That melodrama at the White House was such a watershed — or a biggie, as Donald Trump would say — it will take years before we can clean up the stench and debris it left behind. Any thought of the dust settling soon is pie in the sky. It’s a surreal moment, a Kafkaesque nightmare, that is bound to have an enervating impact on South Africa’s foreign relations — a prism through which others will choose to see us. And it will, I fear, leave a bitter taste in many a mouth here at home.
Death, death and more death, Trump thundered as he flipped through a stash of printed articles. It was in fact, as Mark Twain would put it, lies, damned lies and statistics. Later, not knowing what to do with these exhibits, Trump handed them to President Cyril Ramaphosa as if tossing them into a trash can, which is, in fact, where they belong.
Some seemed surprised that Ramaphosa and his band of happy warriors walked into an ambush. But anybody with a bit of common sense would have smelled the trap from a mile off. The assembled delegation seemed to be complete strangers. It was as if they had met for the first time on the White House steps.
Trump had a hand in choosing them, and it showed. They were in his lair. He’d set the terms of engagement — and the trap. The golfers were accorded an attentive, even sympathetic, ear, while Ramaphosa could hardly get a word in edgeways.
He couldn’t be allowed to speak because that wasn’t part of the plan. His facts would spoil a good story. After all, this White House is a truth-free zone — its unrelenting fusillade of falsehoods has contaminated politics across the globe.
Our guys, who seem to have thought that just showing up would be regarded as a victory, didn’t stand a chance. Whatever little nuggets of truth or reality proffered were always going to be buried under an avalanche of lies. But they did give it a go, including some self-flagellation and embroidering of the facts, clearly aimed at humouring Trump. Johann Rupert turning on John Steenhuisen about crime in the Cape Flats must have provoked some chuckles.
Even Zingiswa Losi, avatar of the Left, did seem for a moment to forget that she was in the belly of the beast and joined in the trashing. They were trying too hard to appease, to play the game as per the rules set by Trump. But it was a pointless exercise. Trump just sat there with barely concealed delight as his supplicants vied for his approval.
Sit on your hands and let the storm blow over in four years. You can’t wrestle with a pig in the mud
We would have been better off staying at home, methinks. Sit on your hands and let the storm blow over in four years. You can’t wrestle with a pig in the mud. Choose only those battles that you stand a chance of winning. Ramaphosa seemed too keen to persuade Trump to attend the G20 summit. Let him stay away if he chooses. It may just do our sanity some good. Despite what he says though, chances are he will show up. He likes the limelight and the pageantry associated with such events too much to stay away. Besides, it plays well politically back home.
But the response here seems to be one of relief: that Ramaphosa was able to restrain himself in the face of extreme provocation and disrespect — and that he at least escaped the kind of mauling that was handed to Zelensky.
But we should surely be outraged by the fact that this whole thing was entirely unnecessary and was based on an orchestrated cacophony of lies. And by participating in this chicanery, we’ve lent is a legitimacy it doesn’t deserve.
There are many in this country who have nothing to lose. We should be careful not to run around with match boxes in such a volatile situation. We have no option but to painstakingly, perhaps erratically, seek that national consensus. As Martin Luther King jnr said: “We must learn to live together as brothers (and sisters) or perish together as fools.” Trump, egged on by the likes of AfriForum, seeks to upset the applecart, where right becomes wrong, up is down and victims are oppressors.
The only winners in such a scenario are those on the political extremes — AfriForum, who started the ball rolling, and Julius Malema, who played a starring role in this tragicomedy in the Oval Office, and is already hailing it as a leg-up for his party’s electoral prospects.
But of course, the main culprit in this whole fiasco is the ANC. It has not only looted the country, it has destroyed our reputation, our self-esteem, in the eyes of the world. A country that in 1994 was hailed by the entire world as a paragon, a beacon of hope, and which for a while punched far above its weight, has been reduced to a laughing stock, and every fleck of mud thrown at it sticks. We’ve thoroughly trashed the brand.
Can anyone imagine Nelson Mandela or even Thabo Mbeki being summoned to the White House to be given a thorough working-over by a shameless grifter, a convicted felon? Of course not. It couldn’t have happened not only because of the stature of the leaders, but because of the type of society we — and the world — thought we were destined to be, a fine example for other nations to follow. We could do no wrong, and everybody was keen to assist or be associated with us. But the ANC has mismanaged the country to a point where a convicted criminal can arrogantly give us a moral lecture about crime in our own country.
Many are tempted to indulge in Schadenfreude over the discomfit the Oval Office debacle caused the ANC. But we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.