While Martin Luther King Jr argued that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”, South Africa seems determined to prove him wrong. Basking in the glow of negotiated settlement, the Rainbow Nation was a poster child of the 1990s triumph of liberal democracy over tyranny, the rule of law over “might is right”. In those halcyon days of 1994, Nelson Mandela stated that human rights, justice and international law would be “the light that guides our foreign affairs”.
No longer. Last August, Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor unveiled a new framework document making national interest — not human rights and international law — the cornerstone of South Africa’s foreign policy.
Actions are clearly following words.
On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, South African forces were conducting joint naval exercises with Russian and Chinese militaries, Pretoria welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and at the UN it is decidedly ambivalent on the fate of Ukraine. South Africa abstained from yet another motion condemning the Russian breaches of international law and allegations of war crimes last week, making that five in total.
But perhaps South Africa only ever paid cursory lip service to a foreign policy based on morality and international law. In hindsight, its foreign policy seems less a well-considered, long-term strategy and more a muddle of competing ideas.
Under Thabo Mbeki, the country became known for Aids denialism and stubborn support for the tyrant Robert Mugabe. With Jacob Zuma focusing on looting and pillaging at home, foreign policy drifted into irrelevance. At some point, South Africa was pulled into the now largely defunct BRICS grouping as an afterthought, a vainglorious attempt to hitch on to the coattails of China. After 24 February 2022 that decision has implications; choosing China means Russia, and any supposed attachment to democracy, human rights or the rule of law must be left at the door.
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Struggle-era support from the Soviets is often wheeled out as a reason for ANC loyalty towards Russia (Ukrainians sympathetic to the cause are conveniently forgotten). Such Marxist leanings evidently die hard; in his now infamous interview with eNCA, outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter spoke at length about “the ghosts of Marx and Lenin that still haunt the halls of Luthuli House. People are still firmly committed to a 1980s-style ideology. They still address one another as comrades — which is, frankly, embarrassing. They use words like lumpenproletariat, which is ridiculous.”
That might be true, but it seems reductive to the point of distortionary. National interest means realpolitik; South Africa is prioritising practical rather than moral or ideological considerations. Yet this too is unclear; whose interests are we talking about exactly? Clearly, darker and more perverse motives may also be at play.
The supposed “national interest” may have been subordinated to party and personal business; The Economist wrote last week that donations to the ANC from Russian oligarchs could be driving foreign policy. With Daily Maverick reporting on a mysterious Russian ship offloading secret cargo in Simon’s Town, one can only surmise what is actually happening behind the scenes.
The implications are profound. Perhaps, from the perspective of Pretoria, it is hard to appreciate just how far South Africa has strayed from the Western zeitgeist. Anecdotally, European corporates are openly reviewing investments in South Africa, while Peter Fabricius reported in Daily Maverick: “The US House of Representatives is considering a resolution to oppose South Africa’s current military exercise with Russia and China and to call on the Biden administration to thoroughly review America’s relationship with South Africa.” It might not seem such an extraordinary act of self-harm if the EU and the US did not comprise almost a third of South Africa’s trade, roughly twice that of China and Russia.
If South Africa’s economic and social decline is plainly evident in any human development indicator, only now has the extent of its moral decay become clear. At stake are not only foreign investment and trade deals such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Foreign policy is indicative of what a country sees itself as being, what it wants to be, and who it aspires to emulate. Such a myopic and self-harming course of action is detrimental to all South Africans who hope to live in a country respectful of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Without order, anarchy will surely follow. Unlike King’s arc of morality, the path to hell may well be paved with nebulous and nefarious notions of the “national interest”. DM/BM
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It would take a considerably myopic person not to notice that South Africa has nailed its colours well and truly to the mast. Financial, structural and moral decline will be followed closely by those other Stalinist watchwords – dictatorship, persecution, police state and loss of all personal rights to the constitutional freedoms – speech, expression, thought, movement and association.
Gradually and subtlety democracy is being eradicated and the party elite will feast on the misery of the masses.
While the article appeard to cover the history and current situation, it offers no ideas on the way ahead. This is in desperate need.
We have excellent investigative journalists – why are they not interrogating this?
Agreed. But where have you been for the last 15 – 20 years; the decay has been evident long Since Zuma.
Much of the ANC government’s policies are ideologically confused (and confusing) as they try and balance their NDR with the corruption they have become synonymous with, and the result is precisely this kind of pseudo-policy based on a perfidious mixture of naive ignorance, stubborn arrogance and a dinosaurian worldview. That it will hardly convince an illiterate, the numbers of which increase yearly, is of no consequence. To them, that is. For the rest of us, all we have is our vote.
The absence of a national security strategy that clearly outlines our economic and national security interests that informs our foreign policy is one of the problems that we have. The strategy has to be our compass and basis of national consensus on foreign policy because it explains our relations. We have to say that it would be incorrect to say that human right are the basis for a foreign policy because if it were so, the world would not be trading with many countries including China that violates the rights of the Uighurs with regularity. Within the national security strategy one of the pillars is the respect of international law and territorial integrity of other countries underpinned by the UN Charter. The author needs to understand this rubric. The issue of Ukraine falls within the rubric of international law and territorial integrity and upholding the UN Charter. Without a national security strategy, the violation of international law and UN Charter ought to be the compass that guides us on Ukraine that Russia has violated. The second question is what economic and security interests our position on Ukraine serves as the US House of Representatives is preparing a response to countries and governments that are Russian stooges. The position of the ANC is in violation of the UN Charter and international law and does serve our national economic and security interests and that is the measure we ought to apply. In fact the position is treasonous and seditious.
The BRICS grouping is set to gain in importance with a number of countries applying to join.
It is not the number of countries that join a grouping that makes it important. It is the level of cohesion and convergence on various issues within the group to be able to speak with one voice. The AU has 54 countries but has a low level of cohesion and convergence to be able to speak on one voice. BRICS is such a divergent group that the only issue they can speak on is how others are united in doing what ought to be done regarding Russia and even on that the level of conviction by each country differs. India and China have territorial issues and India is part of the QUAD to counter China in the Asia and the Pacific. India acts on self interest in getting cheap oil from Russia. We have closed our refineries and we would not even take advantage of that in addition to oil majors that respect the sanctions against Russia. Do not be fooled by numbers.
These are not attitudes or behaviors that will change under the current ANC leadership.
Much like the white “oomies” of my youth the venerable generation are set in their ways and desperate to hold on to what scraps of privilege a lifetime of compromise has bought them.
The big question is, will there be place in the ANC for those who were born as citizens of our new republic?
As a cohort, they may be the only group of South Africans who could imagine a world where every single possibility of a shared goal is not immediately twisted asunder by the pain and anger of the past.
The journey towards a future where there is enough for everyone can only be led by those with a deep understanding that, in a country where so many have so little, there can be no consensus without the re-orientation of an inherited meritocratic imaginary towards one rooted in equality of outcome.
Perhaps only then will the reigning familial and social justifications for seeking security through corruption become untenable.
It’s interesting that we seem to know nothing about the ANC’s relationship with Russia and China. Citizens are not important when it comes to making lots of money and maintaining power.
At any cost? If the ANC wins the election next year, against all odds, must we assume that we’ve followed the Mugabe example: If you lose, you just cheat and win anyway.