The decision by the US Secretary of State to declare RSA Ambassador to the US Ibrahim Rasool, a persona non grata, is unprecedented and consequential in USA-RSA relations. Given the post-Trump inauguration tensions between RSA and the Trump administration, South Africa faces one of its consequential post-1994 foreign policy challenges and conundrums. Compounding this is the pro-Palestine positions it has taken, which have had the most impactful outcomes on the Palestinian self-determination journey than almost all UN resolutions taken together.
It
would have been expected that the USA would react on behalf of Israel in a way
that sends a global message to all that seek to reverse Israeli territorial
gains in Palestine. While RSA relied on the global governance institutions
established to ensure that a rules-based international order prevails, the geopolitical
interests of superpowers have come through as the context of all contexts
about global peace and security.
What compounds the current US-RSA tensions is allegedly the deteriorating race relations in RSA, an instance of the need to deliver on the economic and social transformation promises in its 1996 Constitution. The racial polarisation that followed the passing of the BELA Act and the Expropriation Act, all happening in the context of a consolidating global economy with proper political orientation with the Trump administration assuming a nodal power point, has become consequential to US-RSA relations.
Without
vitiating Ambassador Rasool's freedoms of speech and conscience, the state of
the RSA-US relations should have dictated that all senior diplomats of RSA
needed to be circumspect in articulating their views on the unfolding saga. The
gravity of the situation necessitates a careful and strategic approach to
diplomatic communication. It should occur to all senior diplomats of the
Republic that the invoking of race relations to pivot non-black minorities as
'new victims' of an elaborate state-sponsored non-radicalisation program by the
Trump administration imposes heightened sensitivity to how RSA responds as a
democracy.
The
leadership of President Ramaphosa on this matter should have been the cue to all
whose offices they occupy, which are vectors of interpretations and reactions
amidst the growing poverty of reasons to characterise RSA as a race-based
democracy. The silence-yet-loud interventions by President Ramaphosa, most of
which avoid playing to any gallery, should be instructive on how those assigned
to be the face of RSA conduct themselves during this delicate process of
restoring the US-RSA relations. President Ramaphosa is establishing the
boundaries of the pending conversation with the US about the issues it has
raised for signing the Executive Order and pursuing the review of AGOA.
The
time for a focused and standard narrative to respond to this context has
arrived. The current US-RSA 'impasse' is profoundly multidimensional and not
linear. If our RSA national and economic interests are at the centre, the
balance of forces is not on our side. What we say, what we mean, what others
hear and how they feel about it afterwards will be key to how we are ultimately
being listened to. It is a fact that our posture and rhetoric have historically
been a non-west to anti-west one. The opposition complex of the ANC has, in the
past 30 years, been that of being pro-West. Hence, the Washington Memorandum declared that sections of the South African nation characterise themselves as a Western community on the Southern tip of
Africa.
What
is apparent in the Rasool matters is that the US Secretary of State made the
expulsion a personal matter. The Embassy has not been closed; the person who
occupied the position of Ambassador was expelled. As we react to the news, it
will be prudent to avoid trying to prove our correctness in the equation. The
pressure of the Trump executive order is accurate; it is now our reality; we
cannot afford to label ourselves and others within this reality in a way that
marginalises them or us from the opportunity to co-create exit platforms.
Under
the circumstances, we need to receive our ambassador back to the country, take
stock, and create a rapid process to establish a new fulcrum around which new
beginnings could flourish. For what is at stake for the country, we need to
pivot from erecting walls, particularly between the US, its allies, and RSA, to
construct bridges, from sowing discord to nurturing connections." Our
economy needs our pragmatic selves as a nation.
Whatever
way each diplomat or envoy of RSA perceives themselves, what is non-negotiable
is that their conduct is a critical window through which we are seen as a
society. The primary duty of a diplomat is to, as far as possible, show respect
to the choices of the host country. Understanding and interpreting the politics
of a host country is not just a task, but a responsibility that carries
significant weight. It requires much more than rhetoric etched in ideology,
belief, and any other context. It requires sensitivity to what is in your
country's National Interest and that of your host.
Diplomacy involves understanding the fundamentals of inter-state or multilateral interactions, developing a mindful approach [and] building adaptive skills and a repertoire of behaviours so that, as a diplomat, you are effective in different situations, including the ones you detest. Ambassador Rasool's utterances, which mainly analyzed the current state of affairs in the US and within Trump's immediate circle from a practitioner perspective, should be subjected to this test. Mindfulness about where RSA stands along the MAGA continuum, especially about being classified as a threat to US national security, should be factored in when US-specific decorum is renewed.
As
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