It was nice to learn from President Cyril Ramaphosa that South Africa wasn’t being “blue ticked” by the allegedly former great superpower that President Donald Trump is busy working to restore to its former glory.
Washington has, in fact, communicated formally with Pretoria regarding the latest contentious fallout involving former ambassador Ebrahim Rassool’s unceremonious expulsion for allegedly being “a race bating politician who hates America”.
“We are not blue-tickable – if I can use that term,” said Ramaphosa to laughter from those around at an impromptu media briefing on Monday. “We cannot be ignored,” he said smiling, I think at the childishness and futility of the Trump administration’s actions.
I often disagree with Ramaphosa, but on this one I fully support him. Especially the part about maintaining our non-aligned stance and continuing to engage with the US in a formal, respectful way.
We all must just get used to the new American diplomatic culture of shocks, insults, misinformation and so on mostly sent via social media – as long as these are followed up with formal, logical communication via the established channels.
I disagree with Ramaphosa, though, on the advise not to lose any sleep over the issue. We can’t sleep well when a global superpower seems hell bent on bullying and illtreating us.
Clearly, Trump is intent on huffing and puffing and blowing our little house down. Like the wolf in The Three Little Pigs fable, Trump will soon realise that he can huff and puff as he likes but won’t be able to blow away our brick-and-mortar international relations edifice built on strong foundation.
It’s poignant that all this happens during our Human Rights Month since human rights and our ubuntu philosophy of “I am what I am because of who we all are” are the basis of our foreign policy. South Africa is a democratic country that’s not just “non-aligned” but is a permanent friend of human rights, which entail peaceful coexistence, nonracism, nonsexism and so on.
Happy Human Rights Day everyone!
Read more about this day otherwise known as Sharpeville Day on page 6.