Imagine if John Steenhuisen, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, was arrested and jailed for criticising our ruling elite’s numerous failures and corruption. Imagine that he was dispatched to a brutal Robben Island-type prison, then died there in mysterious circumstances.
It does not have to be Steenhuisen. Imagine it was Julius Malema, the fiery leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters and a thorn in the side of our government. What would you say?
This is what happened to Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, anti-corruption activist and political prisoner. He died in prison on February 16 this year, at the young age of 47, under circumstances so suspicious no serious person outside the Kremlin takes the claim that he died of a blood clot seriously. Before he died, he was kept in solitary confinement for 295 days, deprived of phone calls and visits, and constantly and relentlessly punished for trivial violations.
In 2020 he had to be flown from Russia to Germany for treatment after he was poisoned with the nerve agent, Novichok. He later worked with investigative reporters and managed to trace the poisoning to Russia’s spy agency, the FSB.
Let’s imagine a bit more. Imagine if Jacob Zuma, in whose name the July 2021 riots that nearly brought down South Africa were undertaken, was to be killed while flying in a private jet over South Africa. This is what happened to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidant of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and leader of the state-sponsored mercenary outfit Wagner Group. He was bombed out of the sky in August 2023, just two months after he led a troop mutiny and said extremely disparaging things about how Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine was being conducted.
Navalny and Prigozhin remind us just what kind of country we are really talking about when we hear President Cyril Ramaphosa say that Russia is South Africa’s “friend and valued ally”. On Friday Ramaphosa declared: “They [Russia] are our best friend.”
While Ramaphosa was declaring South Africa’s friendship and alliance with Russia, it emerged that 3,000 North Korean troops had arrived in the western region of Russia in readiness to fight against Ukraine. South Africa said nothing about this war escalation.
I continue to be baffled by our government’s failure to understand that just because we have historical ties to a country, or that we need trade with such a country or grouping, does not mean we have to rush out to declare that we are allies or best friends with that country. South Africa needs the Brics grouping of countries, but we don’t have to be friends with all of them.
Remember that the grouping came about in 2001 after Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill released a study focusing on four rapidly growing emerging market countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The study was useful for analysing global trends and economic alliances. The formal Brics grouping of today grew out of this and we were right to jump on the bandwagon. We were nowhere near close to being seen as a rapidly growing economy under Zuma in the 2010s, but we could have been a contender under Mbeki when economic growth was decent.
There is no need to go to an economy-focused Brics meeting and try to be loved by declaring friendships. Brics is all about the money — unless it is hijacked. India and Brazil don’t pretend it is political. They go to Brics for economic reasons. South Africa could have stuck to the economic development script, like China and Turkey and others, and there would have been no issue.
No-one needed Ramaphosa to declare any love for Russia. Still, he stepped in any way and declared a friendship with an autocratic regime where opposition leaders die in prison, others get blown out of the sky, the media is gagged, and neighbours are invaded on a whim. Russia has been conducting a brutal war against Ukraine for more than two years now. We should condemn it.
Ramaphosa wants to tell us that Russia is historically an ally of the ANC. This is not true. Both countries were allies of the ANC. The USSR, of which Russia and Ukraine were part, was an ally of anti-apartheid forces. It does not exist any more. More ANC cadres were trained in the Ukraine part of the USSR than in Russia. Why choose to ignore Ukraine’s contribution while elevating Russia’s?
A few weeks ago, Ramaphosa was in China. He declared that South Africa endorses President Xi Jinping’s “one China policy”. We have no need to declare such a thing. It’s OK for us to have a fruitful economic relationship with China. There is no need to support their intention to invade Taiwan, or for us to bully Taiwan as we are now doing by trying to kick their trade mission out of Pretoria. Are we China’s minions now?
South Africa is now friends with autocratic countries such as Russia instead of sticking to a principled “non-aligned” stance. This path will end in tears.
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