South Africa:- A foreign policy quicksand in the heart of Africa

How do you measure South Africa in foreign policy terms?

I do not offer here an analysis but a common sense view. And it is commonsensical not because I have no access to South African foreign policy but because I believe that that is what it should be and that is what many people would want it to be and believe it should be.

To answer the above question, one has to start at the beginning, and that beginning is looking at South Africa as an applier of foreign policy, as the 'new' State established in 1994. In other words, what State did South Africa become in 1994?

You felt it immediately – the creeping weakness – because it was 'feelable'. Initially, I thought it might be because of South Africa's loss of 'nuclear status' or the removal of the aggressive militarism of its apartheid past but, it soon became clear that both these were not the real reasons for South Africa's loss of political lustre. Today, the true reasons are obvious.

From inception, South Africa started weak because it seems to have embraced weakness as political virtue. Mandela was politically pampered into politically disarming South Africa as a major political player in the world. But that is only part of the reason.

The reasons came largely in two forms. Firstly, South Africa has struggled with defining itself internally politically, whether it is about freedom or concentration of power. It has chosen the latter. Secondly, externally, and in relation to Africa in general South Africa has failed to define itself, whether it wants leadership of or solidarity with Africa. Incredibly, it has chosen the latter.

These two bad political choices have had the effect of pulling South Africa down rather than having South Africa provide leadership and pulling the rest of Africa up. It all started with the largely politically naïve Nelson Mandela (understandable for many reasons) and accelerated under Thabo Mbeki. Under Mbeki South Africa as a State took the character of a Students Union. And under the deliberative Jacob Zuma South Africa as a State has felt like a management team doing right everything it should be doing right; South Africa feels like a large and safe bureaucracy.

Unsurprisingly therefore, as a weak State South Africa could only have or could only pursue a weak foreign policy.

And the greatest source of South Africa's foreign policy inadequacies is not even far; it is right next door, in Zimbabwe. South Africa's foreign policy failure in Zimbabwe is the result of either a poorly constructed foreign policy or a failure to identify the violation of its policy by Zimbabwe when it happened. Zimbabwe is the single country that has inflicted the severest damage on South African foreign policy and helped diminish South Africa's standing in world politics. Those who concluded way back in 1994 that Blacks were not responsible enough to rule a nuclear-ready South Africa or sufficiently prepared for the true levers of power, now appear to stand vindicated.

How was it ever possible to handle politically the Zimbabwe situation the way Mbeki handled it? And how is it possible to handle it the way it is being handled now – with South Africa just extending a portion of its foreign department's bureaucracy merely to 'bookkeep' Zimbabwe's truly obscene behaviour?

Yet Zimbabwe's behaviour, internally, and in the region generally, is the very anti-thesis of everything that South Africa had fought for, and even Zimbabwe itself. A serious South African foreign policy has long dictated that Zimbabwe's antics be nipped in the bud, and should have been nipped in the bud way back in 1994. Instead, South Africa has allowed the political boil to fester. Internally, and as a State, and despite all the external appearances, Zimbabwe is imploding. Externally, its contagion now reflects in the internal political dynamics of South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and further afield, as far as Kenya. Inside South Africa, the point is not that South Africa (or the ANC) has 'dealt' with the internal manifestations of Zimbabwe inside South Africa – just as Malema - but it is what South Africa has allowed to take route through those manifestations and via the agency of Zimbabwe.

What makes it worse is that Southern Africa and Africa in general do not have the mechanisms to deal with these negative dynamics when they break into the open. Africa's mechanisms – SADC and AU included - are largely mechanisms for States protection and self-interest, not people-oriented. Look at Africa's embarrassing failures in Darfur, Mali, Libya, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and the re-emerging Mozambique! South Africa's foreign policy failures are at the heart these gathering political clouds. America – as leader of the world – takes such criticisms and seriously and takes action – proactive and reactive – to get its capacity as leader of the world right. South Africa – as regional leader – is woefully absent, however you may wish to measure its presence.

