Al-Qalam 
CAN SA’S REVIVED STATECRAFT BIRTH A MULTI-LATERAL WORLD?
By Ebrahim Rasool
Having explored through various columns in Al-Qalam over the past few months the idea of how strategy and statecraft play themselves out in the Muslim imagination, and more recently what influence such concepts would have on the Palestinian struggle, the occasion of South Africa’s thirtieth anniversary of freedom, may be a useful opportunity to reflect on how South Africa itself has been faithful to its ideals. That question emerged strongly as we approached Freedom Day because South Africa’s strategic intervention at the International Court of Justice has certainly had a marked impact on turning the Israeli and Western narrative on its head, and has certainly created the strategic conditions for the growing global protests ever against Israel.
But as South Africa prepares for a watershed election and reviews 30 years of freedom, democracy and human rights, South Africans may be forgiven for experiencing these with cynicism, disappointment and even disillusionment. It may even – as it has in certain sectors of society – cause South Africans to second guess the very nature and motive of our transition from apartheid to democracy. This may even, despite the proof of veracity of our strategic genius in the Palestinian case, make us doubt that genius in our own transition 30 years ago. This is quite understandable.
It is understandable because 30 years can be marred by the many shortcomings and acts of venality that particularly emanated from the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Most telling would be the decade in which instances and symptoms of corruption became a syndrome of almost endemic state capture. In these instances there were moments when the rule of law was applied decisively (Boesak, Yengeni, Shaik), while there were other moments of blowback from a ruling party refusing to sacrifice a leader (Deputy President Jacob Zuma) charged with rape and found to be in a generally corrupt relationship with Shaik, and punishing those who sought to disengage the ANC from such leadership. Then there were recent moments in which the ANC had the Zondo Report but, like Hamlet, dithered about whether to carry out its moral responsibility or prioritise party unity, invoking legalisms rather than ethicality in choosing the latter.
I raise this as the very visible elephant in the room that has had significant economic costs to our country. But it also had enormous intangible costs: it blighted our transition, globally cited as a beacon of human achievement, and retrospectively conferred on that remarkable process the label of sell-out or connivance; secondly this elephant of corruption came at a cost of belief in non-racialism as black minorities fled the ANC and went directly to bolster those who needed to protect or regain their apartheid privileges; and finally, the era of corruption put white supremacy on steroids because such white people could deflect from their legacy of apartheid inequality and blame every shortcoming in services, energy, unemployment on corruption, and subliminally, evoke the trope of black rule as inevitably ending in failure.
Indeed corruption has cost the country enormously. The particular venality of the Zuma era was so pervasive that it affected every aspect of our pride in our nation whether through the effluent on our beaches or the shortage of energy to power our economy. And the Hamlet-syndrome of our current leadership has meant that the honest work to renew and restore our country is lost in the machinations of the state and party – we even believe that a month of continuous energy must be a trick. The erosion of trust is sad.
Yet, are we to relinquish all hope that a country that introduced the world to a new language of statecraft – transitional and restorative justice, sunset clauses, truth and reconciliation, enforced coalition government, etc – that such a country will refuse to enter the realm of the failed state? A few privileged amongst us will have the means to leave and relocate. Sixty million have no option. Therefore, those of us – idealists, the naïve, those who invested blood, sweat and tears in the transition – who have a modicum of skill and commitment have no choice but to fight with a double-edged sword – internally to rid the state and party of venality, and in society to fulfil the promise of liberation.
The good news in our current context is that South Africa has received a massive vote of confidence from the victims in Gaza, the citizens of Palestine, the global Muslim Ummah and the freedom-loving people of the world. While all of them believe South Africa gave a gift to Palestinians at the ICJ, the truth is that the Palestinians gave South Africa a gift: they showed us our original purity again, our true north, and restored our moral compass. This intervention at the ICJ was not a cheap stunt. Over 200 US Congress Members are seeking ways to punish South Africa with trade and other measures. Doing the right thing often elicits sacrifice, and that’s what our freedom was built on.
So amidst the gloom of disappointment in our leaders, we face the Islamic jurisprudential conundrum: what is the lesser of two wrongs? A party in full support of the Zionist project or one that opposes it, even if in a state of weakness? To complicate the choice amongst the latter, the further conundrum is that avoiding harm has priority over gaining good. It may be good to support those of pure appearance, but avoiding harm for the Palestinians may require different choices.
Amidst the gloom of disappointment, South Africa needs to continue its efforts to birth a multi-lateral world, which is clearly a threat to those who have been the sole superpower since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The problem is that the USA confused its unipolar position with unilateralism – the propensity to do what it wants. South Africa’s hosting of the BRICS summit and the expansion of BRICS by 5 new members seem to be the beginning of this multilateralism that may rebalance the world. Already BRICS has roughly 40% of the world population, 30% of global GDP, and 60% of energy resources. It remains for now a conglomerate of emerging markets, but the west certainly is anxious of talks about de-dollarisation, an alternative to the World Bank, and the reform of the UN.
It may just be that out of the dark night of state capture, with the help of the Palestinians, South Africa may have recovered its true north, regained its sense of strategic statecraft, and after the amputations of the purveyors of corruption, South Africa may well lead the world into the hope of multilateralism.
