(John McCann/M&G)
Truth is the first casualty of war. One of the oldest aphorisms in the book, it never has had greater resonance than in the case of Ukraine, where the war is being waged as much through social media as on the battlefield itself.
Hence, the Russian embassy in South Africa spews out unconscionable propaganda about the “Nazification” of Ukraine, as if anyone with half a brain would be remotely convinced by the implication that Russia has stepped up to the role that the Soviet Union played in defending freedom against Nazi Germany.
The Russian disinformation machine knows that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been winning the online war, so the attack has to be personal — to try to dismantle the image he has carefully constructed of the hero leader, by smearing him with Hitler’s brush.
This is interesting, intellectually, and a very real part of the conflict. Yet, as the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine approaches, the task at hand is to escape the propaganda in order to think harder about the principles at stake and the lessons that can be learned, especially with regard to South Africa’s place in the world.
Western diplomats and their proxies have been banging at my door — and my conscience — for almost a year now. They expected more of South Africa but, ever since that very first UN general assembly abstention in March 2022, they have been sorely disappointed.
In that time, many of them have gone through the first four stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression — but few have reached the final stage — acceptance — although I have with increasing firmness invited them to recognise the inevitable: Pretoria is not going to change its stance on Ukraine.
The reasons why this is so are relatively deep, complex and nuanced. As the war has marched on in dismal and depressing fashion, I have become more convinced of the authenticity of Pretoria’s rationale.
While there are some cretins within the ANC who think that Vladimir Putin’s Russia can be equated with the Soviet Union that provided meaningful support and safe harbour to significant numbers of the ANC leadership and armed liberation movement during the apartheid era, this has little or no bearing on South Africa’s foreign policy.
Nor does the hangover of former president Jacob Zuma’s malignant bromance with Putin — essentially, an unpaid debt to deliver Russian nuclear power in return for whatever down-payment inducements were made to Zuma and/or the ANC — weigh that heavily. At most it is an inconvenience, which President Cyril Ramaphosa in his usual fashion is trying to finesse and wiggle out of.
South Africa’s United Nations positions are reached, after careful deliberation, by professional, seasoned diplomats in the Department of International Relations and Co-operation and New York. Their reasoning is underpinned by two important principles: non-alignment and consistency in the application of international law.
While the Cold War era idea of the non-aligned movement has not aged that well, and is somewhat frayed at the edges, it has deep resonance in the bowels of both the department and those within the ANC who continue to think seriously about such matters.
It is part and parcel of the DNA of both organisations, just as its support for the rights of Palestinians or Western Sahara is.
Non-alignment — ie not taking a definitive stand for or against any side of the conflict — is also justified on the grounds of efficacy. Will joining the Western condemnation of Moscow help in any meaningfully practical way to end the war?
On the consistency point, Pretoria is skating on far thicker ice. “The Collective West”, to apply an annoying phrase that some commentators have started to use, has no right to expect Pretoria, or any other middle power of the global south, to jump into line in support of the Western position on Ukraine, even though Russia is in violation of international law, as Pretoria has pointed out in virtually all of its statements on Ukraine at the UN.
Since World War II, a “rules-based system” has been founded, despite the disingenuous denials offered by Putin apologists from the faux left, but its legitimacy is justifiably questioned, and its integrity undermined, when it is not applied consistently.
Palestine is, of course, the exemplar. To Pretoria, and other global south actors, the “West’s” refusal to apply the same principles of international law and human rights to repeated Israeli transgressions and brutality, is repugnant and unacceptable.
And so it should be. Is a Ukrainian life worth more than a Palestinian one? No.
Less thoughtful diplomats and international relations commentators respond by saying, “Well, Ukraine is a far more serious matter; it is existential for Europe and don’t forget the risk of nuclear escalation.”
This cuts little ice with those actors who are far from the war zone, even though its ripples have spread far and wide, not least in terms of food prices and security in Africa. “Where were you on the issues of security that affect our regions, such as Yemen?” is the understandable rejoinder.
This, I recognise, is hard to stomach for many Western diplomats. Two wrongs don’t make a right, they lament.
More thoughtful diplomats across the world are recognising that this issue deserves deeper consideration and that one of the main lessons to come out of the Ukraine crisis is that if, in the future, there is to be anything like greater alignment between Western and global south positions on such geo-political security matters, the issue of consistency in the application of the “rules-based system” is going to have be treated far more seriously.
How, then, to square the circle?
There should be no real dilemma for progressive democrats. One can, on the one hand, condemn the Russian invasion for the grotesque, illegal, militarily brutal and imperialist adventurism that it is while, on the other hand, accepting and even respecting South Africa’s position.
These two perspectives are not mutually exclusive.
It is in South Africa’s interests to maintain reasonably cordial relations with other Brics members — Brazil, Russia, India and China. Why should it not? China, and to a lesser extent, India, are powerful actors in the world.
Reflecting the president’s general approach to political life, Pretoria wants to be friends with everyone — the United States, the European Union and the members of Brics. And why not? As things stand, despite the wailing and gnashing of Western diplomatic teeth, and the visit of Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and his navy’s frigates to South Africa’s harbours, Pretoria is getting away with it.
But there are limits. At the Munich Security Summit last weekend, Minister of Defence Thandi Modise sought to offer South Africa as a potential mediator. It was dismissed with derision.
No, Pretoria. That is simply not a credible stance. You’re not an ingénu of world politics. You can’t, on the one hand, claim to be a seasoned player of the geo-political game, the grizzled exponent of classic non-alignment and then, on the other, naively put yourself forward as a potential mediator just days after welcoming — with a wide smile — the Russian foreign minister and the Russian navy to joint exercises in your sovereign waters.
You can’t have all of your cake and eat it. No. Pull the other one. Get real or get out of the way.
With China sidling up to Putin, the war has reached a potentially even more lethal phase, in terms of possible wider escalation. The question then remains: “What more should Pretoria do to contribute to avoiding such a conflagration?”
The answer must be to keep banging the consistency drum and inviting a deeper discussion about how to get to a point where there is far greater alignment in the application of the rules-based order.
Attending the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum last October, I was struck by the “war talk”. The chair of the host organisation, the Korber Foundation, posed the question at the start: “How do we get peace in Ukraine?” The answer, it turned out, encouraged by very public and emotive lobbying for German militarisation from Baltic States, who do feel existentially threatened by Russian aggression, was: “Win the war and defeat Putin.”
In the few months since, the war talk has entrenched itself even more; the arms race intensifies; the risks on all sides increase.
Having made the consistency point at a breakaway session later in the day in Berlin, I found myself in conversation with a man who turned out to be a retired Nato general. He wanted to talk peace and not war. And, he wanted to persuade me that Africa and the European Union have common strategic interests — on trade, climate change and finance, migration and human capital, and, yes, on security.
Instead of the EU treating Africa as the recipient of donor largesse, he argued, a real partnership should be forged, in which the common strategic agenda is identified and deliberated.
He is absolutely right. This should be the focus of Western diplomacy with Pretoria — not wasting time trying to get it to join the social media war on Moscow. That ship has long sailed.
An associate professor in public law at UCT, in 2019 Calland chaired a ministerial task team to make recommendations on the design of a new diplomatic training academy for South Africa.
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