South Africa's only 'success' in relation to Zimbabwe only comes indirectly, via Libya.

In Libya, South Africa got it right in supporting the UN resolution. Aside of the West and America's quarrels with Maummar Gaddaffi, the Gaddaffi regime had to go in African terms. Since the fall of Gaddaffi, President Mugabe's tail next door – and those of others like him - has been visibly cut to size in spite of all the public posturing of 'business as usual' we see. An alive South Africa would have tried to build on the momentum of the Libyan experience to advance Africa. Instead, we are seeing – once again – South Africa either on the retreat or 'in solidarity' with Africa again as the voices of reaction – from the usual suspects – launch a political attack on progress under cover of attacking the ICC. Even during the Libya experience, South African foreign policy on progress began to wobble and buckle. Today, it is hardly audible even as a faint whisper!

Aside of Zimbabwe, and more contemporaneously, we see South Africa playing a flawed foreign policy of a global player that it neither needs, can afford, or is. We see this in the rather comical 'new' club called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa). This is a club that is still stuck in the old economics measured by GDP when everywhere else the measurement has shifted to what may be termed 'happiness'. BRICS is grotesque as both a concept and a forum because if you want to see what is called visible abject poverty in the world you have to go to all of those counties that call themselves BRICS. And the 21st century who needs another mickey-mouse outfit of third-worlders mirroring that pointless thingy once called NAM? And what is South Africa in foreign policy perspectives doing in the same group as China and Russia?

This 'copy and paste' foreign policy of seeing countries and people as 'markets' – hence this Tower of Babel called BRICS – is a misreading of the basis of foreign policy as practised by the US and Western Europe through several well-known international institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, G7 and others. Those are serious groupings of serious countries who transact serious business. They are not political mouthing offs such as BRICS and NAM. It would be deeply regrettable – if informed by this faulty foreign policy premise – if South Africa's caressing politics over Zimbabwe is now seen through the prism of diamonds and farms – so-called South African 'interests' in Zimbabwe.

All those international organizations that the US and Western Europe dominate have serious origins that addressed serious political and economic issues. For one, they reconstructed Europe after World War 2, and for another, they have helped politically stabilize Europe and prevent war for all this long. But these are things take for granted now because we know them so well, but they were 'novel', revolutionary and untried ideas for their time. The BRICS attempt to cut and paste from the now – and for the wrong reasons for that matter – will never get BRICS anywhere, and South Africa must pull out of that 'ego club' to nowhere. The US and Western Europe's backyards are by and large secure. South Africa on the other hand sits in the heart of a continent and sub-continent that is variegated with earthquake crevices while South Africa plays 'imperial'. And where does one start to speak of China and Russia in these terms, even India? Brazil is not far off from all these either.

South Africa's poor foreign policy constructed in these terms has just been exposed in the Central African Republic (CAR). It is now in humiliating retreat, and amid allegations that it lost, not 13 soldiers but nearly 50. It is now deploying in the DRC again, apparently under the same faulty foreign policy premise. In the DRC there are big actors with big interests; the political intrigues and political stakes are even higher. Time will tell how South Africa fairs this time. But South Africa's misadventure in the CAR must be a wake-up call that it is simply an illusion that South Africa can send troops to other African countries to secure 'deals' or to secure South African 'interests' or 'friendly' dictatorships. That premise is not African and it is simply not South Africa.

Fosho, as South Africans will say (for sure), South Africa's foreign policy in Africa must focus on the mundane things because that is what the stage of the continent demands. As a start, South Africa must put its army (and police) on a rigorous slimming regime. This by the way is no small foreign policy point. An army in foreign lands is a country's ambassador in uniform and a 'window' to that country. South Africa's leadership must be to re-organize and stabilize Africa politically, and South Africa knows that that is not the same as imposing or playing big-headed!

As playing out in regional, continental and international organizations, South Africa's foreign policy is a disaster. Bilaterally, it is difficult to judge but it can be surmised that its foreign policy is 'run of the mill' and not impressive.

