Demarche to Dirco: ANC recipe for diplomatic decline

It’s a stretch to use words and phrases such as “thoughtful” or “long-term strategy” or even “principled consistency” to describe our foreign ministry.

Even though in 2009 it got an inflated and rebranded title, Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco). Plain old DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) was ditched for Dirco.

At the time, a Dirco insider cynically observed that a more accurate rendition of this name change would be “Department of International Rumours and non-Cooperation”.

The local obsession with renaming places, towns and cities without fixing the less superficial stuff that really matters to residents of rebranded places (such as electricity and water supply, filling potholes and maintaining safe buildings), was externalised. Thus, the switch from DFA to Dirco.

It would be both accurate and churlish to note that before the rebranding exercise – from 1994 to 2009 – South Africa’s standing in the world, then navigated by plain old DFA, stood higher than it does today.

Of course, it was a very different world then, led by the likes of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Deng Xiaoping/Jiang Zemin and Manmohan Singh.

Here at home, the “negotiated miracle” of 1994 and the presidency of Nelson Mandela saw airlifts of such foreign leaders deplane in Pretoria and Cape Town. No need for local taxpayers to fund jamborees such as the 2025 G20 to bring the world to SA. Back then they paid their own way to beam in the Mandela aura.

Thabo Mbeki’s presidency was less storied and offered a mixed balance sheet in projecting SA into the world. On the credit side, there was the vision of the “African Renaissance” and the reform of continental institutions such as the African Union (AU). On the debit side, there was the country’s complicity in the destruction of democracy in Zimbabwe and the purge of respectable science and its replacement with fringe (and worse) theories and treatments for HIV/AIDS. Of course, this virus and its treatment were issues of huge international significance.

Even though both the president and the foreign minister (Dr ND Zuma) were the co-architects of both bolstering the gangsterism of Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF next door and of AIDS denialism at home, the role and place of South Africa was still far more assured in the world than it is now.

In July 2003, Republican President George W Bush followed Democrat Clinton on a presidential visit here (no Trumpian boycotts back then) and, despite very different views of the destruction in neighbouring Zimbabwe and its causes, advised a lunch of dignitaries in Pretoria: “Thabo is the point man on Zimbabwe.”

Canadian PM Mark Carney in his recent Davos speech to the World Economic Forum reminded us that “nostalgia is not a strategy”. Though there is something enduring in one ancient observation. Over two millennia ago the classical statesman Demosthenes wrote of the diplomatic function: “In important transactions opportunities are fleeting; once they are missed, they cannot be recovered.”

And indeed, a lot of the architecture envisioned back then, from an effective and fit-for-purpose AU to NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development), had weak foundations. It withered on the vine of neglect and was undermined by those who preferred, as most continental leaders do, to endorse the rule of strong men rather than to apply the rule of law.

Despite the “shadowland” that fell between idea and reality and a lot of contradictions and some good old-fashioned hypocrisy, SA foreign policy, essentially driven and directed by the presidency and not the line function department, was more mainstream than fringe. It helped too that economic growth at home, investment grade credit ratings and admirable levels of state borrowing, coupled with a slew of bilateral trade investment treaties, bolstered the country’s credentials as a signed-up member in the front rank of emerging economies.

True to such status the country navigated between that achievement along with another competing impulse. Carney’s warning that nostalgia is non-strategic was ignored when rewarding support for “the struggle against apartheid”. This placed SA alongside some very serious violators of the very principles of international law and democratic deepening that the country also claimed to uphold.

In Mandela-Mbeki years this mattered far less in a world that, however imperfectly or fitfully, navigated according to a compass fashioned by international intuitions enjoying broad legitimacy and support from the key global players. SA conducted itself as a player on this terrain. Much of Jacob Zuma’s presidency before state capture revealed itself continued this projection.

But that compass has in today’s world of “rupture” been thrown overboard, yet SA today (or the government at least) still demands it be reclaimed while simultaneously undermining its key tenets.

