Steven Friedman
WORM’S EYE VIEW
Sometimes principle is more of a paying proposition than pragmatism. The welcome afforded Ethiopia’s former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and the Dalai Lama’s frosty reception have focused attention again on principle (or lack of it) in our foreign policy.
For some, being nice to dictators and dictatorships is a small price to pay if it advances our national interest. Fair enough, if the choice really is that stark. But it is not: the costs of pragmatism may prove higher than those of principle; we also have more leeway to stand up for principle than the “pragmatists” believe.
For the past couple of years, foreign policy, particularly in Africa, has shown more coherence than at any time since 1994. Pretoria has insisted on the political resolution of conflicts (albeit while contradicting itself in Lesotho) and on democracy.
Since the new administration took over, our interest in Africa has heightened: President Thabo Mbeki is seeking a leadership role on the continent. In theory, the interest in stability and democracy continue. But the former now sharply takes precedence over the latter. Pretoria has sought to repair relations with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in the hope of building a regional partnership for stability, and has thus ignored his treatment of journalists, gays and dissent in general. Our high commission in Lusaka returned to the authorities a secessionist who sought refuge; and South Africa opposed a proposal by Zambian President Frederick Chiluba that unelected governments not be allowed into Southern African Development Community.
Admittedly, the Mengistu incident is difficult to explain as a purely expedient move: he has little clout left to offer Pretoria. It may have been a blunder, an attempt to please Mugabe (who harbours him in Zimbabwe) or even a reflection of the reality that extraditing former leaders is hardly straightforward. (It is only since the Augusto Pinochet incident a few months ago that this has become a real possibility: and in that case, the dictator was arrested in response to a formal charge by a Spanish court. While this is an important human rights breakthrough, there is potential for abuse unless former rulers can only be extradited if indicted by a credible judicial process.)
But compromising on human rights concerns is, as the incidents noted above show, a theme in our current Africa policy.
The Dalai Lama incident seems far simpler: China is a large and important country with which we are forging economic links, and we have no wish to offend it by supporting Tibet.
So what is wrong with this approach?
First, the Africa strategy is based on a false premise – that it is possible to bring stability to the continent in the absence of democracy.
The most obvious flaw in this reasoning is that more than three decades of trying to govern Africa without democracy has been an abject failure. The two African states which have enjoyed lengthy stability (and economic growth) are the continent’s two long-standing democracies, Botswana and Mauritius.
This is not surprising, since a key cause of conflict in Africa has been the failure of governments to respect difference in their societies. Time and again, ethnic or language groups or, simply, those who disagree with the elite, have been frozen out of politics. The result has been violent conflict.
The view among many influential South Africans that ethnic and similar differences ought to be ignored is out of step with thinking among African intellectuals who, if a recent conference in Kampala on constitutionalism is a guide, no longer debate whether it is necessary to respect difference, but how to do it.
Stability will only come to Africa when its leaders recognise that difference is a strength, and so allow for it in their political systems. And only democracy can do that.
A further cause of strife on the continent is the massive gap between leaders and citizens: politicians are free to drag their societies into wars in defence of their egos or economic interests because citizens are not strong enough to stop them. And only democracy can ensure that they have to account to others for their actions.
So, as long as Zimbabwe (and other states) violate democracy, they will remain a threat to stability. The more we ignore democracy’s absence among our neighbours, the more we help prepare the ground for more implosions to which we will have to respond.
Second, and more generally, it is hard to argue against a relationship with China. But is that only possible if we take no position on its human rights abuses?
In this and many other areas, our foreign relations seem based on the view that we have very little scope to differ with partners – or simply countries from whom we seek investment. This finds its echo in the repeated warning from local interest groups that just about any action which they dislike will alienate foreigners and plunge us into penury.
But international relations rarely work that way: it is possible for countries to differ with their partners and maintain the partnership. If evidence close to home is needed, about the only world power with whom we are happy to differ is the United States. When we do this, we discover that there are possibilities between open hostility and uncritical silence: witness the partial victory just won on generic drugs, particularly those which fight HIV/Aids. So, if we can maintain a relationship with the US while differing on some issues, why not with China? Or any other state?
This attitude, ironically, cuts us off from opportunities to enhance precisely those interests which pragmatism seeks to advance. Principle in foreign relations is not meant merely to make us feel good: it is in our national interest because states which project an image of principle on the world stage derive tangible benefits from this. Our foreign policy-makers seem to know this: they have often tried to secure concessions on the strength of our “miracle” transition. But, if moral principle in domestic affairs is a bargaining plus, why not in foreign dealings?
A key weakness of post-1994 South Africa is a frequent narrow stress on material concerns at the cost of less tangible but equally important needs – emphasis on “delivery” at the expense of deeper democracy is an obvious example. This tends to ignore the extent to which we can only achieve our vital material goals if we take the intangibles seriously: we cannot, for example, have “delivery” unless we have a democracy which enables those who deliver to understand the needs of those who are meant to benefit.
In our foreign policy as elsewhere, we need to stop posing the false choice between principle and material progress – and to realise that we cannot have the one without the other.