SADC, in which South Africa is rooted, is a joke, as is the continental AU. Both are so in such a way that there is nothing of political significance one can say about them except acknowledge them as regional and continental bureaucracies. Ironically, after the fall of the Gaddaffi regime they are largely penniless, but the Libyan war opened up a door into a Libya the outside world never knew, a country of grinding poverty and other social ills while Gaddaffi doled out millions to 'friends' and organizations in Africa. Gaddaffi money was thus as bad for Africa as China money and 'investment' is for Africa today.

So neither SADC nor AU are fit for purpose, and this at a time when Africa's political problems continue to cry for a functioning and living framework with which to resolve these problems.

Within the UN, South Africa's call for an African chair in the Security Council - a legitimate call and a chair it should have long assumed - is stymied by poor choices on the diplomatic and political fronts, choices that already play out outside of the UN chambers through things like BRICS, Maoist suits, ludicrous embraces with evil dictators like Mugabe, and bad foreign policy statements that sound like echoes from the 1960s or 1970s.

The swathe of Africa – including South Africa – is an embarrassing wasteland of hunger and disease, poverty, HIV and aids, war, gun-men within States and gun-men roaming the countryside, etc. Africa even installs as presidents ICC-indictees! Africa is surviving largely on the sympathy of the US and Western Europe! The world over it feels hugely embarrassing to be (Black) African. How else can it be when anywhere you land as a Black African in the world Black Africans are at the bottom of the world packing order? And can you blame the world when the world sees – as it should rightly - images red/yellow of burnt buttocks, barbequed victims of Mugabe and his thugs, while South Africa – with ALL the power to stop it – continues the politicking of Mbeki via different means?

We may all hate former colonisers and 'imperialists' but there is a lot of 'good' they have done to make this world a better world, among which is the ICC, from who South Africa appears to be retreating following the howl from Africa's shameful dictators. And when South Africa - Africa's supposed leader – shake hands and goes into shoulder embraces with all these shamed dictators, what political message is South Africa sending to the serious world out there? Should it surprise South Africa if its foreign policy is now taken – politely – as just 'Africa's position' even where its voice must come as the voice of a leader?

It should be fairly obvious from this short article that South Africa's foreign policy failures largely emanate from a failure to appreciate that ultimately foreign policy is a function of internal policy. South Africa's failure to build a strong State reflects in its bad and weak foreign policy, and South Africa's own huge internal contradictions and tensions are mirrored in South Africa's rather dilute, if tentative and incongruent, foreign policy.

South Africa's principal internal failures that reflect in its foreign policy are economic inequality and lack of personal security. The latter translates into political instability anchored in crime. Both of course are sources of serious political instability.

What should South Africa do to recast its foreign policy?

Again, the suggestions are commonsensical.

Firstly, South Africa must define, in foreign policy terms, what is right, acceptable, and good and separate it from what is wrong, unacceptable and bad, and stand by it. But, as shown above, it starts with the internal. South Africa must deconstruct and reconstruct it as police force fit for purpose, a force that will root out crime and insecurity, corruption and organized crime. In economic terms, South Africa must also deconstruct the bad mentality – so evident and accepted by many Black South Africans - that there can be and should be a class of the sticking rich – into which all Black South Africans want to just belong - and a class of the poor into which everybody else who can't belong to the stinking rich must be condemned. There is a middle path which is not reflected either in the conduct of government or the behaviour of its citizens. The mentality seems to remain that this middle space is impossible.

Secondly, South Africa needs to accept leadership, and play it! South Africa has the base to pull the rest of Africa up. South Africa must stop being apologetic for being rich and powerful! Both are presently going to complete waste.

