It may be a bit dicey but let me go out on a limb and put in a good word for the unfortunate Ebrahim Rasool, who was settling in nicely for his second ambassadorial stint in Washington only to be sent packing with a flea in his ear by the screwballs who’ve taken over the Yankee asylum. Publicly berated and run out of town within days — the diplomatic equivalent of a lynching — he has found no sympathy at home. Typical of South Africans, we simply piled on. There’s nothing we like more than kicking a man when he’s down.
But the fact that Rasool was on his second tour of duty as South Africa’s ambassador to the US, arguably the country’s most prestigious posting, is an annoying reminder that the ANC sees the diplomatic service as yet another avenue to reward or dump their cadres. Such appointments have absolutely nothing to do with advancing the country’s interests. Instead, it’s an abuse of power that borders on corruption. And they don’t even send their bright sparks either. Nomaindia Mfeketo, a proven genius, is one of Rasool’s predecessors. The dearth of talent is frightening and does our interests no favours. Modern forms of communication may have made the responsibilities of an envoy less onerous, but we still have to put our best foot forward. Such people aren’t only the face of a country in foreign lands, they also showcase the quality of its leadership.
Nothing Rasool said warrants an expulsion. It’s way over the top. Such crude and undiplomatic action doesn’t speak well of the Americans, who wear their belief in freedom of speech on their sleeve. They could have called him in for a dressing down if they didn’t like what he said. The fact that he was thrown out without even a kangaroo court shows that this moment was bound to come, regardless. Donald Trump is set on making South Africa his whipping boy, to put the upstarts in their place. Ordinarily a country will respond to the expulsion of its envoy by retaliating in similar vein. But South Africa is in no position to take on this Goliath. The only reasonable response perhaps is to lie low for the next four years and hope the dust will settle.
The blame for this debacle should not be laid on Rasool but on those who appointed him. They completely misread the tea leaves
I’m not sure an ambassador will make any difference at this stage. Not even Gary Player — who occasionally plays golf with Trump — would be ideal as our envoy in the current environment. But Rasool was a marked man. His appointment was seen almost as a provocation by the crowd that now runs Washington. Trump began his climb to the political firmament by calling for a ban on visitors from Muslim countries. That ban is apparently now gathering steam. This is an administration on a witch-hunt, ferreting out enemies, real and imagined. Rasool, a Muslim, has never hidden his sympathies for the suffering in Palestine, another red rag to the bull in Washington. Rasool, we’re told, was chosen because, as a former ambassador, he was au fait with the ways of Washington. But his tour was during the Obama administration, which in itself would have been seen as a disqualifying aspect by the current occupant in the White House.
And so the blame for this debacle should not be laid on Rasool but on those who appointed him. They completely misread the tea leaves. Rasool, if anything, is collateral damage, a piece of meat in the sandwich. President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried to play down the fallout as nothing but a misunderstanding. He’s either got his head firmly stuck in the sand, or he’s lying. Fortunately, the public are smarter than that. Rasool has also become a convenient scapegoat for those desperate to change the narrative, or shift blame, from the real culprits. AfriForum have hit the jackpot, and they’re not disguising their glee. They’ve been planting their fabrications since Trump’s first term, and they’re now reaping the fruit — with Elon Musk lending his not inconsiderable hand.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state and the man who wielded the axe on Rasool, is an interesting character. Running to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, he hurled worse insults at Trump than Rasool did. Trump, he said, was “a con artist”, declaring “it’s time to pull off his mask so that people can see what we are dealing with here. He’s a con artist. He runs on this idea he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy — his entire career”. Rubio frantically rowed back his comments after Trump became president and has been kissing the ring since. His obsequiousness seems to have paid off, with the president handing him the plum job of secretary of state. He also has an eye on the future. Trump will serve this one term and Rubio, as one of the challengers to succeed him, will stand a better chance if he stays on side. Which is why he tagged Trump on his social media post announcing Rasool’s expulsion.
But Rubio is also a Cuban-American from Miami in South Florida, home to the largest concentration of Cubans outside the island itself and hotbed of opposition to the regime in Havana. Most of them are descendants of Cuban exiles who fled the island — and lost everything — when the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro on January 1 1959. To this day, Cuba remains a politically charged issue among them, and they’re dead against any reconciliation with Havana. Rubio therefore has his own axe to grind against the ANC, which has remained wedded to the Cuban regime since its days in exile. One question that dogged Nelson Mandela during his first visit to the US after his release from prison was the ANC’s relations with the then Castro regime. Don’t assume that your enemies are also our enemies, was his stock answer.
A lot of personal and political ambitions — not the wayward comments by a pseudo-diplomat — seem to be riding on the country’s tiff with the US, and, judging by Ramaphosa’s anodyne response, we’re either naïve or totally unprepared for this almighty brawl.
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