Once upon a time South Africa was the kind of country whose leaders were awarded Nobel Peace Prizes. Now we side with governments who crack down on those who get them.
We’ve all heard of Liu Xiaobo by now, even if not everyone can pronounce his name. Like other recipients of an award that is often literally the product of blood, sweat and tears, the 98th Nobel Peace Prize winner received it while in prison.
The activist’s Christmas present on December 25 2009 was being chucked into jail again — this time for authoring a document that dared to demand freedom of speech and democracy.
China’s party-controlled judiciary disagreed that the latter was necessary. You see they have what they call a “people’s democratic dictatorship and socialist system”. Which, according to the verdict, he was guilty of trying to subvert.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. The ruling ANC — which has earned at least one Nobel Peace Prize via its patron saint, much as he protests to the contrary, Nelson Mandela — is practically in love with China’s government.
I’ve already written about the quaint study tours the ANC top leadership are taking to the world’s largest communist country and top contender for human rights infringements. It was an official programme they weren’t making too big a deal about; something you’d find on the back pages of your newspaper.
At the recent ANC NGC — that important gathering of top ANC honchos for a mid-term check-up — journalists received the most unequivocal statement of the ANC’s continuing love affair.
“You the know the ANC has a good relationship with the Communist Party in China … the Chinese have been assisting members of the ANC in going to China and we need to learn how the Chinese conduct their political strategies,” The chair of the session on international affairs, deputy minister Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, enthusiastically told journalists in response to a question.
Now China’s economic expansion is one thing — and is thanks to a gradual freedom in that area. The fact that this hasn’t been matched politically doesn’t stop the ANC from waxing lyrical about that aspect of Chinese governance.
“Groups of the ANC have been to China to learn the history and experience of the Chinese party, the Chinese revolution and how they’re conducting their affairs — both in the party and in the Chinese government,” he went on. “Our relationship with the people of China, particularly the Communist Party, goes before liberation — particularly in exile years. Many cadres in the movement, especially older ones, were trained by the Chinese.”
Am I missing something here? How is there any kindred spirit between what the ANC purports to stand for and China’s tyrannical government? If anything it is the opposite. Where the ANC lost hundreds during and after the Soweto riots, China’s government killed possibly thousands in the Tiananmen Square massacre. Where the ANC’s women’s league famously marched against the pass laws, China till today runs the controversial Hukou “residency permits” system, restricting the movement of people in their own country. Where much of the ANC’s liberation struggle was built on the strength of its partners in the unions — who, for better or for worse, are so strong they can confidently threaten to make the country ungovernable if workers don’t get what they want — there are no independent unions in China and discrimination is practically institutionalised against rural workers and certain ethnic minorities.
I could go on, notwithstanding the parts where the present-day ANC veers too close to the CP’s way of doing things when it comes to threats to media freedom and judicial independence.
So where we should be identifying with Liu in his long-standing fight for freedom for his fellow oppressed fellow Chinese, you won’t be hearing a congratulations from the ANC anytime soon. Our freedom has been won and we’ll be damned if we’ll let someone else’s fight interfere with our lucrative relationship with their oppressors.
- You can read Verashni’s Monday column here and follow her on twitter here.