It can’t be easy being a SA diplomat abroad. On paper at least, our ambassadors and high commissioners and their corps of attendant professionals represent a country that despite its glaring faults serves, or should serve, as a role model for young yet challenged democracies around the world. But in so much of our international affairs we are more at home in the company of tyrants and losers. By habit and instinct we’re more comfortable when ensconced within the circle of the aggrieved and the passive (or active) aggressive. We prefer the hard done-by and the downright dangerous. We insist on our right to become a pariah...