party to recover from this huge setback. 

Because you see, it will be hard for many South Africans to view the tweets as anything other than racist. 

I agree with political analyst Ralph Mathekga and his view that Zille continued making matters worse.

The longer the apology took, the harder it was for the party to navigate its way through the entire saga. 

And now, it will take even longer for South Africans to consider their positions on the matter. 

As things stand – the race to making our crosses is wide open. 

It all boils down to this– how forgiving are we going to be in 2019?