Bridging foreign policy divide

In his book: When Foreign Policy Becomes Domestic, African Peer Review Continental Secretariat chief executive officer Eddy Maloka proffers a critique to the National Development Plan’s (NDP) appraisal of South Africa in the international arena.

The specific chapter of the NDP which exercised Maloka makes comments on South Africa’s foreign policy and offers suggestions on what its priorities should be. For example, it claims that at the time of the NDP’s drafting in 2012, some in the southern African region, held a “perception that South Africa is acting as a bully, a self-interested hegemon that acts in bad faith among neighbouring countries”.

The perception resulted in diminished “support in the region than [was the case] in the period immediately after 1994 when the country held pride of place among world leaders”.

For the NDP, the remedy to our real or perceived diminished role was that: “The key is to make foreign relations and multiple transnational affiliations work better for South Africans first.”

Furthermore, “despite playing a key role in peace settlements on the continent, South Africa has gained little by way of expanded trade and investment opportunities.”

The irony of the position that a perceived self-interested hegemon – which allegedly acts in bad faith among neighbouring countries – should officially assume what would amount to a profit-driven foreign policy, seems to have escaped the chapter’s drafters.

Consistent with the motive, the National Planning Commission proposed “that South Africa’s integration in southern and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the continent in general, be a staged process shaped by … strategic objectives and focus on what is practically achievable without over-committing to regional and continental integration and with a full understanding of the measurable contribution that policy-making can make to secure and promote its national interests”.

Maloka took issue with the fallacious idea of a South Africa that would cherry-pick her involvement in the continent’s intergovernmental institutions and processes as well as “the politically incorrect concept of sub-Saharan Africa”.

Rather scathingly, he concluded that the chapter exuded “limited knowledge of the African continent” and “not based on a concrete reading of what exists on the ground”.

One does not have to agree with the entirety of Moloka’s critique to appreciate its usefulness in delineating some of the contentious paradigms in the conduct of international relations and South Africa’s ultimate standing in the neighbourhood, the wider African continent and the world.

As the title of the book suggests, the interface between the domestic and the international is of more than academic import since a country’s influence and prestige on the international stage is a function of many factors, not the least important of which is the state of its domestic hygiene and dexterity in the deployment of soft power.

Our real and perceived foreign policy outlook will invariably come to the fore and ramify in ways that either advance or diminish our role and standing. Lately, this has found expression in South Africa’s attempts to assist Zimbabwe in finding a political solution to its problems, which will hopefully lead to our neighbour’s socio-economic recovery.

Following last week’s visit to Zimbabwe by a delegation of leaders of the ANC, South Africa’s perceived domineering role has once again been flagged. After the meeting, Zanu-PF leader Patrick Chinamasa told a news conference that the two parties had “agreed that Zimbabwe and South Africa are sovereign states. Zimbabwe is not a province of South Africa. South Africa is not a big brother to Zimbabwe”.

The merits or demerits of Chinamasa’s statement aside, the fact that the matter has been raised as sharply as it has is not in the least unimportant. One lesson that emerges is that state actors that are more likely to succeed on the African and global stage are those that remain sensitive to and are seen to be respectful of the sovereignty of other countries inasmuch as they expect theirs to be respected.

Even when it is not expressed in words, a “shithole countries” mentality will invariably out itself and beget negative responses from the supposedly lesser interlocutors. The other lesson can be appreciated by pondering over some questions. Who and when next will we be publicly reminded of our territorial limits? At what cost to our international role and standing? Zimbabwe has been a concern for South Africans of all political persuasions for many years.

Our growing economic pressures, which give rise to such desperate measures as the department of public works’ recent R40 million border fence, do not help matters as the government gets subjected to pressures from multiple quarters, including ordinary citizens.

One lesson that stands out from the fence debacle is that government decision-making can easily fall victim to the corrupt as it can to popular sentiments whose practical utility is of doubtful value.

The ineffectiveness of a mere fence in keeping out human beings desperate to eke out a living and to attend to basic human needs such as health care, should have been manifestly obvious. Further afield, the hazards of the Mediterranean Sea have not stopped African economic migrants from risking their lives by crossing into southern Europe in dangerous rickety boats.

Alongside respect for the sovereignty of others is a continental dialectic that merits greater socialisation. Our continent has long agreed on the intertwined nature of our destiny as Africans obliges solidarity, whereby each one of our countries lends a helping hand to another in their hour of need.

While none of our countries should project a big brother attitude, there is also a price to be paid for state and non-state actors not engaging frankly with one another. Certainly in the pre-2009 era, claims of a South Africa bully often came from suspicious quarters in the same way that assertions of a “Chinese recolonisation of Africa” emanate from centres of the world that once lorded over the continent as colonisers.

The challenge is to bridge the divide between an insular entrepreneurial foreign policy outlook and the solidarity and ideals that animate such far-sighted visions as the African renaissance which have sadly but unsurprisingly withered on the vine.

Ratshitanga is a consultant, social and political commentator

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