When Cyril Ramaphosa was negotiating the end of apartheid with the nationalist regime he would have shaken a lot of bloody hands, but even he must be surprised to find himself an ally, or at least an ally-in-law, of North Korea.
Of course, there’s no formal agreement between South Africa and the enslaved kingdom run for profit and kicks by Kim Jong Un. But given that Ramaphosa this week described Russia as an ally of South Africa, and that North Korea has recently sent thousands of troops to Russia to be chewed up in the meat grinder of Ukraine, it’s not a big leap to suggest that there is now a faint but persistent line of comradeship between Pyongyang and Pretoria.
Then again, perhaps this is just one of the absurd things that happen when large multinational organisations, whether the UN, Nato or the African Union, get together and pretend to want to get things done.
The large multinational organisation in this case is Brics, gathering in the Russian city of Kazan, presumably selected as host city because it’s further out of the range of Ukrainian drones than Moscow and therefore less likely to alert Vladimir Putin’s brainwashed base to the fact that Russia has started — and become bogged down in — a war of colonial aggression.
The chief difference between Ukraine and Israel, however, at least from the perspective of Ramaphosa and SA, is China.
As is the norm at these sorts of things, there has been much talk of co-operation, peace and prosperity, which, in the case of Brics, is a process of not mentioning all the tariffs you’ve slapped on each other while making sure you don’t eat anything handed to you by Putin’s security detail.
There has been less talk about democracy (which of course is illegal in China and non-existent in Russia), and no public mention of Ukraine, but you can’t have everything. Well, not unless you’re Putin. But you get my point.
This apparently one-sided approach has angered and confused some people back home, who have asked how it is that Ramaphosa and his government can join many nations in correctly condemning Israel’s flattening of Gaza and the illegal colonial expansion into the West Bank by Israeli settlers, but remain tjoepstil about Russia’s colonial land-grab in Ukraine which has now killed and wounded an estimated one million people on both sides.
To be fair, there are some notable difference between the two. In Ukraine, the overwhelming majority of casualties have been soldiers, whereas it is the civilians of Gaza (and now Lebanon) who have borne the brunt of the violence. Ukrainian refugees could flee west, either to safer part of Ukraine or across the border to European neighbours. The Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank are trapped, with the likes of Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon refusing to take in refugees.
The chief difference between Ukraine and Israel, however, at least from the perspective of Ramaphosa and South Africa, is China.
Brics has many high-minded and progressive-sounding ideals. Indeed, to read statements by the delegates in Kazan is to discover that the bloc is the vanguard of a new world order of liberation and peace, giving a voice to the Global South, pushing back against Anglo-American colonialism, and leading us all into a brave new multipolar world.
In practice, however, it’s hard to see it as anything but the geopolitical version of what happens when a millionaire walks into a cool new club and takes out a fat roll of dollars.
In this case, of course, the millionaire is the Chinese economic miracle, the greatest reducer of mass poverty that the world has even seen. But this particular millionaire also comes with a drunk uncle called Vlad — a troublemaker, a burden, but still family — and if you want to stay near that sweet, sweet cash, you better not point out that Uncle Vlad is in the toilets, trying to break into a cigarette vending machine with a crowbar and hitting anyone who tells him to stop.
No, he who pays the piper calls the tune, and China’s tune is familiar and simple: what’s good for US-aligned goose is not necessarily good for the Brics gander.
For Ramaphosa, the cognitive dissonance of condemning one international crime while cosying up to the perpetrator of another isn’t hypocrisy: it’s just the price of admission.
And as for his new proxy relationship with North Korea, well, he can always try his standard response to pretty much everything: ignore it, pretend it goes away.
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