I’ve often criticised the cynicism of senior ANC officials, but today I’d like to take a moment to recognise the loyalty and dedication of defence minister, Thandi “Animal Farm” Modise, who is willing to serve and promote the interests of Vladimir Putin without even being formally employed by him.
Last year, on the same day Russia launched its imperial land-grab in Ukraine, Modise heroically put her own dignity and self-worth aside as she and her fellow enablers marched in lock-step to the Russian embassy in Pretoria, where officials were celebrating Russian Motherland Defender’s Day over cocktails.
Opposition parties howled, but staunch Defenders of the Russian Motherland gonna staunchly Defend, and Modise was quickly forgotten as the story mutated into a much larger one of the ANC enabling an oppressive regime, with Cyril Ramaphosa crapping on Naledi Pandor for calling on Russia to step back.
True daughters of the Siberian soil, however, don’t need headlines or accolades, and this week Modise was once again putting her shoulder to the wheel of global Putinism, travelling to the 10th edition of something called the Moscow Conference on International Security.
This week Modise was once again putting her shoulder to the wheel of global Putinism, travelling to the 10th edition of something called the Moscow Conference on International Security.
Given that Russia has recently threatened to use nuclear weapons if it doesn’t get its way in Ukraine, hosting a conference on international security in Moscow at the moment is a little bit like the ANC hosting a conference in the Eastern Cape on how to achieve clean municipal audits.
Still, that caviar wasn’t going to eat itself, and it’s not as if the SANDF is going anywhere, what with running out of money; and so there she was, delivering a stinging rebuke to “warmongers”, who she said should be “dragged kicking and screaming to the table of peace”.
To those fence-sitters who are still pretending the ANC hasn’t hitched its tawdry little wagon to Putin, her words no doubt sounded admirably apolitical, perhaps even a veiled rebuke to the Russian strongman, or a warning to China as it eyes Taiwan.
To people who can read, however, it was no such thing.
First, Modise made it clear she was mostly talking about warmongers in Africa: the conference’s objectives, she said, “are consistent with Africa’s vision of creating a peaceful and conflict-free continent”. Eastern Europe, well, not so much.
Mostly, however, I would argue Modise’s words were not a rebuke because very few attendees at that conference believe Russia has done anything worth rebuking.
On the contrary, I imagine if you’ve travelled to Moscow to validate and endorse Putin’s state, even as that state is pounding Ukraine into rubble with long-range artillery, you have probably tied yourself into so many ethical, political and logical knots that you’ve convinced yourself Russia is the real victim of international aggression.
Of course, the money donated to the ANC by people like Russian billionaires Viktor Vekselberg helps keep those knots nice and tight. But I can’t help feeling that Modise’s heroic defence of the Motherland is motivated by more than cash.
After all, nobody could sell themselves that cheaply, right?
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