Peter Vale sees the war on terrorism as a continuation of Washington’s campaign to “fashion the world in its own interests” that began with the war against communism (“Crusade to settle scores”, January 11). He implies South Africa is being duped into doing the United States’s bidding. His fears are misplaced.
President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress need no tutorials on US perfidy. For decades their lives were at greater risk because Washington was keener to counter the Soviet Union than support human rights. But political decisions are about balancing evils, as Mbeki knows. In its struggle for justice the ANC of necessity took help from autocratic leaders with no interest in the Freedom Charter. Mbeki and his colleagues also shrewdly regarded the US not as a monolith, but as a society open to influence. They thus cooperated with anti-apartheid groups and eventually forced changes in US policy on South Africa.
Today South Africa has very different policies at home and abroad. Vale advises neutrality on the war on terrorism so as not to “disrupt a thousand [domestic] social balances”. He also equates all deaths regardless of cause or means. He underestimates his nation’s strengths, but also its vulnerabilities.
The September 11 attacks demonstrated US vulnerability and that it had fanatical enemies who were gaining capabilities to threaten greater destruction with weapons of mass destruction. Earlier, more modest targets US embassies in Africa and a naval vessel suggested global reach. Neutrality, even tactical, is not an option for Pretoria.
More importantly, the US and South Africa share a strategic purpose. As liberal democracies, neither can flourish in a world of racial, religious or gender intolerance. Combating this requires new norms, institutions and greater political will, as Mbeki often argues. It also requires more politically capable states an argument Mbeki will make to promote the New Partnership for Africa’s Development before the meeting of G8 leaders in June.
Any debate about war, ethicist Michael Waltzer reminds us, boils down to good versus evil. So far, in the war against terrorism the choice for South Africa has been easy.
Siding with democratic America does not, however, require becoming a slave of US policy. South Africans must set their own course on human rights and democracy as antidotes for ills that result in terrorism. Ridding Afghanistan of terrorists and theocratic fascists is a test case that has caught the world’s attention.
It was in this spirit that I suggested (“SA’s role in the war on terrorism”, December 20 2001) Pretoria look for low-cost, symbolic ways to help in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, such as helping set up a truth commission. This would signal support for the United Nations, and remind the nation and the world of our better nature. John Stremlau, University of the Witwatersrand