Rubicon 2.0: South Africa must now press the reset button

LAST year's mountain fires in the Western Cape were traumatic and disastrous. But it's also true that they burned large patches of old, stubborn fynbos. Fynbos needs heat and smoke to propagate. Today, the new growth of proteas, ericas, and renosterveld can be seen everywhere in the Cape Peninsula. Too beautiful.

This is South Africa's challenge today: to use the intense firestorm that Donald Trump has unleashed on us, which could severely impact our economy, to emerge stronger on the other side.

We need to press the reset button. Ctrl Alt Delete. Clean the slate.

It's similar to the Rubicon 1985 moment. It's make or break.

We must conduct a fundamental audit of laws, policies, the economy, international relations, the role of parliament, political culture and general governance, and honestly answer this question: What must we do differently to make South Africa more successful for the benefit of all its inhabitants?

I cannot imagine there is a single citizen who wouldn't agree that we as South Africans are better and deserve better than the governments of especially the last two decades.

It is childish and completely counterproductive, like some ANC leadership figures and the populists of the MK Party and the EFF, now to curse Trump and America and send him to hell. It's grist to the MAGA mill. It makes you feel good and strong for a moment, but actually, you're shooting yourself and your country in the foot.

Dialogue about a new consensus

It would have helped if the national dialogue about a new consensus that so many have talked about over the last year by now had taken place and been done properly, but it looks like another good plan that just doesn't get executed.

Sending delegations to Washington won't bear fruit on its own. The basic charges against South Africa aren't particularly rational or fact-based. And if the Americans ask questions about corruption, poor governance, cadre deployment, flirtation with dictators, and the skewed application of black empowerment policy, our envoys won't really be able to give satisfactory answers.

Here's lesson number one: We can no longer appoint ANC cadres and worn-out loyalists as ambassadors and diplomatic personnel. Especially in Washington, but also elsewhere, this has been catastrophic for the last two decades and has long been the joke of the international diplomatic world. AfriForum and Solidarity's lobbyists made an ass of them everywhere.

The solidarity that the European Union, France, Germany and Italy have expressed with South Africa this week is extremely valuable to us. They share South Africa's commitment to “multilateralism, the rule of law, non-racialism, non-sexism and the rules-based international order".

Now that America is isolating us, we must work hard to get the rest of the world, the West and the East, and especially Africa on our side, with words and actions, without offending Trump.

But the ANC's excessive Cold War affinity for China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela must be stopped at the same time. These are autocratic countries with little respect for the human rights that are so highly valued in our Constitution. After more than 30 years, the struggle romanticism is really inappropriate.

China is indeed becoming a more reliable and predictable world power than America and is our largest trading partner, so we must remain friends with them without offending Washington – as several of America's partner countries already do. Russia holds very few advantages for us.

It seems clear that South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice against Israel's actions in Gaza is the original trigger for Trump and his MAGA base's distrust. This process is now following its own course and we can do nothing about it, except to refrain from making further public statements about the conflict.

Positive recognition

The case before the court, which must decide on charges such as genocide, cannot really be criticised on principle. More than 48 000 people have died in Gaza and threequarters of all buildings have been levelled – the prima facie evidence points to genocide or at least war crimes. The case belongs before the highest international court. If it wasn't South Africa with its recent history of apartheid, who should have done it?

Moreover, South Africa has received considerable positive recognition worldwide for its initiative and professional presentation before the court, not only from 47 countries with a Muslim majority but also from countries like Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Mexico and several others.

By the way, we could be as annoyed with the Jewish Board of Deputies and other Zionist organisations in South Africa as with Solidarity for creating sentiment against our country abroad and demanding sanctions.

But there is another charge in Trump's executive order that cuts deeper and is more dangerous for us. He accuses South Africa of “reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements".

The brightest red line

Iran is America and the West's brightest red line. This violent theocracy supports various militias in the Middle East, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. This is probably the main reason why America gave Israel free rein against Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran's influence has indeed been curtailed.

I haven't seen an iota of evidence that Pretoria is helping Tehran become militarily stronger – South Africa of all countries with its decrepit military? – or to build a nuclear bomb. If there were such evidence, surely the CIA or British or German intelligence would have leaked it by now. The reckless state visit that then minister of international relations and co-operation, Naledi Pandor, made to Iran in October 2023 still haunts us today. Heaven knows what she was doing there.

The DA, IFP, and FF+, as members of the government of national unity, must now insist on transparency about ties with Iran. If there are any close ties, they must be broken immediately, or it will cost us dearly, even undermining our friendship with other Western countries.

Denial of the spirit of our settlement

If Trump and company really demand that South Africa cease all attempts at affirmative action, land reform and reducing inequality we surely cannot agree. That would amount to a denial of the spirit of our negotiated settlement and our Constitution, and make our situation even more explosive. Our history doesn't begin in 1994.

But we must clearly ask serious questions about how these laws and policies have been applied until now. It's not even controversial anymore to say that they have mostly been abused; that they have become part of the ANC's rent-seeking, corruption and jobs for pals and have benefited only a small group of insiders rather than the broader population. It hasn't been in the interest of a growing economy or job creation. On the contrary.

We must now examine this act by act, process by process, practice by practice, and agree that it must be done entirely differently.

We once had someone who, like Elon Musk does for Trump now, was given the job of tackling bureaucratic red tape and waste: the former mining boss Sipho Nkosi. Nothing came of it. We need someone like that now more than ever before. Some researchers believe that more than a third of the state's annual expenditure could be saved through greater efficiency and less corruption. Hundreds of billions of rand. Maybe more than what Trump is going to cost us.

So who is going to do the Great Audit that I advocate?

Ideally, the initiative should come from the president and be supported by the GNU and parliament.

But our president is not a man of action. If you corner him about this, he will probably appoint a commission of inquiry that will report in five years.

I think civil society, the business sector, academics, and the media must take the lead. No one else is going to save us.

As Dricus du Plessis said: Trump likes champions. If we become a winning nation again, he's going to pick on someone else somewhere else.

South Africa, you're on your own.

♦ VWB ♦

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