The Jaundiced Eye: The building is burning – but it’s fine

The building is burning, walls buckling and roof collapsing. President Cyril Ramaphosa, however, remains masterfully serene.

For the first time since the US ended billions in annual financial aid in January, Ramaphosa this week addressed the issue at length in public.

The US actions were actually not a disaster. “It is a wake-up call on our part.” It meant South Africa would have to “find ways to become more self-reliant”, he said.

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‘Ramaphosa has little power’

There are many examples that illustrate Ramaphosa has little real power within his administration. However, the pressure the US is exerting most vividly shows Ramaphosa’s waning influence in his own party. He can’t tone down the ANC’s anti-US, anti-Israel stance and when he tries, he is ignored.

Speaking at the same event as Ramaphosa, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula seemed not to have got the “hold back” memo. He accused the US of “displaying fascist characteristics and reinforcing outdated racist ideologies”.

So, too, with former SA ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool. His expulsion was the result of his public statements about US President Donald Trump, in effect, being the racist leader of a white supremacist movement.

No sleepless nights

Ramaphosa’s response was that South Africans shouldn’t “have sleepless nights” over a mere “hiccup”. But he did appeal to the ANC and its allies to “exercise restraint” regarding the “hero’s welcome” for Rasool, so as not to exacerbate tensions with the US”.

“Up yours, Mr President,” was the response. Hundreds of keffiyeh-bedecked comrades turned up waving Palestinian flags. The SA Communist Party Western Cape leader told the world media that Rasool had been expelled for “speaking truth to power – the authoritarian, imperialist US”

It would be commendable if Ramaphosa’s acute sensibilities regarding the plight of the vulnerable extended to his fellow South Africans. On Human Rights Day last week, EFF leader Julius Malema led a crowd in a rendition of the struggle era hit, Kill the boer, kill the farmer.

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Violence

It caused US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say this was “a chant that incites violence. SA’s leaders and politicians must take action”.

Elon Musk wrote: “A major political party in SA is actively promoting white genocide… Where is the outrage?” AfriForum seized the opportunity. CEO Kallie Kriel wrote to Ramaphosa, saying: “If you want to improve race relations… condemning this violent chant would be a decisive step in that direction.”

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, responding on behalf of the president, suggested AfriForum – an organisation, he said, whose loyalty lies with a “foreign leader” who spreads “racist lies” and treats the president with “racist contempt” – should take up its beef with the courts, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that such songs did not constitute “hate speech”.

Response to Elon Musk

New24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson, in an open letter, lectured Musk for his supposed gullibility. The Kill the boer song, Basson said, had nothing to do with killing farmers, but should be seen in its “historical context” as a call for an end to white supremacy.

In a riposte to Basson, Politicsweb editor James Myburgh pointed out that “morally grounded societies do not tolerate calls to kill”.

“However, one thing that can be said for Malema’s provocations is that they expose the morally and politically complicit… What Basson’s article inadvertently confirms is these chants are condoned not just by the ANC, but by an increasingly politicised judiciary and the media.”

On Thursday, the Constitutional Court confirmed Myburgh’s assertion. It denied AfriForum’s application to appeal the SCA ruling. Our stonily silent president has been vindicated.

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