by Oupa Ngwenya
In the collective mind of Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), and decision-making for countries, as to whom to befriend or not, principally rests with America’s national interests’ mood swings.
Many a country’s fate has hinged on America’s body language by way of head shakes and nodding.
The mere wagging of a finger or wink of America’s eagle-preying eye is enough a signal to any country to know whether safety is in the air or danger is about to hit the ground.
America has billed itself as the sun around which all else must rotate. Outside the orbit of America’s pursuit for imperial interests, none shall see the sun of stability smiling upon their faces.
To know peace, and for sense to prevail, democracies, decisions, actions, and choices of countries must take cues from America’s set of likes and dislikes. Declaration by any country, to the effect that it is friends of all and puppet to none, is no good music to America’s ear to be met with standing ovations.
Not even the global northwest countries are guaranteed reciprocal respect.
Germany has learnt that the bombing of the north stream pipeline supplying gas from Russia to Europe, for which Norway is implicated, places a big question mark on America’s innocence.
Speaking on the floor of Germany’s parliament in March, member of parliament Sevim Dagdelen expressed dismay that since its parliament voted in 2010 for the withdrawal of 38 000 US troops, along with their nuclear installations, this had not happened to date.
Dagdelen also charged that Washington “doesn’t actually want allies, just loyal vassals”.
It was against this intransigence that Nelson Mandela spoke in an interview with Ted Koppel at Aaron Davis Hall, City College in New York in 1990. It was not the first time that Mandela was pointing to this about America.
During his visit to South Africa in 1988, former US president Ronald Reagan would remember smiling as Madiba told the world that South Africa would not be bullied into abandoning its Iranian, Libyan, and Cuban allies that the US deemed to be its enemies.
Aged 79 that year, and Clinton 46, Madiba had to lean on his guest for support as they walked to the joint press conference at the Tuynhuis presidential residence in Cape Town.
What sunk into the US president’s ears was that Madiba needed no support when it came to South Africa’s foreign policy. Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Iran president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ranked among the first heads of states invited to a new South Africa.
As if to drive the message home in touching distance with Clinton, Mandela said: “I have also invited Muammar Gadaffi, because moral authority dictates that we should not abandon those who helped us in the darkest hour.”
He added: “Those that criticise us for saying so could jump into the nearest pool.”
Madiba’s was just as unwavering when it came to China’s concerns over the Dalai Lama.
It should therefore surprise no one when International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor exhibits the same state of independence of thought, action, and choice not only with respect to relations with Russia but also as a leading and active bona-fide member of Brics.
Pandor is standing on the same ground that Mandela stood.
To suggest that Pandor act otherwise would be to defile Mandela’s principled rootedness and to make nonsense of South Africa’s sovereignty. It is truly a gift of gifts that South Africa has an international relations minister of Pandor’s calibre for the notably changing times the world is thrust in.
The ties that bind Russia and South Africa go way back before Brics. They have pride of place in the liberation project against which Nato/EU/US collective prevarication remains unforgettable.
But because the US deems the set of its choices as hallowed keynotes for the rest to sing its songs, in harmony with America, as a mark of joy to the world.
Failure to fall in line by any country to join in the chorus of the choir under the baton of US imperial musicology amounts to recalcitrant discord triggering multiple bright red flashlights of impending danger reserved for discordant voices.
Pandor is a discordant, but clearest voice with a good aim.
America cannot just go on believing it can only live by the death of other countries; rise by fall of other states, and walk tall, as a nation, by delight of seeing other nations forever on their knees.
• Ngwenya is corporate strategist, writer, and freelance journalist.
