The latest decision by South African lawmakers to start the process of amending the Constitution to allow for expropriation of land from white farmers without having to compensate them is only the latest in a series of developments that has put the country on the path of becoming a failing state like Zimbabwe – and clearing the path of controlling or substantially influencing the continent by dangerous state hegemons. The use of racist populist demagoguery to address grotesque poverty of much of the black population living side by side with the white farms legally purchased by the owners decades ago does nothing to solve the country’s ongoing economic problems or to empower the disenfranchised in any meaningful way. Rather, this extreme manner of “virtue signalling” by the government betrays the promises of peace and legal equality once championed by Nelson Mandela, taking South Africa on a dark path of self-destruction.
This radical revolutionary agenda driving the African National Congress, dates back to the years of open cooperation between the AFC and the South African communists. Mandela and other leaders believed that communists could contribute to the anti-apartheid cause. The alliance of the two banned parties endured through the duration of Mandela’s imprisoned. However, after both parties were unbanned in 1990, the AFC continued its close cooperation with the communists, which increasingly influenced the party’s ideology. In fact, Mandela joined the Communist Party’s Central Committee. However, the connections ran deeper than merely the fact of personal involvement and mutual support.
Through the decades, AFC shared many of the Communist Party’s approaches and political ideology. In 2014, it built a school seeking to impart knowledge based in Chinese Communist Party’s ideology. In the 1990s, following the unbanning, Communist party leaders were involved in governance in various positions, and for a while, went along with liberal reforms aimed at strengthening the economy and breaking out of the cycle of poverty. However, in the mid to late 1990s, the South African Communist Party and its allies were looking to incorporate a path towards socialism, though the AFC was moving in a different direction. Through a series of votes and other political action, the SACP brought about the collapse of the more liberal Mbeki government and the rise of the Zuma government in 2007, which began incorporating communist policies back into the party platform, contributing to the economic stagnation evident in the country today. However, the mismanagement of the economy was not the only contribution of the communist. The deteriorating relationship with Israel is another penchant of the revolutionary mindset the Zuma administration has adopted.
The liberation movements the Soviet Union has supported at the expense of needling Western goverments, many of which had maintained relations with the apartheid South Africa have not fully discarded the Soviet influence after the fall of the USSR. After the fall of the apartheid system, the populists among the AFC, coupled with the communists, held on to the revolutionary slogan and old grudges, particularly against Israel’s security cooperation with Pretoria during the apartheid years. Same mindset embraced the Palestinian cause, not as a way to bring about peace between Israel and her neighbors, but as a way to attack Israel, alleging Israel herself to be an apartheid regime. Deterioration in relations, which had benefited South Africa, as well as a number of other African countries, came to a head in December 2017, when South Africa voted to downgrade its embassy in Israel.
That happened despite ongoing other relations, including direct flights, tourism, and visits by various delegations. The resolution has not yet passed, but is due for debate. Just as Israel’s humanitarian missions around the world and investment in green energy and skill building in various African countries, earned it crucial abstentions during anti-Israel resolution votes at the UN, South Africa went in the opposite direction. More recently, faced with a severe water crisis in Cape Town, following a combination of environmental factors and mismanagement of the water issue, South Africa rejected Israel’s expertise and assistance in providing water technology that would have ameliorated the effects in the drought. These steps, including potentially losing millions in trade with Israel, are causing a great deal more harm to South Africans than to Israel.
Yet ideological posturing alone is not fully responsible for these practical steps in the unraveling of the relationship. The religious voices inside the country took recent decision by the Trump administration to move the US embassy to Jerusalem as an opportunity to pressure the Zuma regime to downgrade the relations with Israel. Although the country maintains full diplomatic relations with Israel, the hostile attitude within the AFC towards that relationship has been more in the news than any cooperation. The downturn could also be explained by South Africa’s embrace of a new friend, coming in with investment, a blind eye towards corruption and abuses, and a familiar revolutionary mindset. That new friend is none other than the Islamic Republic of Iran. The key to understanding this bizarre and growing relationship is the extent of the Zuma administration’s corruption, which uses “black empowerment” to detract for its own role in looting the country blind.
