A search of South African government websites for an expression of sympathy on the weekend assassination of six civilian hostages, who were killed by Hamas under the tunnels of Rafah in Gaza, yields a nil return.
Cogent explanations for the dearth of empathy – or its partial application – must go beyond the normal claims of “whataboutism”.
In the 1960s, French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss observed that: “For the majority of human societies, and for tens of thousands of years, the idea that humanity includes every human being on the face of the earth does not exist at all. The designation stops at the borders of each tribe or linguistic group, sometimes at the edge of each village.”
In theory, since 1994, South Africa has, in its projection to the world, aimed at a far more expansive, generous and universal idea of foreign policy founded on the principle of “Ubuntu”. This foundation would inform the quest for no less than the creation of a “better Africa and a better world”.
Abusers continue worldwide unnoticed
In earthier terms, last week, Bret Stephens penned a column in the New York Times headlined Can we be a Little Less Selective with our Moral Outrage? He pointed to the loud demands for a ceasefire in Gaza (incidentally echoed by many citizens in Israel who are entirely free to dissent from the government line there). Ranged against this “one cause consuming so much of the world’s energies” was the “blanket of silence” that comforted “some of the world’s worst abusers”, allowing them, from China to Venezuela, Iran and Russia to “proceed largely unnoticed and unhindered”.
That South Africa has not noticed or hindered any of these predatory rulers and abusers has evinced much comment before and needs no further interrogation here.
However, also on the checklist of Stephens – and many other influential commentators – is the inaction directly in South Africa’s sphere of direct influence and power to effect change in Africa.
Stephens critiques American policymakers saying:
Levi-Strauss’ view that “humanity stops at the borders of each tribe” might explain America’s inattention to the crises in Africa. What, though, is our excuse and explanation?
Pretoria’s moral mindedness and expenditure of most of its attention and precious resources on Gaza is on a place where we have little influence and limited reach. “Black lives matter”should not be a slogan dejure on American campuses. Rather it is meant to be a foundation stone of our foreign policy. But in our own foreign policy backyard, again you will search in vain for a single coherent action step or useful idea for addressing the dire and deathly situation in either Sudan or Ethiopia.
Ethiopia’s assault on the Tigrayans has caused an estimated 600 000 deaths, and Sudan this week catapulted to world attention with The Economist, for example, headlining its “catastrophic war” as “the worlds’ problem”.
There will be no university council resolutions here to demand action for a situation where “1 500 000 people have been slaughtered, 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes … and a famine looms that, on some estimates, could see 2.5 million people die by the end of the year”.
Given that South Africa has a prime influence on the continent and prioritises Africa as key to its demands for representation on global platforms and foundational to foreign policy, a search for either a statement or step beyond boilerplate banalities yields little.
It is true that, in January, President Cyril Ramaphosa extraordinarily provided presidential facetime and pomp in Pretoria for one of the belligerents embroiled in Sudan’s dreadful purge of its population. He met with Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader General Mohamed Dagalo in pursuit of “peace efforts”.
There’s been no sign of that since and – according to a report from the credible Alex de Waal, an Africa expert at the World Peace Foundation of Tufts University – Ramaphosa’s guest has taken an interesting approach to both peacemaking and his own citizens.
“The RSF militiamen, atop Toyota land cruisers, are mobile and ruthless. They rampaged through Khartoum’s [Sudan’s capital] residential neighbourhoods, stripping them of everything that could be stolen and vandalising much of what remained.
“They [RSF militias] lived down to their notorious reputation for rape, pillage and murder. In western Darfur, the RSF and its tribal allies stand accused of genocidal slaughter of the local Masalit people,” De Waal writes.
While South Africa and Ramaphosa have been in the front rank of countries calling out what they term “Israel’s genocide” in Gaza, the eerie silence and inattention to a catastrophe on an unfathomably larger scale, much closer to home, in our direct sphere of influence presents a stunning contrast.
And perhaps on par with the implications spilling out of Gaza, the Sudan crisis is not confined to its own borders, horrifying as the scenes there or carnage and displacement might be. Sudan, in the words of The Economist, is a “chaos machine”. Its war sucks in malign forces from the surrounding region then spews out instability which, unless the conflict is checked, will only get worse.
Consequences of Sudan’s collapse for the region
Empathy with the deep suffering of the benighted Sudanese is one reason for Ubuntu there. But in geostrategic and African terms, the arc is much wider.
As the same report notes, “the collapse of Sudan – at the intersection of Africa and the Middle East, with seven fragile neighbours and some 800km of coast on the turbulent Red Sea, has alarming geopolitical consequences too”.
A great deal of South Africa’s policy on Africa is subcontracted to various organs of the Africa Union and its regional bodies, on which entity this country expends much time and treasure. In this regard, Kenyan academic Ken Opalo offered a recent and damning indictment: “The failures of these institutions are on African political leaders and diplomats – arguably the most complacent elites in the world.”
It’s time, perhaps, to end the complacency, stir some action and help bring peace and justice to our own region. Only then will the foundational claim of “a better Africa and a better world” begin to chime with some credibility. Not whatabout, but a case of “must-do”.