Thirdly, South Africa needs to deconstruct its political language and move away from the language of 'cadres', 'deploying', 'power', 'nationalisation' (even if it is to deny it), 'revolution', 'liberation' etc and start using language that reflects the gestation of a new era of economic equality, welfare and satisfaction, 'respect', 'common sense', security, and also steer away from the over-usage of the language of 'rights'. As legal constructs, 'rights' will always be too narrow; South African needs to and must go further than 'rights'. Such a 'new' language must show that South Africa is tapping into and from an international outlook while at the same time ensuring that its internal language is also positively influencing an international outlook that South Africa has contributed in building.

Fourthly, South Africa needs to stop its harp-hazard immigration and put in place a good immigration framework based on fairness, that is open and accountable and has institutions and processes that apply and enforce it equally. At the moment South Africa is a typical African 'border post' with all the security implications. Such an immigration policy will also help South Africa must clean up its passport and help remove the embarrassment placed on its citizens by the various visa regimes. At the same time South Africa will be able to 'export' good South Africans as its 'goodwill' ambassadors. Even after 20 years of independence South Africans remain painfully 'untravelled', both inside and outside South Africa. For now, South Africa is absent 'out there' in any positive sense, yet it abounds in all its wrong perceptions and dimensions. Immigration and citizenship are part of the overall foreign policy mix.

South Africa also has a vast pool of resources, human and material, that help recast South Africa in the world from what it has become since independence. A responsible, positive and dynamic foreign policy could be helpful in this regard as it enables South Africa and South Africans to engage on the world stage on equal terms. And in its musical talent, which even the US stands in respectful awe of, South Africa has a political asset that it can utilize in promoting this new South African foreign policy initiative.

Finally, South Africa has a rare quality in President Jacob Zuma which it is unlikely to have for a very long time. President Zuma's charm is a political assert that has always made the likes of Zimbabwe (and undoubtedly, now Zambia) look like the political morgues they are.

South Africa must deploy President Zuma's charm to help re-align South Africa and South Africans mentally, afresh. Charm is exactly a critical political ingredient for such 'radical' re-organization and re-alignment of South African politics. Such re-organization and re-alignment can never be achieved under a 'cold' and 'wooden' leader, such as South Africa had under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. And another big assert President Zuma brings is his pragmatism and his freedom from the suffocating ideological straightjacket of the Mbeki presidency. But President Zuma must up his game and wear the leadership crown with confidence. I share Professor Pityana's recent views that there is nothing called collective leadership. Leadership is the leader and Zuma must provide it, not just for South Africa but for Africa as a whole.

Around such a renewed and reconstructed South Africa, South Africa can construct a serious foreign policy that is taken seriously by a serious world and move away from the present 'run-of-the-mill', 'just-keep-doing-the-right-thing' and 'we-are-the-clerk-of-international-diplomacy' foreign that we presently see. Such a foreign policy should see the disbanding of SADC and the AU as we know them, and lead to the reconstruction of white elephants such as NEPAD and the African Parliament as people-institutions rather than the GONGOs (Governmental Non-Governmental Organizations) they all presently are.

Meantime, as before, the true measure of South Africa's foreign policy – Zimbabwe – gallops towards another round of disaster and South Africa is accompanying it there, and with all the economic and political implications for South Africa and the region as a whole! And why is a 90-year old president – seeking 're-election' – not a foreign policy issue for South Africa? In contrast, Nigeria (despite its own internal political problems) provides true and demonstrable leadership in ECOWAS (within its limitations), much as America provides it for the world. Indeed, this political disapproval of the political shenanigans of the geriatric next door should not translate to support or approval of the equally objectionable Morgan Tsvangirai. There are many interim in-betweens that should help Zimbabwe remove the very foundation of disaster on which it is built, which go back to its founding.

And while this disaster unfolds again, where is South Africa's leadership?

Until South Africa crawls out of its 'facilitator' cocoon – itself a political suit it has been lent by those that matter - and provide leadership, its foreign policy shall remain that of a number, not a maker, and it can thank Zimbabwe for pulling it down that foreign policy quicksand!

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Martin Mlevu can be contacted at mmlevu@yahoo.co.uk