The corrupt cronyism, characterized by the source as “neoliberalism”, of course has nothing to do with the course of the country’s economic policy, which has had nothing to do with liberalization. But the examples of how the government is utilizing its crony proxies to disabuse of the poor of any legitimate opportunity for improving their lot is well documented. Such measures come at a cost, and with the international financial institutions and investors increasingly skeptical of a country, where investments are not safe, and corruption is extreme, the government is forced to engage with whomever is willing to play ball. Like the Soviet Union, Iran, which has learned a great deal from the USSR, particularly with respect to supporting various movements around the world vis-a-vis sovereign states, had supported the AFC during the years of apartheid in South Africa.
Iran in recent years has taken South Africa in an increasingly perilous direction. Recently, the regime has been caught using South Africa to recruit and train Palestinian terrorists. More official strategic bilateral ties between the two countries are at an all times high. For Iran, South Africa, positioned in a geographically, politically, and economically favorable place with links to the rest of the continent, is an important asset in its quest to develop new relationships that would bypass European and US-imposed sanctions and scrutiny of its arms deals, support for terrorism, and illicit nuclear research. This relationship has been growing since 1994. South Africa supported Iran during the worst of sanctions. It had repeatedly called on US and Israel to stop threatening Iran over its nuclear program, earning a business-friendly environment inside the Islamic Republic. Pretoria stood by Iran’s “right to develop peaceful nuclear technology”. Bilateral interests include LNG, crude oil, and GTL sales. South Africa also applied to sell arms to Iran (that includes missiles).
The Russians, who have also sent high level delegations, are likewise involved. President Zuma may be involved in a nuclear deal with Putin, alarming the international community. Both countries have been looking for alternative markets, as well as to expand their geopolitical reach in Africa – for the sake of easier access to resources, votes, and political capital – and potentially, a generation of future military recruits for their international engagements in other parts of the world. These relationships threaten the stability of the African Union, which until recently has largely arrived to decisions by consensus, but in more recent years has been increasingly polarized by the tension between the pro-Iran and the anti-Iran blocs.
The battle for political influence inside Africa is becoming increasingly defined by the potential resolution of the struggle between these two forces. Sudan, Nigeria, and Egypt, which had been closely aligned with Saudi Arabia, have been strongly opposed to the expansion of Iranian influence. Sudan had even cut relations with Iran after the bombing of the Saudi embassy. However, more recently things have been changing, with increasingly direct involvement with Turkey, and Qatar, both of which have been aligned with Iran to some extent, had shared interests up to a point on countering Saudi and Western influences in Africa. Turkey, with Qatar’s financing, recently concluded numerous defense treaties with Sudan. Russia, for its part, has been looking to make assorted deals with all countries, regardless of other political rivalries. South Africa has been looking to take advantage of all these opportunities, which would provide a welcome respite from the Western nagging concerning reforms as well as its internal politics. But in providing access to Iran, Russia, and in the future, potentially with Turkey and Qatar, particularly with respect to boosting trade and defense ties, as well, South Africa is walking a very dangerous path, potentially right into the heart of darkness, as it aligns itself with anti-Western hegemons, human rights abusers, and supporters of terrorism and expansionist warfare.
Such alliances will surely test South Africa’s relations with its neighbors and Western states, and further imperil its already fragile democracy. There is no hope for improvement in the lives of the poor that will come out of such entanglement, and out of policies, which benefit no one but the ambitions of the likes of Iran and Turkey – whether it means disenfranchising and isolating the white farmers, or spurning ISrael. On the contrary, by working with suspect regimes, which are increasingly becoming international pariahs, South Africa will only draw increased international scrutiny and pressure, and will be drawn into supporting foolish, dangerous, and destructive policies, which will further polarize the African Union, place South Africa with countries more likely to suffer sanctions, and endanger future possibilities for investments and merit-based prosperity. The Zuma administration should listen to reason, rethink the course it is pursuing, and stop enabling agents of chaos and destruction, that, unlike Israel, are actually threatening its independence through the combination of populist internal pandering and equally thoughtless external relations. There is still a way back from the edge towards sane domestic and external policies; should South Africa choose to rethink its relationships and move away from disastrous political choices, the international community will be ready to offer support and welcome it back into the fold with all the accompanying benefits. Otherwise, the country will share the fate of the monstrous regimes its policies are empowering and emboldening – without ever getting to enjoy any boons of their ephemeral successes.