Following politics of self-destruction

23 April 2017 - 02:00 By Gerrit Olivier
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President Jacob Zuma with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing in 2014.
President Jacob Zuma with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing in 2014.
Image: GETTY IMAGES

Foreign disenchantment with SA’s downward spiral will work like ‘slow poison’ in the face of the country’s diplomatic inaction, writes Gerrit Olivier.

Junk status will not affect South Africa's foreign relations immediately. For now, it will be very much a case of business as usual - however stagnant and directionless - with the outside world.

However, in the longer run, junk status and its underlying causes will inevitably exacerbate the further decline of the country's image, role and status in international politics.

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In terms of international perceptions, South Africa is no longer the country Nelson Mandela left behind. Those nations that successfully helped bring down apartheid to make way for democracy and racial tolerance may realise by now that they have reaped a whirlwind.

They, as with many other nations, no longer regard South Africa as the exceptional post-apartheid African country.

The magic is gone; the rainbow nation is no more.

In various ways, and lamentably so, some aberrations of apartheid are back in President Jacob Zuma's South Africa: racism, intolerance, arrogance and abuse of executive power.

The signs are there for all who want to see them: South Africa is well on its way to being just "another African state", probably with Zuma's blessing and at his behest. The worst outcome many people fear is a repeat of the Zimbabwe scenario.

There is little the erstwhile international champions of the struggle against apartheid can do to stop the rot. Against the illegitimate apartheid government, concerted international action was morally correct, legitimate, relatively easy, and effective.

In the present situation, where we have, on paper at least, legitimacy based on an exemplary constitutional democracy, foreign interference is much more complicated.

In spite of the awful domestic mess under the leadership of a hopelessly incompetent president and government, South African relations with the erstwhile moral campaigners against apartheid, as well as others, remain fairly normal if not amicable.

Except for the two international ratings agencies' ominous messages, none of them has yet warned or spoken a word of criticism (in public) against the dangerous policies being followed, or warned against the disasters facing the country if it does not change its ways.

This is the normal way of conventional bilateral diplomacy and the situation will change only when internal and/or regional chaos justifies multilateral action.

block_quotes_start The signs are there for all who want to see them: South Africa is well on its way to being just 'another African state', probably with Zuma's blessing and at his behest block_quotes_end

No doubt the directions of change are ominous. Should the worst come to the worst - South Africa degenerating into a violent, ungovernable, failed state - international disdain, sanctions and isolation will be the inevitable price to pay.

But even if it gets that far, a Zuma government (or its clone) could simply follow the Zimbabwean "African way", go for broke and join the pantheon of untouchable outcasts in the world.

However, while overt international diplomatic/political intervention or coercive interference must be ruled out for the present, it is inevitable that South Africa will not be totally absolved from paying an escalating price for its domestic waywardness.

The rating agencies have already stepped in by consigning government finances to humiliating junk status - something that could and should have been avoided.

This might be only the tip of the iceberg: worse things might happen, given the parlous state of our economy, rampant unemployment and poverty, the radicalisation of race relations and ever-rising expectations of the proletariat majority.

We should realise that international disenchantment will work like slow poison should conditions remain the same or get worse.

It is not difficult to foresee that, particularly among Western industrial nations, tolerance towards South Africa will drop as special or amicable relationships are replaced by minimalist, sang-froid relationships. In Africa, there will surely be more than a touch of glee about what is happening to the purported leviathan of the continent.

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Foreign policy ideologues in the government (seeking elimination of Western-capitalist influence) may well argue (as some of them already do) that junk status is not such a bad thing after all.

This anti-West sentiment has already been expressed in the ANC's 2015 National General Council discussion documents and may come across to some party bigots as a plausible alternative.

It will spur South Africa to make a break from the much-maligned "Washington consensus"; minimise its relations with the West; invigorate its Brics membership and shift the focus mainly to the East: China, Russia and India in particular.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has said on occasion "we don't need the West", while Zuma also has a penchant for a world "without the West".

This is not realpolitik. It is the politics of self-destruction - cutting off our nose to spite our face, as it were.

If these sceptics do their homework better, they will discover that world politics has become more inclusive and states more interdependent.

Globalisation is a reality. At the World Economic Forum at Davos earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a robust defence of globalisation: "The problems troubling the world are not caused by globalisation. They are not the inevitable outcome of globalisation. We should not retreat into the harbour whenever we encounter a storm, or we will never reach the opposite shore."

While probably acceptable in the Kremlin, an ideologically driven South African policy would not cut much ice, particularly in Beijing, as far as trade and economics are concerned - South Africa will never reach the shore, as Xi said.

Frontline players in world politics eschew ideology and political preferentialism, favouring free trade with all. To expect succour from them in our present predicament is wishful thinking. South Africa will be increasingly left to its own devices and become isolated.

Simple economic arithmetic explains our utter dependence on the outside world, particularly Western industrialised nations, for investment, trade, technology, intellectual property and tourism.

Our foreign policy, to serve the national interest, must be non-ideological and pragmatic to create national welfare and security, given the ticking time bomb of poverty and unemployment in the country.

block_quotes_start The problems troubling the world are not caused by globalisation. They are not the inevitable outcome of globalisation. We should not retreat into the harbour whenever we encounter a storm, or we will never reach the opposite shore block_quotes_end

Following ideological interests achieves none of these things. On the contrary, it makes South Africa poorer, less secure, less independent and more exploitable.

Unfortunately, South Africa is not prepared to meet the international challenges facing it. So far, there has not been so much as a murmur from the Department of International Relations and Co-operation about the international impact of junk status.

On paper, it does commit itself to economic diplomacy, but we never see concrete results on how our costly diplomacy contributes towards the welfare and security of our nation. No doubt the present worsening domestic situation makes life more difficult for South Africa's diplomats. But this cannot be a reason to do nothing.

Given the challenges we face, the foreign service must wake up from its comfort zone. In spite of running a massive budget, missions in every conceivable country, and a bloated personnel corps, South Africa's diplomatic corps has mostly failed to bring home the bacon.

For this we need much better top-echelon gravitas and leadership, as well as economic and financial experts replacing the present army of generalists.

In the end, it must be realised that foreign policy begins at home.

Olivier is a former South African ambassador to Moscow and is now with the department of political sciences, University of Pretoria

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