OPINION | Jacobs's defection to PA signals new era for the coloured community

The former DA MP Liam Jacobs’s decision to join the Patriotic Alliance (PA) is not political betrayal – it is part of a broader moment of reckoning for coloured South Africans, whose identity, dignity and political presence have long been sidelined.

The recent defection of Jacobs from the DA has caused ripples across the political spectrum. But we must look deeper than the headlines or the usual sound bites of opportunism or ambition.

What we are witnessing is not simply a politician jumping ship – it is a manifestation of a deeper discomfort with party orthodoxy, a reflection of ideological estrangement, and perhaps, the early signs of a broader political reawakening.

There is nothing inherently wrong with changing political allegiance. In fact, it should be seen as healthy in any vibrant democracy. When the party you once believed in no longer aligns with your values – or when its internal culture stifles your purpose – leaving is not betrayal, it is integrity.

Jacobs was no backbencher. As a member of the portfolio committee on sports, arts and culture, he interrogated those who came before parliament with energy and focus. He had the makings of a future leader – young, charismatic, with the ability to speak to the hopes of a younger generation.

Yet, like others before him – Mmusi Maimane, Lindiwe Mazibuko, Makashule Gana – Jacobs reached a ceiling. His public statement that he is now “home” in the PA cannot be dismissed lightly. The DA has a growing list of capable black leaders who have walked away. This is not anecdotal. It is a trend that points to deeper, unresolved issues within the party.

The PA is often reduced to the persona of its leader, Gayton McKenzie – fiery, populist and controversial. But that misses the point. The PA has carved a space where coloured identity is centred, not ignored. Figures like Ashley Sauls bring both intellectual clarity and emotional truth to the conversation, unapologetically calling out marginalisation, discrimination in employment, and a political culture that continues to treat coloured people as invisible.

As someone who was once embedded in the ANC before leaving the party years ago, I know what it means to part ways with a movement that once inspired you. That decision, for me, was a second liberation. I no longer carry the burden of loyalty to party labels. I am free to speak as a political analyst, a scholar and, most importantly, a member of the community that raised me – a community that continues to suffer under the weight of incompetence and neglect.

Let me be clear: my criticism does not end with the ANC. Yes, the ANC abandoned non-racialism long ago. But its slogans and its performance do not align. The DA, for all its talk of clean governance, often fails to engage with the lived reality of the communities it governs. In the Western Cape and especially in the City of Cape Town, we see an empathy vacuum – technical governance with no soul.

Our communities – Gelvandale, Heidedal, Eldorado Park, Rosedale, Eersterust, and many others – remain locked in the same poverty and social decay they knew under apartheid. And while apartheid physically built the walls, democratic governance has done little to break them down. Meanwhile, places like Gugulethu and Khayelitsha continue to suffer, creating a tale of two cities, where Constantia’s wealth mocks the broken infrastructure just kilometres away.

We must not forget that there was a time when these communities were deeply politicised – not only around ANC ideology but through a rich tapestry of ideological traditions. The Charterist movement, led by the United Democratic Front (UDF), became the internal face of the ANC when it was banned. The Mass Democratic Movement, civics, youth and student groups, and trade unions all converged into a powerful engine for change.

Alongside that, the Unity Movement and organisations like the South African Council on Sport (Sacos) grounded their activism in non-racialism and principled resistance. Sacos reminded us there could be no normal sport in an abnormal society – a slogan that is as relevant today, because, to paraphrase it, there can be no normal politics in a society that is still abnormal.

And yes, there were those who supported the apartheid state’s tricameralism project, a divide-and-rule tactic that further fractured our communities. Those days are gone – but the structural inequality remains.

In the absence of the once-prominent intellectuals and activist scholars who helped guide resistance politics, the political energy of today has become more raw, more grassroots – and, at times, less ideologically structured. But that is not necessarily a weakness. It is a new kind of voice. Communities are speaking up. And though this may lack the finesse of academic language, it holds urgency, truth and pain.

This energy should be channelled. A ‘bosberaad’ – a strategic gathering of coloured communities, intellectuals, spiritual leaders, workers, youth, and cultural practitioners – is needed to forge a new agenda. This is not about exclusion. It is about ensuring that coloured voices are heard and their issues addressed within a democratic framework.

If Black Consciousness Movements and Africanists currents could rise in their time, so too must coloured people find their collective footing now. These communities have been gaslit for too long – told that to organise around coloured identity is regressive, racist or counter-revolutionary.

Counter-revolutionary to what? To the failed dream of non-racialism? To slogans that ring hollow in our broken schools, drug-ravaged neighbourhoods and crime-infested streets?

Even I, once adamant about rejecting the racist label “coloured” and insisting on “so-called coloured”, find myself today having to contend with its permanence. Thirty years into democracy, the label still follows me – in identity documents, in employment equity statistics, in state discourse... If all people truly mattered, such racial classifications should have been dismantled long ago, but they weren’t. And so, we must deal with the reality we live in, not the dream that died.

Jacobs’s decision to join the PA is not an end. It may be the beginning of something that shakes us from slumber. Something that dares to say: enough is enough. It invites us to rethink our role in society – not as passive recipients of government promises, but as agents of our own destiny.

The coloured community must not be distracted by those within their own ranks who act as apologists for the status quo, who still cling to the long-expired moral capital of liberation slogans. This is a time for clarity, not nostalgia. It is time to speak – unapologetically, intentionally and collectively.

As Aimé Césaire once said: “I am not interested in being assimilated into a world where I would lose my soul.” And as Steve Biko declared: “Black man, you are on your own.” These truths are not relics – they remain road maps for a people still seeking wholeness.

Dr Knowles is a political analyst, governance scholar and a fellow at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection. He writes in his personal capacity.

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