Ramaphosa said: “If we want to build a South Africa that is an equal society, one that belongs to everyone in it, we must end discrimination and intolerance directed at people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” I was surprised when I exclaimed.
“We must resist the efforts of those who seek to set us back by expressing reactionary and hateful views directed at members of the LGBTQI+ community,” he said. Ta. His words drew cheers from the staunchly pro-African National Congress crowd wearing green and gold T-shirts and hats. He was preaching to the believers.
But I couldn’t help but think about how his words reached Ghana, 4,000 miles away. In Ghana, just a few weeks ago, parliament passed a harsh bill imposing harsh prison terms on anyone who identifies as gay or who “promotes” gay rights. The President of Ghana has not yet signed the bill.
Or Uganda last year, which passed the continent’s toughest anti-homosexuality law, signed by the president and backed by the courts, imposing life imprisonment for homosexual acts and death penalty for “aggravated sodomy.”
In Kenya, parliament is considering the Family Protection Bill, which would criminalize homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
South Africa legalized same-sex marriage in 2006 and is consistently cited as one of the most gay-friendly destinations on the unfriendly continent. The country also carries a certain moral weight in the world thanks to its long liberation struggle against the abhorrent apartheid regime.
But why does South Africa remain silent in public even as its African neighbors pass a growing number of horrific anti-gay laws?
This is not the only mystery surrounding South Africa’s foreign policy.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are the country’s major investors and major trading partners. However, South Africa appears to have much more cordial relations with economically light Russia.
South Africa has used its moral authority to take Israel to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice over the Gaza war, which South African diplomats say amounts to genocide. However, there has been little condemnation of Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which has left tens of thousands of casualties on both sides and bombed Ukrainian cities.
South Africa is one of the most stable democracies on the African continent, but it seems to be most at home in the BRICS group, which includes democracies India and Brazil as well as Russia and China (growing trading partners). is. China has made no secret of its ambitions to use the BRICS group to challenge what it considers the global hegemony of the United States and the West.
Which side is South Africa on?
The answer, like most things here, is rooted in this country’s long anti-apartheid struggle.
It was after the Sharpeville massacre that the ANC embraced armed struggle and established its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. At the time, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and Britain recognized the ANC as a pro-communist terrorist organization. (The ANC was, inexplicably, on the US terrorist list until April 2008.) Official US policy was “constructive engagement” with the apartheid regime.
The ANC, shunned by the West, received support from Muammar Gaddafi’s Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Libya, and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The ANC’s leadership includes many committed people in its liberation struggle. Old soldiers recall fighting in the Angolan bush alongside Cuban mercenaries armed with Russian weapons against U.S.-backed anti-communist UNITA fighters.
ANC members still maintain close ties with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party and the Chinese Communist Party, including sending ANC members to Russia and China for “interparty diplomacy” and fully funded training sessions. There is.
The ANC also received support from other African countries, as South Africa became the continent’s last stand against white colonial rule. After liberation, the country held its first all-race democratic elections in 1994, and its leaders were reluctant to openly criticize their African neighbors. Even in nearby countries like Zimbabwe, which was then ruled by corrupt dictator Robert Mugabe.
South Africa does not want to be seen as the continent’s “big brother” for human rights. The group attempted this in 1994, when President Nelson Mandela secretly begged Nigeria’s military dictator Sani Abacha to spare the life of Niger Delta environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Mandela was humiliated when Saro-Wiwa was executed in New Zealand in 1995 on the opening day of the Commonwealth Parliament. When South Africa was isolated by trying to get Nigeria sanctioned by the African Union, it largely retreated from its role as the continent’s voice of moral authority.
South Africa needs Western countries for investment and trade. But the ANC remembers its oldest friends in the liberation movement. The resulting tensions have made South Africa’s foreign policy seem at times inexplicable. As the world becomes increasingly polarized between democracies and dictatorships, maintaining tensions may become difficult. “South Africa’s foreign policy feels incompatible with domestic democracy,” said Branko Brkic, editor of the Daily Maverick newspaper.
Several foreign policy analysts I spoke to said South Africa also suffers from communication problems. South African diplomats should always adequately explain the rationale behind their policies and consider how certain actions may be received, as they did when trying to maintain non-alignment in the Ukraine war. It’s not like I’m doing anything. “It is open to criticism,” said Philani Mthembu, executive director of the Institute for Global Dialogue think tank. “South Africa needs to get better at anticipating the reactions of its partners.”
There are lessons for the United States as well. This means that foreign policy decisions will be remembered for a long time.It’s much better to be on the side of those who are fighting. for We should protect democracy rather than support dictators and tyrants who seek to prevent it.
