In the 1990s and early 2000s, South Africans delighted in going on international stages and bragging about our country’s commitment to universal human rights. Then Zimbabwe happened.
Zimbabwe’s leader, Robert Mugabe, shut down independent newspapers and magazines in the early 2000s. He harassed and detained trade unionists. He had opposition activists beaten up and jailed. He menaced NGO workers.
South Africa’s hypocritical political leaders protected Mugabe while he suppressed his people’s voices. We were told to be mindful of “African solidarity”. That solidarity, it turned out, was our government’s solidarity with Mugabe and his cronies but not with the suffering people of Zimbabwe.
We were told about “quiet diplomacy”. Our leaders were too cowardly to confront Mugabe as he systematically destroyed his country’s economy and trampled on every conceivable human right. They told us not to shout and scream that “Comrade Bob” was a murderous lout. Behind closed doors, while claiming they were scolding him, they heartily congratulated Mugabe on his actions.
So who are “universal” human rights for? Who is clean government for? On our continent, and elsewhere in the world including “our allies” Russia (where opposition figures die mysteriously) and Iran (where the morality police monitor and detain women for “improper clothing”), leaders have behaved as if clean governance principles and basic human rights are Western impositions and hindrances.
This is why the global political shifts under way now are crucial for Africans, for the world outside the US, and for all our futures. We must choose between the way of Mugabe and the way of the democrats he abused in the 2000s and after.
Over the past 15 months the US’s America First policy has led to it retreating from involvement with initiatives or even mere statements that are trying to prevent curtailment of democracy, hindrance of civil society, and assaults on the rule of law. That is a clear and present danger for democracy in the world because, for all its faults, the US’s commitment to the idea and principles of open societies was a boon to democrats across the globe. In Zimbabwe in the 2000s and 2010s, with South Africa shamefully silent at a time when its voice was desperately needed, it was the US that spoke up and sanctioned Mugabe and his cronies.
Now, the Trump doctrine is to shut up and concentrate on extraction of Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth. Who speaks up for the Zimbabweans? Who stands for the principles enshrined in our constitution and in the founding documents of organisations such as the UN? The challenge for Africa is not just that we must do it. It is to fundamentally recognise that “quiet diplomacy” and “African solidarity” can never and must never be placed ahead of these universal human rights.
Then there is the fight against corruption. Last week the BBC was doggedly chasing allegations that anonymous traders may have possessed non-public information, allowing them to profit from sharp movements in oil prices caused by President Donald Trump’s abrupt changes in US-Iran policy. The broadcaster said that on March 23, for example, about $580m in oil futures contracts were traded within a few minutes, only 15 minutes before Trump announced that he had had “productive” talks with Iran and was delaying planned strikes. Other incidents follow the same pattern.
The Democrats’ Senator Chris Murphy said it was “mind-blowing corruption” and pointed the finger at Trump, whose White House Murphy has referred to as a “24/7 grift operation”.
On January 20, The New York Times editorial board wrote that Trump had “used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4bn”. It added: “We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.”
These actions from the White House give cover to kleptocrats such as Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and Paul Biya of Cameroon. They can claim this is the way of the world now. A corrupt White House normalises the grift Murphy condemns.
This is why South Africa, and the good people of this continent, must now fight even harder to ensure that these universal rights, these fundamental principles of democracy, are entrenched in our country and continent. The US is not coming to be an enforcer this time. Citizens must do the job themselves because these are not, and have never been, solely the principles of US democrats.
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