People familiar with my writing may have noticed that I am not particularly attached to romantic notions like “human rights”, which I find impractical, abstract, and generally see as little more than a hollow and hysterical virtue signal. But how one uses the notion of human rights politically often reveals a fair bit about their character.

If one were to judge by the high-flown rhetoric of the ANC over the past few years, one would expect their foreign policy was entirely based on moral judgments and concern for the conditions of people suffering under tyrannical governments. Mandela’s style still seems to stick in the popular imagination, even as fewer politicians appeal to it directly:

The anti-apartheid campaign was the most important human rights crusade of the post-World War II era. Its success was a demonstration, in my opinion, of the oneness of our common humanity: in these troubled times, its passion should not be lost.  Consequently, South Africa will not be indifferent to the rights of others. Human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs. (Mandela: “South Africa’s Future Foreign Policy” in Foreign Affairs, 1993)

It is hard to say what will happen to South Africa's foreign policy under coalition government - certainly the DA (and the DA's Western backers) will want to use them as pressure to get South Africa to go easier on Israel, and pump the breaks on the BRICS alliance. I have written a fair bit about that here (pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3).

But before we speculate on the foreign policy of a still unsettled coalition government, let us just reflect on the public parts of diplomacy. The entirety of South Africa’s voting history in the UN Human Rights Council has been characterised by the complete opposite. I ran the numbers on every vote our country has participated in over the last 30 years, from a public database of South Africa’s voting record in the UNHRC, which you can access here.

Unless South Africa is voting along with a global consensus position, it has been in almost perfect agreement with two blocs – the old communist hegemons and their present allies (Eastern alliance) and the African Group. The former is composed of Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Cuba, DPR Korea, Belarus, Myanmar and Venezuela.

Out of all the non-consensus motions South Africa voted in favour of, 89.6% were introduced by countries from these two blocs. Of the human rights situations they either abstained from or voted against taking action in, 88.8% of these situations were caused by the same group of countries.

Most importantly, for all motions concerning human rights situations, South Africa votes unwaveringly for motions introduced by these two blocs. There are only six exceptions to this pattern of solidarity – all sponsored by Pakistan on behalf of the OIC, meaning that South Africa gives guaranteed support to these two blocs 99% of the time.

South Africa has often gone out of its way to protect friends and allies around the world, no matter how venal. In 2015, the ANC government gave shelter to Omar Bashir for the duration of the African Union Summit, despite Bashir being wanted for several crimes against humanity in his war on the people of Darfur, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape, as well as three counts of genocide.

Whether you take these charges seriously or not, the reasons for South Africa’s behaviour are quite clear – there is a standing geopolitical stance which is strongly informed by the Marxist and colonial roots of the ANC, not informed by any moral position on whatever the given moral issue of the day is.

And fair enough, we’re all welcome to a bit of realpolitik. But it is unclear what South Africa gains from this relationship, given that most trade is with the West anyway, and Chinese companies are particularly averse to the ANC’s race-based business regulations.

The reality is that this has more to do with grudges and racial resentment than serious national interest. The allegiance between the ANC and the communist countries in the Cold War, which coincided closely with the duration of National Party rule in South Africa, was particularly strong, as South Africa’s government was overtly tolerated by the United States and its allies until the late 1970s, and covertly supported (with certain accompanying pressures to reform) until the late 1980s.

The ANC is also a Pan-Africanist organisation, and sees Africa as a whole as existing in opposition to the West, a victim of imperialism both in colonial and neocolonial terms, and seeks to promote African interests against those of the West. Its allies on the continent are viewed through the lens of a common struggle, leading to often weaselly-sounding slogans like “quiet diplomacy” masking (not-so) covert solidarity.

Israel in particular is remembered, not for their 1961 UNGA vote to slap South Africa on the wrist, but for their subsequently “embarrassingly good relations” in the following decades (as one Israeli diplomat at the time referred to them) which has earned a special place on the ANC’s blacklist, and has been part of the motivation for comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa.

In Zimbabwe, the ANC utterly refused to countenance any countermeasures or sanctions against Mugabe’s violent land grabs, rigged elections or ethnic cleansing of the Matabele. Under Thabo Mbeki’s stance of “quiet diplomacy” (discussing matters only privately between heads of state), there was no public censure. Mbeki opposed the removal of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth of Nations, sidelined South African critics of Mugabe, refused to criticise vote rigging the 2002 and 2008 parliamentary elections, supported the land grabs as “necessary”, and gave salutary honours to Robert Mugabe on the occasion of his state funeral in 2019.

The best example of revealed preference here is that the ANC is not simply concerned with a pragmatic partisanship, but is enthusiastic in its support of partisan brutality. This is often expressed in private events which seldom reach public ears, but in a recent leaked speech by Ronnie Kasrils, the former intelligence chief praised the October 7^th attacks on Israel as being “a brilliant, spectacular guerilla warfare attack. They swept in on them and they killed them and damn good. I was so pleased and people who support resistance applauded.”

But regardless of causes and justifications, South Africa’s lack of concern for moral issues in foreign policy has nevertheless continued to surprise foreign observers, even after 30 years of consistently amoral partisanship.

Maybe they just needed to run the numbers.