One simple statistic explains all you need to know about why South Africa is being targeted by the United States
The storm of opprobrium swept up against Solidariteit and AfriForum for the recent American backlash on South Arica has only been rising in pitch, with every man and his dog with ties to the government, ruling party, or establishment institution aligning to scapegoat the civil rights organisation for their criticism of the government.
But the explanation is much more trivial, and does not need any kind of global right-wing conspiracy to justify it. South Africa is quite simply an enemy of the United States, and says so openly with every action it takes.
Even if South Africa is not big or bold enough to play with real fire, they do like working the bellows from time to time, and Donald Trump is not the kind to ignore it - he stands to gain nothing from the ideological character of the South African project which so closely mimics the character of his predecessor regime.
Leaving aside some of the more histrionic messaging exchanged between various elements of our two countries, we can, simply focusing on South African diplomatic stances, give ample reason for America's refusal to snuggle up close with us.
The entirety of South Africa’s voting history in the UNHRC/HCR, where it differs from consensus, has been in concert with two blocs – former 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 these countries. 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.
The reasons for this are quite clear – 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 sanction South Africa, but for their subsequently “embarrassingly good relations” in the following decades which has earned a special place on the ANC’s blacklist, and has been part ofthe motivation for comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa.
In Zimbabwe, the ANC utterly refused to countenance any countermeasures or sanctions against Mugabe’s violent landgrabs, rigged elections or ethnic cleansing of the Matabele. Under Thabo Mbeki’s stance of “quiet diplomacy”, there was no public censure. Mbeki opposed Zimbabwe’s removal from the Commonwealth of Nations, sidelined South African critics of Mugabe, refused to criticise vote rigging the 2002 and 2008parliamentary elections, supported the land grabs as “necessary”, and gave salutary honours to Robert Mugabe on the occasion of his state funeral in 2019.[5]
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 7thattacks 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 human rights has nevertheless continued to surprise foreign observers, even after 30 years of consistently amoral partisanship.
