{"id":164777,"date":"2017-03-16T10:47:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T08:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=164777"},"modified":"2017-03-16T10:47:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T08:47:02","slug":"colonialism-wasnt-only-negative-helen-zille","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/164777\/colonialism-wasnt-only-negative-helen-zille\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Colonialism wasn’t only negative’ – Helen Zille"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former DA leader and current premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille, has caused\u00a0 uproar on social media after tweeting her views on colonialism.<\/p>\n

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Zille said that people claimed that the legacy of colonialism was only negative, but insisted that there were positive effects as well.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the premier said that, thanks to colonialism, South Africa benefited from an independent judiciary, transport infrastructure and other modern social features.<\/p>\n

The statements sparked outrage from social media users, who lambasted Zille for ‘defending colonialism’ and implying that native societies would be unable to develop similar or better systems.<\/p>\n

Some pointed out that the so-called colonial benefits were not invented or created by the colonists at all, but were invented by other, non-western people.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Zille’s comments also drew a reaction from DA leader Mmusi Maimane who, while not mentioning Zille specifically, opposed to her views, saying that colonialism, like apartheid, was a system of oppression and could never be justified.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Zille later apologised ‘unreservedly’ for the tweet, saying that it came across as her defending colonialism, which was never her intention.<\/p>\n

The former DA leader has a troubled past (and present) with tweeting her thoughts on social media.<\/p>\n

She has previously landed in hot water over calling South Africans moving to the Western Cape “refugees”, and for suggesting funding for protesting students should be withdrawn.<\/p>\n

The premier also sparked outrage when she suggested – again over Twitter – that racially profiling people was okay because it was done for employment opportunities and in the ANC’s own policies.<\/p>\n

This was in response to two patrons at a restaurant being described as “2 blacks” on the bill.<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0Zille compares #FeesMustFall to apartheid, calls it a \u2018threat to the future\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former DA leader and current premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille, has caused uproar on social media after tweeting her views on colonialism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":111181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-164777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164825,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164777\/revisions\/164825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}