It was quite a South African weekend!
In India, the Proteas did not wilt, even under pressure (and went on to beat India – again, and on home turf – no mean feat); Springbok rugby coach Rassie Erasmus was (is?) in Irish heads; and perhaps more consequentially, our President (the GNU and TeamSA) were pulling off a diplomatic masterclass in Johannesburg.
Be that as it may, South Africa’s hosting of the G20 Summit at the weekend was historic – the first on African soil. Throughout the year meetings with business, under the Business20 have been conducted with the G20 themes of ‘solidarity, equality and sustainability’.
In a world of Trumpian proportions, holding the G20 presidency was always going to be tricky, especially after Donald Trump’s orchestrated attack on President Ramaphosa and his delegation in the gilt-edged White House earlier this year. The dust has settled on that meeting, and as the Trump presidency becomes all the more cruel, chaotic and rule-breaking, we see the racism that was on display in that meeting more clearly (for those who needed a clearer lens). Although at the time of writing, Trump has, in an unhinged post on Truth Social, said all “payments and subsidies” to South Africa would be stopped and “SA will not be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20 meeting”. Such predictable immaturity the world should not have to deal with.
The weekend saw a diplomatic brouhaha – would the US attend or wouldn’t it? Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, whose currency is lies, said Ramaphosa was “running his mouth off”, after the President referred to a White House communique saying it would send a low-level US delegation to South Africa. The details of the spat are now well-known, but in the end there was no US participation, allowing the rest of the world to get on with the business of the G20, like real grown-ups. There was no Trump distraction, no bullying and civility all around.
This mini debacle was followed by questions regarding the formal handover of the G20 presidency to the US. South Africa stood firm: our President would not breach protocol by handing the baton to a low-level official. We were not going to be bullied in our own backyard.
Despite the US wanting to further bully the world as regards the final G20 declaration, there was overwhelming consensus on a final wording, agreed to before the actual Leaders’ meeting. It’s something of a Ramaphosa negotiation masterstroke – get the business out of the way and thus have a more relaxed weekend. Of sorts.
No one could have been more relieved than South African sherpa Zane Dangor and team. They deserve our thanks and all the accolades, given the way they represented our country. They and TeamSA show who we can be on our best days. We can do hard things.
Swept away for G20
Ours is a strange country. We swept Johannesburg clean for the G20, calling into question why such cleanliness and efficiency could not be an everyday event for the actual residents of the city. Why pull out all the stops only because the world is watching? Why can our leaders not understand that all South Africans deserve proper governance? Hosting this summit felt very much like the 2010 World Cup. Then, we were a country in the midst of the most corrupt post-apartheid administration under Jacob Zuma, and yet, we managed not only to host the world but to do it well.
After the World Cup we went straight back to reality, and all the things that plagued us before, plagued us again. It was a sort of suspension of reality for a month of sheer football craziness.
And so it was with the G20. Despite social media trolls, Solidarity and AfriForum seeking to derail the summit with silly billboards claiming white genocide and oppression, the summit was a success.
Solidarity, AfriForum and their supporters on social media spewed the most racist vitriol about our country, seeking to shame it, conflating our people with our government. Embedded in all of this is (if one were to simplify it) a sense of loss felt by some white people in our country about the disappearance of their privilege, also anger at corruption (as if they are the only ones who suffer its consequences) and an allegiance to Trumpian politics. They speak of Trump’s America with what can only be described as affection and admiration. They cannot – or choose not to see – the lies, the cruelty and the deep corruption of the Trump administration. They are part of the right-wing ethno-nationalism rising around the world.
It is a politics of hate and division, which we must eschew at all costs. There were others (including political commentators and South Africans opposed to Ramaphosa or the ANC) too who found it difficult to praise our government and TeamSA for a better-than-expected summit outcome.
