MAKHUDU SEFARA | Cuba helped us in our hour of need, when others conveniently looked away

There was widespread celebration when AfriForum won an interim court order to stop our almost broke government from acting big in a small farm, as it were. The general view seems to be that SA’s proposed donation of R50m to Cuba is “unjustified, considering the millions of impoverished South Africans”, our country’s junk status and the sovereign debt trap we seem to be in. 

The argument is that South Africans have it tough. Some say when your house is on fire you don’t give your water to your neighbour to extinguish theirs. It is true that our unemployment is at the highest it has ever been. It is also true that inequality is at its historical worst, making us the most unequal society in the world. Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago not only raised interest rates yesterday, but warned that this will be the case for the most part of the year, making the cost of borrowing even higher. Capital has become more expensive. The coronavirus hasn’t quite left us in peace, what with our government failing to anticipate in good time that we will need a regime of regulations post the Omicron variant. Now, instead of the economy fully opening, we have created a needless hiatus, the pain from which ordinary people must endure. And no donation to Cuba will be made while we suffer, seems to be the argument. AfriForum read the mood and registered victory, with the high court deciding to halt the impending donation it described as “ludicrous” in the wake of “serious economic crisis”.

Let’s hold the celebration right here. Yes, in spite of our pain, we must support Cuba. 

Hear me out.

First things first — let’s park procedural matters: the South African government must follow the necessary laws of the country in making any and all donations. Where the law requires that donations of more than R100,000 are approved by the legislature, this must be done. No brainer. This aside, the substance of the argument seems to be that our pain, our less than ideal position, disqualifies us from donating. 

The truth though, is that we will never be without the pain (if we understand this to be our national indebtedness and inability to resolve innumerable socioeconomic challenges, which include poverty and unemployment). 

The other truth is that all of us will be long dead before SA is without its sovereign debt or its poor. Even Jesus said: “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” 

A cursory look at the world’s biggest economy shows it too assists others while managing its debt and socioeconomic challenges. In February, for example, the public debt of the US stood at $30.29-trillion, $2.39-trillion more than it was a year earlier. The UK’s debt, as reported in October 2021, is £2.2-trillion, 13.7% above the average of EU members. This tells us that if you want to roll with the big boys, to use social media parlance, you must manage your pain (debt et al) while helping poorer nations. 

You will be hard-pressed to find self-respecting countries of a similar size to SA whose global agenda has come to a halt because they’re trying to resolve their socioeconomic issues before they donate elsewhere or expend funds in pursuit of their own agenda.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said this week: “On March 15, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act to provide an additional $13.6-billion in military, humanitarian, and economic assistance to help Ukraine defend itself.” What if Biden argued like AfriForum? What if he thought he should resolve American socioeconomic issues and pay off the $30-trillion in debt before assisting Ukraine? Where would that leave Ukrainians in distress today?

Yet we listen to AfriForum create an impression that we must resolve our challenges before we expend funds globally. You will be hard-pressed to find self-respecting countries of a similar size to SA whose global agenda has come to a halt because they’re trying to resolve their socioeconomic issues before they donate elsewhere or expend funds in pursuit of their own agenda.

Cuba has been a strategic ally for pro-democracy groupings in SA at a time when others conveniently looked the other way as crimes against humanity were being unleashed here. Cuba offered this help in spite of an economic blockade by the US, which did little to help the fight against apartheid (to be charitable). 

Cuba’s leaders, like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, could have reasoned like AfriForum: “We are still battling America, South Africa’s liberation is not deserving of our contribution until all Cubans are free of the American-induced economic crisis.”

They didn’t. 

Many of us are happy to quote Nelson Mandela when we talk about freedom and reconciliation. He is, to us, the poster boy of selflessness. But what about Mandela and his views on Cuba — and how it gave him hope, a hope that sustained him in prison when the likes of America conveniently looked the other way as the apartheid regime committed mass murders in Sharpeville, Soweto, Langa and everywhere so-called “terrorists” could be found.

Here’s what Mandela said at the 38th anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution on July 26 1991: “It was in prison when I first heard of the massive assistance that the Cuban internationalist forces provided to the people of Angola, on such a scale that one hesitated to believe, when the Angolans came under combined attack of South African, CIA-financed FNLA, mercenary Unita, and Zairean troops in 1975. It is unparalleled in African history to have another people rise to the defence of one of us. The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for the whole of Africa! The defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here today!” 

And today, because we listen to AfriForum, we can’t offer Cuba, R50m out of a budget of R2-trillion? It’s not acting big in a small farm, it’s choosing to implement Mandela’s selflessness rather than conveniently quoting it while not believing in it.

Everything, they say, is relative. 

We may have unemployment and inequality. We may have xenophobes unleashing mayhem in our streets. But we are not down in the dumps. As South Africans, we go through the most, yet we are not as poor as, say, Mozambique or Cuba. We live in Africa’s most sophisticated economy. We are poor, but are like that guy who, at a traffic light, can open a window and offer something to someone in the worst position. 

Given our national budget of R2.2-trillion, can we not find R50m for Cuba that Mandela, our reconciliation hero, says made it possible for him to be free? If we can’t, then something deep inside us is truly dead and buried. 

Even the Americans and English who couldn’t help us (pro-democracy groups) against apartheid are today, despite their debts, helping their kith and kin in Ukraine. May the thing that is dead in us be born again.