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TO THE EDITORS:
I read with both interest and gloom James Kirchick’s excellent article (“Going South,” AZURE 29, Summer 2007). In my own experience as the leader of South Africa’s parliamentary opposition for the past six years (a post I voluntarily relinquished in May 2007), I can attest to the large and ever-widening gap between the African National Congress’ (ANC) rhetoric on human rights and the sad reality of our government’s cozying up to dictators and tyrants and propping up oppressive regimes and failed states, from Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe to the military dictatorship in Myanmar.
While I agree with Kirchick that there is an essential anti-Western fundamentalism that underlies much of our foreign posture, I would add that there is also a desire to recast the world order in a direction more favorable to the developed world. Of course there is much to commend the latter attempt, but it is doubtful whether the route we have chosen will do anything more than land South Africa in some very bad company.
Moreover, while the article notes how the South African government, and some of its leading officials, continuously took the side of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against the West, it does not deal with one of the more distressing moments of recent public life in South Africa. In July 2002, Tariq Aziz, then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s deputy prime minister, made a visit to South Africa, where he was garlanded with honors by the country’s then deputy president, Jacob Zuma, at the very moment that American President George W. Bush had identified Iraq as a member of the Axis of Evil.
While it is correct to note that a misplaced third-world solidarity seems to pervade our relations with tyrants around the globe, it is interesting to recall what a political colleague of mine, Jack Bloom, described as South Africa’s own “Iraq moment”: In September 1998, South African troops invaded the tiny neighboring state of Lesotho after a dispute had developed there between the king and the prime minister, and unrest and rioting had broken out following a disputed parliamentary election. The capital, Maseru, was heavily damaged, and South African troops remained in occupation for over seven months before withdrawing. Even our sainted president at the time, Nelson Mandela (who had become one of the foremost critics of President Bush over the Iraq invasion), described the operation as an “intervention to restore democracy and the rule of law. There is a responsibility to intervene when democracy is under threat.” As someone in my circle at the time put it, this was pure “Bush doctrine, three years before Bush himself had enunciated it.”
I could go on in this depressing vein with a long list to add to those grievances to, which Kirchick has drawn readers’ attention, but I think the point is plain: High-minded principle when the ANC was in opposition has given way to a lamentable and narrowly self-serving foreign policy that seems animated by settling old scores rather than by addressing the realities of the new world order and making modest but sensible attempts to change it.
Finally, it is noteworthy how the Middle East is a matter for continuous debate among the parliament’s National Assembly, even when not a moment of parliament’s time has been found to debate a disputed and highly controversial report on the last farcical parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe. Naturally, on the occasions when the South African legislature rouses itself to express concern and condemnation for the violence in the Middle East, the resolutions adopted are uniformly critical of Israel and apportion no blame or responsibility to any other actor in that region. It was suggested to me that the reason for this lopsided approach was based on the fact that I am Jewish and married to an Israeli national and, therefore, the ANC can make a point of wrong-footing the parliamentary opposition (which is actually the largest party in the Western Cape, where a significant number of South African Muslims reside). This might, in part, be an explanation, but I think in the main, Kirchick’s analysis goes more to the heart of the matter.
Tony Leon, MP
Parliament of South Africa
Parliament of South Africa
TO THE EDITORS:
On the one hand, James Kirchick is absolutely right to take South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), to task for its hypocrisy on the issue of international human rights. Whether the subject is Zimbabwe, Myanmar, or Iran, the ANC has time and again failed to apply the very principles it fought for in the anti-apartheid struggle, namely freedom and equality for all. Kirchick is also right to attribute much of this policy to another of the ANC’s most cherished principles, anti-imperialism.
On the other hand, I must take issue with several of the most important strands of Kirchick’s argument. Above all, it is worse than meaningless to continue to use the term “anti-Western” (and its cousin, “anti-American”) in intelligent discourse. “Anti-Western” as a concept is hopelessly vague, broad, and, in this case at least, inaccurate. Who is the “West” to whom Kirchick refers—every single citizen of the United States and every European country, or just the Bush administration? Moreover, of what does this anti-Westernism consist? Hatred and renunciation of every aspect of Western civilization, or mere criticism of certain policies practiced at certain times by certain Western governments?
To paint with such broad strokes obscures an awful lot, and illuminates virtually nothing. Most importantly, it obscures the many debates within both the “West” and what might be called the “non-West.” Furthermore, it produces the very same reductionist Manichaeism that Kirchick rightly criticizes in the ANC’s “anti-imperialism”: We are all the same, they are all the same; we are right, they are wrong, etc.
Yes, the ANC is wrong to “cozy up to tyrants,” but let us not forget that the American government and others in the West continue to cozy up to the likes of Musharraf, Mubarak, and the Chinese government, at least when the latter is willing to play ball. To say this is not to excuse the ANC or to declare criticism of the ANC out of bounds. It is merely to point out that accusations of hypocrisy can go both ways. Maybe the best thing would be for both the ANC and the West—and everybody in the world, for that matter—to take a brief holiday from their exercise of moral indignation towards others and take an honest look at their own shortcomings.
Which brings us to “anti-imperialism.” As Kirchick points out, all too often rhetoric of “anti-imperialism” has been used to justify the worst excesses of anti-imperialist movements and individuals during anti-imperial struggles and after independence has been achieved. The tyrant casts himself as an “anti-imperialist” to place himself above criticism, while his critics, and frequently his victims, are, according to the tyrant, just stooges for foreign governments trying to re-establish their empires. It is depressing to note how effective this rhetorical move has been in stifling dissent, time and again, working much as appeals to nationalism and patriotism have worked in every single country in the world throughout history.
But it does not follow from this that “anti-imperialism” itself is an “anachronistic,” “outdated” leftover that should be consigned to the dustbin of history. While governments in countries like, say, the United States or France probably have no desire to annex other independent countries, they have shown themselves quite willing, even in recent times, to invade other countries, depose their governments, and install puppet regimes to do their bidding. More subtly, Western governments have used everything from economic pressure to Western-financed fifth column agitation to undermine the sovereignty of foreign governments. Imperialism, or, more accurately, neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism, is still a problem today. The tough part is figuring out when accusations of Western “neo-colonialism” are justified and when they are merely apologetics for tyrants, or (as is often the case) both. Either way, hopelessly blunt instruments like the concept of “anti-Westernism” do not make this task any easier.
One final note about Islam in South Africa: Muslims simply cannot have the sort of political pull Kirchick imputes to them, being that they are only 1.5 percent of the total population and marginal in every sense of the word. South African Muslims, and virtually all Coloureds and Indians, tend not to be ANC supporters, and are rarely politically active. In fact, Muslims who are supporters of the ANC tend to be Muslim in the same way that Ronnie Kasrils is Jewish. To attribute the ANC’s anti-Zionism to pandering to South African Muslims is akin to the old, “There’s a Red under every bed” mindset that attributed almost every instance of popular protest or “anti-Westernism” to communism. South Africa is an overwhelmingly Christian country and is far more likely to develop a significant American-style Christian right (whenever the bulk of South Africa’s numerous but heretofore politically quiescent conservative Christians decide to become politically active) than to become a pro-Islamist state. The ANC’s anti-Zionism is rather simply an outgrowth of its own understanding of anti-imperialism.
Michael Mahoney
Department of History
Yale University
Department of History
Yale University