Hosting this meeting was really not such a big deal and what was achieved was hardly worth speaking about. They will doubtless point to Trump’s latest rant as proof of how right they were. The problem, of course, is that it is nigh impossible to deal with an irrational actor like Trump if he is willing to believe the arrant nonsense, racism and fake news spewed by the likes of Elon Musk, Musk’s discredited father, AfriForum and Solidarity.
Given this and the state of the world, tilting right, it is therefore rather naive to think that South Africa would have been able to achieve much more than it did in the end. Added to this, there are no prizes for predicting the schadenfreude that would no doubt have been evident had South Africa made a diplomatic and logistical hash of the Summit.
And so while sadly many were willing the summit to fail, others rightly asked why we could not deal with our intractable challenges with the same level of competence on display at Nasrec this past weekend.
In praising the G20 Summit’s success, one can equally ask that fair question. Because we are required to hold two thoughts at once, a concept which has become rather counter-cultural. The world is geared towards division between “them and us”, “good or bad”, “yes and no”. It’s how the algorithm works, with no space for nuance or proper thinking and paying attention.
We can agree that our government can and should do better; that it has failed the poor; that our towns and cities are in a state of dysfunction because of corruption and maladministration; and that our institutions are going through a painful process of repurposing after a decade of State Capture. We can lay much of this at the ANC’s door.
Contradiction in SA society
Every day our free press reports fearlessly on these ills and our vibrant civil society, and business and religious leaders have added their voices to speak out against injustice. We should not stop doing so. But this can be true and it can also be true that we can do hard things. It can also be true that on our best days we are resilient and the residue of goodwill continues, against the odds, to sit at the heart of our society, bubbling to the surface at moments like this past weekend.
As the G20 Protean logo was displayed proudly, the world was seeing another side of us. The beauty of our landscapes, our resilience, our ability to be truly serious and, most importantly, our people who, despite challenges of crime, unemployment and socioeconomic injustice, remain committed and innovating. It is they who keep our society moving and who still remain magnanimous and committed to building and not breaking down.
Those of us who are from this place understand this contradiction in our country’s DNA so well; that we waft between incredible highs and incredible lows, which make living here both bewildering and bewitching – and frustrating, in equal measure.
Our country is fraught, complex and often a very difficult place to live in. It has been more than 30 years since 1994 when Desmond Tutu proclaimed us “the rainbow nation”. What has happened in the intervening years has been hopeful, deeply disappointing, frustrating and then also joyful. We have run the gamut of emotions in this country which “is held bleeding between us” – as Antjie Krog says in her poem Country of Grief and Grace.
Yet, what our various successes, including the successful G20 Summit suggest is that another narrative is possible and that we are so much more than the headlines consigning us to failure and the tropes of the rainbow nation gone wrong. And there were plenty of those reports ahead of the G20. The BBC seemed to go out of its way to find only the stories of crime and grime and corruption.
Would that, after the guests have left, we could be that country we displayed on the weekend. Would that the strand of excellence could permeate everything we did. And would that we used all the goodwill there still is to create a more equal and just society.
There is nothing – except our own penchant for the many self-inflicted wounds – which stands in our way.
Sport can be a tired analogy, but as South Africa took on Ireland on Saturday and won in what was a frustrating match with a team so representative no one even bothers about its composition any longer, we know that at our best we really are an extraordinary people. We squeeze the last drop of joy and energy out of living in these parts – like clinching victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s not a coincidence that so many Rugby World Cup wins were eked out by narrow margins, after all.
Now that the world leaders have departed, we can air our own dirty laundry again and work even harder to hold our government to account. (This week’s case in point – Menzi Simelane has been short-listed to replace Shamila Batohi as National Director of Public Prosecutions. Surely this process now has diminished credibility if disgraced Simelane is on this shortlist. Our justice system already faces severe challenges.)
But, there can be no denying that Ramaphosa and team negotiated with aplomb last weekend, despite Trump’s rants. We put our best foot forward and showed what South African excellence looks like.
It feels really good to say that. DM