AS the bus drove into Johannesburg, I bowed my head and thanked God for a safe trip. It’s not always that travellers from Zimbabwe to South Africa make it to this particular destination safely. Some have been attacked by crocodiles while trying to ‘jump’ the border, some have been hijacked by armed robbers and others have perished in road accidents. Despite the horrific mishaps that have befallen some of our brothers and sisters on the road to ‘greener pastures’, many more still brave the road saying they are either travelling on business or to visit family members. South Africa is one of the countries with the highest crime rate in the world and recently, we witnessed the gruesome images of people from different nationalities being burnt alive in another wave of xenophobic attacks that swept the nation, but that still didn’t stop people from all over Africa from migrating there. The number of Zimbabweans crossing the border to South Africa rose as a result of the illegal sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe by the West and its allies. Most people living in either economically challenged or war-torn African countries whose sufferings can be traced back to Western occupations and interventions upon their land feel that despite the violent nature of some of our South African neighbours, it is better to live there than to scrounge for a living in their own countries. Most African countries are subject to the looting of natural resources from their land by Westerners who come into their country in the name of peace-preservation despite being the initial perpetrators of the mishaps going on in that country – be it as a result of a coup or civil war. And they come to take as many minerals from the land as they can. South Africa is an interesting topic and no exception as it is still very clear that its economy is still in the hands of the white minority, they own most of the big businesses there, the land and racism is still very rife in the workplace. This leaves us with the question: “Is South Africa really free?” Last month on Human Rights Day (March 21), South African President Jacob Zuma spoke out against racism and took the people through a short history acknowledging that: “South Africans suffered gross human rights violations during the period of apartheid colonialism, including murder, torture or imprisonment.” In particular, the victims of the Sharpeville Massacre, where 69 people were mercilessly killed and scores were injured when police opened fire on demonstrators who were protesting against the hated pass laws, in Sharpeville. Upon raising my head from the thanks-giving prayer for a safe journey from Zimbabwe, I came face to face with a billboard with the face of Mmusi Maimane, the present leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA). In the days to follow, I would see more and more billboards and posters of DA members campaigning for posts in the upcoming elections which are now just three months away. What surprised me was most of these DA members were blacks. I have always known the DA for being white and mostly supported by Afrikaaners, but this was not and is not the case anymore. I researched on the party’s history and learnt that its roots can be traced back to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party in 1959. I raised an eyebrow. Could this be why many blacks were now moving from ANC to DA because the party was also against apartheid? Is this true? I would later watch thousands of people throng a stadium dressed in blue T-Shirts on television being addressed by Maimane. On television or billboards, all I could see was DA. What’s happening to ANC? I then asked a journalist colleague about the former DA leader Helen Zille, particularly why she was not leading the party anymore. “They decided to put a blackman in that position because that is the only way they could reach out to the majority of South Africans,” she said. “It’s one of the whiteman’s strategies to win back South Africa in a ‘democratic’ manner.” She went on to laugh and later told me Maimane is a blackman married to a white woman in a country that once had one such racist leader like P.W. Botha who was known for devising plans to discredit the blackman and would stoop so low as to even brainstorm the idea of getting white women prostitutes to befriend black men in a bid to weaken the blackman and derail their goals. “I do not trust the DA,” she said. “I believe the ANC will still win the coming elections quiet as they might seem.” I asked her how she could be so sure considering that lots of black folk are now switching sides to join the DA and the ANC seems torn apart, without advertised campaigns going on. “What could the DA be doing right that everybody else isn’t doing?” I asked. She dismissed my question labelling it as just media hogwash and went on to remind me that the very same people (whites) are still influential across all media platforms in South Africa. Despite the fact that the DA seems to be doing well under the new leadership of Maimane, many black folks still don’t trust the party. They feel it will take them back to the days of apartheid despite its anti-apartheid policies. The reason for this is because most members of the old National Party which was known for supporting and implementing apartheid ideas and agendas moved to the DA upon the eradication of apartheid in South Africa. They believe the National Party’s goals of ‘promoting the Afrikaaner culture’ and the separate development policy known as ‘apartheid’ were carried through to the DA, hence the party cannot be trusted. “It’s like having Barack Obama as president, black folks still suffer,” said another colleague. However, when I asked if black people in South Africa were better off under ANC rule, she could not answer. Instead, she screwed her face and smiled. Later she would tell me that it was better if Julius Malema’s EFF ruled as it seemed more concerned about the plight of black people than any other party in South Africa.