Whenever someone influential in the US or UK says something critical of South Africa, certain local elites — especially from within the white community, many in the mainstream media and on podcasts, and Democratic Party-aligned (DA) types — are predictable in revealing a troubling deference to Western opinion; as if that is the only way to exist in the world.
It happened when South Africa went to the International Court of Justice with its case of genocide against Israel. From inside the country, there were warnings the case would harm South Africa’s trade relations and hurt investors and Christian and pro-Israel Jewish leaders opposed it for all sorts of whataboutery.
At times it takes a vicious, personal turn. At the end of February, when the writer and journalist Kevin Bloom wrote an article in Daily Maverick praising South Africa’s stance at the ICJ and President Ramaphosa’s public handling of Trump’s bullying, a former associate editor at the Financial Mail, who now lives in London, called Bloom “a self-hating Jew” on social media.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s largest news sites and broadcasters report the hysterical screeds against the country by Joel Pollak, the South African-born editor of rightwing opinion site Breitbart, as though it is objective news.
The same has been playing out since the US decided to expel South Africa’s Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool. Rather than defending Rasool’s right to make a reasonable critique of President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, AfriForum’s racism and Israel’s violence against Palestinians, these South African elites become rattled by Rubio’s bluster.
This reaction underscores a broader issue: the persistent alignment of South Africa’s political discourse with Western approval, rather than with independent, principled stances.
Admiration and approval
That South Africa showed remarkable leadership in the case of the ICJ and that it garnered widespread admiration and approval from countries ranging from Ireland, Colombia, Malaysia and Spain did not matter.
The fact that Rasool was expressing opinions held and expressed by many leaders around the world, not to mention inside the US, did not matter.
According to these local elites, South Africa should never seek to act morally and ethically on the global stage, should never take leadership; should always be compliant and preferably silent, in order not to arouse the ire of “the markets” or a major trading partner.
What they fail to realise is that the idea that Rasool (or other representatives of South Africa) should remain silent, play dead, or be pliant is not a political strategy — it’s capitulation.
The same rhetoric is regularly directed in crude terms at, among others, Mexico, Canada, Denmark and some French politicians in discourse emanating from the White House and Congressional Republicans.
South Africans, particularly those who care about the country or claim to be patriotic, should recognise the bad-faith nature of this outrage.
It is not unlikely that Marco Rubio and Trump, ever-eager to do the bidding of their paymaster, the “ex-South African” Elon Musk, (a relationship not unlike Jacob Zuma’s with the Guptas) were looking for an excuse to take action of this sort against South Africa. Rasool merely provided one.
We know Musk holds a grudge against this country for many reasons, including the fact that he can’t operate his Starlink satellite network here. It’s the logical next step in a series of decisions that have seen US funding to South Africa dramatically slashed and white Afrikaners offered refugee status.
We also know that compliance and kowtowing to Trump merely lead to further abuse. Look at Columbia University, which was one of the most draconian universities or institutions in cracking down on protesters against the genocide in Gaza. It invited police on to campus and has taken heavy disciplinary measures against pro-Palestinian students and faculty, including tenured professors, who can usually not get fired.
Speaking your mind about American complicity in state terror had rarely led to this. Now it is commonplace. For all its complicity with the Trump regime and a Republican-controlled Congress, Columbia is being singled out and targeted by the administration – and is now threatened with having $400-million in funding withdrawn unless it complies with a set of demands that would mean the end of its academic independence. We are seeing this sort of behaviour again and again.
Global potential
However, the most important reason the South African government should ignore the cries of these pro-Western critics (which, in some quarters, also includes the offensive suggestion that it appoint a white man as ambassador to the US) is that they discount South Africa’s real global potential.
The country — a middle power — is well positioned to contribute to shaping a new, multipolar world order (take BRICS or The Hague Group). Yet, this potential is conspicuously absent from mainstream discussions in South African media.
Instead of retreating in the face of Western pressure, South African leadership and its media and policy elites who shape public opinion should take cues from heads of state like Mia Mottley of Barbados and Claudia Sheinbaum from Mexico, who have asserted their nations’ sovereignty and vision on the global stage.
On Facebook, political theorist Steven Friedman commented on the double standards in South African media and public debate. He noted that Rasool faced ridicule for mild criticism of the US government, while the former US Ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, accused the country of gun-running to Russia without evidence in 2023.
South Africans, instead of questioning the ridiculous accusations, pushed for an inquiry by the South African government (Brigety later apologised for making these allegations and an independent investigation ordered by Ramaphosa found no evidence to support the claim that South Africa supplied weapons to Russia.)
Friedman highlighted how US ambassadors often criticise host countries without backlash.
The takeaway for Friedman: America’s diplomats can speak freely, but others can’t criticise the US. This bias reflects the belief that the West is superior, reinforcing the notion that some nations are meant to rule while others serve: “That can only be justified if we also share the prejudice which lies behind these judgements – that the West is best and the rest of us must know our place.”
As another former US ambassador to South Africa, Patrick Gaspard, wrote on social media: “We should note that Marco Rubio himself said far worse things about Donald Trump in the past than anything said by Ambassador Rasool. Let’s be real about what these people are up to with their obsessive targeting of South Africa and their performance of grievance.”
No wonder Trump picks on this country – he knows he can always rely on support from supposedly “sober” commentators here who know who is born to rule and who is born to serve. DM