Western Cape University research fellow Ali Ridha Khan’s assertion that the US has eroded its moral authority in Africa is based on ambivalent logic and a distortion of principles (The Mercury, April 17).
Invoking standard liberation jargon in castigating the Trump Administration’s stance towards the ANC, Khan praises “Pretoria’s refusal to sacrifice principle for patronage.” Apparently, in Khan’s world, support for Hamas terrorism is a matter of principle because of its moral commitment to eliminate Israel from the river to the sea.
He rails against the “hegemonic powers” of the Trump Administration for “deploying humanitarian tools to enforce compliance.” He is appalled by Trump’s freezing of $500 million in health funding to South Africa and the likelihood of additional AIDS deaths as a result.
Yet in the 1980s, the ANC promoted worldwide sanctions and disinvestment as weapons to bring about liberation from apartheid. While paying lip service to humanitarianism, it proactively exploited the vast unemployment, impoverishment and suffering its measures caused by promoting a blood-soaked people’s war that cost more than 20,000 lives.
In that there was a moral basis in opposing apartheid, there is an even greater moral basis in opposing Iran-sponsored terrorism because of the geographical extent of its threat. Thus, it is baseless for Khan to claim that the US is eroding its moral authority in Africa because of its proactive role against Islamic-based terrorism. Just ask the people of Somalia, Sudan and Mozambique how they feel about jihad.
Khan kids himself in claiming there is mutual benefit derived from the AGOA trade agreement. The US has zero dependence on South Africa’s exports and can source our products elsewhere. He also deludes himself in claiming that the ANC’s “defiance challenges imperial rule and points to emancipatory internationalism.”
The shifting global order to which he refers is largely being determined by trade. In that respect, China is as much a protagonist as Trump is. But the difference is China does not respect the sovereignty of nations. It exploits trade and aid as a means of colonising, not emancipating, territories in pursuit of its aim of world domination by 2049.
The crisis the ANC has caused with the Trump Administration is self-inflicted. Ironically, the ANC now finds itself in similar circumstances to those the apartheid government experienced in the 1980s. But now the smart thing to do is to mend fences with the US because the people of South Africa are overwhelmingly inclined to having friendly relations with the US rather than isolation in an Islamic, Iran-orientated future.
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