On this basis, SA proclaims theoretical respect for “sovereignty” and opposition to the use of force in international disputes, but gives a free pass when it comes to calling out Russia’s violation of both in Ukraine. Loud cries for human rights in Gaza fall silent in the killing fields of Iran. Two examples from a long and depressing list.

Amazing then to recall from the vantage point of today, that in 2004, just after Bush sprinkled affirmation on Mbeki, the SA president launched his “Spier Initiative” (named after a wine estate). This intended to apply – in “the spirit of dialogue” – lessons from SA’s transition from apartheid to democracy and apply these to the enduring Israel- Palestine conflict.

No two conflicts are ever the same, though conflict resolution is often fashioned from the same toolbox. So, in the spirit of “dialogue” back then, the SA presidency hosted both sides for talks – Israel and the Palestinian Authority, though resolutely excluded Hamas from an attempt to export local history to the Middle East. One conflict with two sides and two histories was the basic idea.

Mbeki was hardly alone in failing to advance a peace process. Far bigger players at higher levels from President Bill Clinton, PM Tony Blair to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan tried and fell short. But Spier indicated the SA road map that recognised a two-state solution meant engaging with two sides.

Last weekend in Pretoria, we were given, via Dirco, the new direction of travel: it is a monologue, and one side will henceforth be shut out and shut down completely.

The extraordinary expulsion of Israeli charge de affaires Ariel Seidman for his “insulting attacks” on President Ramaphosa was described by the department as “decisive”.

The affronting remarks were indeed undiplomatic and certainly deserved a response from Dirco. Though on the menu of diplomatic options of choice – ranging from rebuke, demarche, downgrades to “consultations”, Dirco chose an extreme option. Very likely, and soon it will go the full nuclear and sever diplomatic relations entirely. (Precisely the demand of the ANC which, far more than the GNU for example, largely directs foreign policy.)

Three issues to conclude this latest gesture at the hands of a department that seems to offer impulse and grievance in substitution of long-term, strategic consideration.

First, Dirco (or whoever determines policy these days) forgot the lesson of blowback. Its anger at Israel’s tit for tat expulsion of SA’s top diplomat in Palestine suggests Pretoria didn’t anticipate the Israeli response. It also means that now our country has limited presence and no major channel to help Palestinians or even monitor events there, apparently a top departmental priority.

Second, the “decisive” measure taken against Israel is a study in contrast with the mute passivity of SA’s reaction when (also for “insulting the president”) the US expelled Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from Washington early last year. Then the response was both restrained and procedural.

In truth, SA’s uber hostility to Israel and its meekness toward the US might indicate an assessment of the different power of each and the ability (or inability) of either country to inflict real harm on us. Though Israel and the US are the closest of allies so such differentiation might prove unavailing.

The arrival here of MAGA flamethrower, new US Ambassador L. Brent Bozzell III, could also add a new combustible element. But at least the US has got round to sending an emissary. Dirco and the presidency have managed over the last eleven months to not find an ambassador for perhaps the most important diplomatic posting in the world.  Ditto China.

Third, while Dirco has focused on Israel with intended and unintended results, the ANC has been applying its mind to the wider world.

Its secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, told reporters this week that there was now a “cold war” between SA and the US and that this country was “under attack”.

The party also decided to heat things up in this regard. It called on the “progressive forces of the Global South” to join the party in “solidarity against imperialist and colonialist aggression”. In this case it was the US blockade of Cuba. The week before it was to protest the removal of the dictator Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela.

The media spokesman cited on the statement Mangaliso Khonza thoughtfully also provided his nickname “Stalin”. So, if any doubt on the new cold war cited, you know which side we are on.

Gesture politics and fringe theatrics are one thing however self-harming and impulse driven. But international relations are not student political theatre.

Restoring South Africa’s place in a fractured world increasingly complex to navigate requires a little more.