It’s been a rough week for SA’s diplomats. Not as rough as it’s been for Ukrainians, of course. But still, betraying democracy definitely leaves some nasty marks, at least in your underpants, if not your conscience.
On Wednesday, when the ANC decided that abstention is the better part of valour and refused to condemn Russian aggression, many South Africans would have sighed and shrugged, filing the news away in that vast warehouse where we keep a dim and vague record of the moral failings of this tatty little regime we call a government.
For our diplomats, however, it was the start of a bombardment of angry and confused messages. (Again, I should stress that “bombardment” is a figure of speech: our diplomats are not actually having artillery shells fired at them, unlike Ukrainians, who are having artillery shells fired at them.)
On Thursday, for example, the EU’s ambassador to SA tweeted that they were “still scratching our heads over here at Team Europe” about this country’s refusal to condemn the invasion.
It was a pretty gentle little diplomatic hand-grenade — again, let me explain that this isn’t a real hand-grenade; South Africans are not having hand-grenades thrown at them, as opposed to Ukrainians, who are — but SA’s head of foreign relations spin, Clayson Monyela, threw himself on it like a war hero. (Again, not an actual war hero).
“Do you wanna engage here Amb?” he tweeted. “I assume you saw the Vote Explanation. Thoughts? #whataboutism Let’s not forget the People of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia etc. The EU shud ‘condemn’ aggressors in these cases as well. Consistency in our Diplomatic endeavours is critical.”
It was a peculiar reply, not least because it seemed to denounce the tacky tactic of “whataboutism” shortly before employing it.
Hang in there diplomats. In a week or two you can come out of your bunker and clear away the rubble. Not a real bunker, of course, or actual rubble: that’s for Ukrainians. But still, things are about to get much, much easier.
Luckily the eternally commonsensical Peter Bruce was on hand to ask Monyela the obvious question: “But you pulled the [SA ambassador] out of Israel; why not out of Russia, if consistency matters as much as you say it does ... ?”
It will not shock you to learn that, at the time of writing, two hours after Bruce asked his question, Monyela was as silent as an ANC politician watching a Russian who’s banned democracy in his country trample on a neighbouring democracy.
The thing is, he didn’t have to reply. He didn’t have to be consistent, or logical, or even polite. He didn’t have to be any of those things because Monyela knows this will all go away, because it always has.
Time and again the ANC government has betrayed its own founding principles, selling out democracy for a blowjob in a rusty Trabant; and time and again we’ve simply shrugged and moved on.
Nelson Mandela was a big fan of Libya and Cuba, both famously run according to a system where anyone could become president as long as his name was Gaddafi or Castro, but Mandela remains the untainted icon of South African democracy.
Thabo Mbeki’s adoration of Robert Mugabe is still reverberating on both sides of the border, as Zimbabweans continue to flee the consequences of that infatuation, yet millions of South Africans still regard him as our best president ever.
Jacob Zuma holds the record for being the only South African president to refuse to arrest someone wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes including genocide, but even today he is adored as our last true democrat and a man who values basic humanity.
No, I’m afraid selling out democracy yet again will barely register as a blip on the ANC’s downward trajectory.
So hang in there, Clayson and chums. In a week or two you can come out of your bunker and clear away the rubble. Not a real bunker, of course, or actual rubble: that’s for Ukrainians. But still, things are about to get much, much easier.
Oh, just one tip: the Trabant’s handbrake doesn’t work, so maybe park somewhere level before you unzip.
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