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Tichaona Zindoga Political Editor
Some kind of high political drama with potential global reverberations happened here in South Africa this week.
For the first time, President Cyril Ramaphosa became a typically demagogic and populist African leader as he defended South Africa’s long overdue land reform, which is being tempered by legal niceties before being rolled out forcefully.
Nay, Ramaphosa became another Robert Mugabe (at least at his best) as he fiercely defended the turf called South Africa and the decisions of its people so affected and ill served by history.
And in becoming another Mugabe, he even borrowed some famous lines from the former Zimbabwean leader.
He was responding to a tweet from US President Donald J Trump who, a week ago said: “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.”
It was a typical trumpeting Trump tweet, his part of a megaphone diplomacy that may not be too separated by something between recklessness and narcissism.
We know that Trump’s Twitter statements hardly go through the moderation of bureaucrats, which bureaucracy the 45th President of the US has done well to upend.
He is a marvellously maverick character. His Twitter account has become a source of news, upsetting the tradition relying on White House correspondents (he doesn’t like) and legacy media (which he call fake).
The response to his tweet was robust and polarised. Typically.
However, it is the response of Ramaphosa that is most significant and may well shape the politics of South Africa and how it will relate to the world on the contentious issue of land.
Addressing a biodiversity conference function in a village called Ha-Matsila in Limpopo Province, Ramaphosa said most stingingly:
“I don’t know what Donald Trump has to do with South African land because he has never been here and he must keep his America, we will keep our South Africa. That is what he must do, South Africa is our land.”
He then gave a historiography of South Africa and its troubled race and property questions.
He alluded to the fact that South Africa had fought apartheid and found a settlement in an inclusive process.
He was unhappy that Trump was poking his nose far rather long into South Africa’s internal affair(s).
“South Africa belongs to all the people who live here in South Africa,” he fumed.
“It does not belong to Donald Trump; he can keep his America, when I meet him I will tell him.”
This is arguably the boldest that Ramaphosa has been both by way of challenging a global hegemon and by way of his politics. He is known to be a “reasonable” pro-business guy. Populism has never been his dish.
He was cyrius – sorry – serious, this time. It would have been a whole world of difference if it had been former President Zuma saying so. In fact he could have been lynched – in that ironic, idiosyncratic manner of South African politics.
But now Ramaphosa is largely a forgiven man.
If he carries on with the threat to tell Trump to go to hell in his face, Ramaphosa will become a revolutionary (he was, by the way not part of the ANC old revolutionary structures).
That is for better and for worse.
He may invite severe punishment to the country by way of sanctions and disinvestment.
Yes, that which is feared – of South Africa becoming another Zimbabwe.
On the other hand, he can embolden a people who had not quite become free to throw off their shackles and reclaim their dignity and space, whose ultimate expression is the land.
I have always thought that by agreeing and spearheading the process of “expropriation without compensation” Ramaphosa and the ruling ANC were trying to pre-empt, if not totally pilfer, the idea from the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters – that radical leftist outfit led by Julius Malema.
The idea of land reform did not start with the EFF, of course; ANC had it in its Freedom Charter, but failed to implement it with the revolutionary spirit evinced in the 1950s.
EFF would be as radical, and it is the singular message it has had these days.
However, after the Trump affair – and the ongoing process to amend the constitution to enable land redistribution – the narrative could change significantly.
Mayday, May dance!
This is not an emergency, though. The UK Prime Minister came to South Africa on a three-day visit to Africa and she immediately stirred controversy by joining a group of learners at Gugulethu High School who performed ceremonial dances to welcome her – to the beat of the African drum.
The UK premier – a tall, lean figure – made some moves to the bit. And spirit.
It was a polite gesture and many of us Africans would think it was really cute and an acknowledgement of our warm hospitality.
However, back home and on Twitter, she was dragged over the coals for it.
The Liverpool Echo claimed that, “Theresa May’s attempt at dancing is one of the most awkward things ever.”
The other “awkward” moment came when May was about to tour Robben Island – the famous prison island that once held Nelson Mandela.
A rather keen journalist wanted to know whether Mrs May in her own capacity had participated in marches, boycotts and other actions meant to free Mandela and end apartheid.
Of course she didn’t – and you know it, she told the pesky interlocutor.
A Guardian columnist is vicious in her summation (and dislike) of May.
Zoe Williams thought that the prime minister had stumbled “from blunder to faux pas, wearing the same haunted look” – No wonder: she is completely unsuited to the role of world leader.
Here is Williams savaging the PM: “There is one truly amazing thing about Theresa May that makes me think I could live to be 100 and never be half the woman she is: she keeps getting out of bed, every morning. Another day goes by, horribly; as if she is performing a public safety video on why humans should never dance; the same afternoon, she pays a ceremonial visit to Nelson Mandela’s former prison cell and is called on to explain in the 80s . . . she starts, using her trademark technique of answering a specificity with a generality – but the important thing looks set to elude her . . .
“It is worse than painful – and it is immortalised on film for people to watch and rewatch. Someone will probably recut it for a video, to the tune of.”
One can be sure that some of these unfair (according to us) comments are motivated by domestic politics.
But more substantively, the visit by the UK premier – part of a tri-nation tour – was significant.
The UK is seeking friendships across the world in light of its Brexit – another reconfiguration of geopolitics.
Britain is reaching new frontiers. She is motivated by business, business that could cushion it from the exit from the European Union.
Perhaps that is why she tried to be nice with the kids. She smiled throughout.
On the difficult Robben Island, she may not have prepared for that awkward reminder of Conservative history, eyeing only the money, something that may later on cause a rethink of diplomatic and hospitality niceties.
Very significantly, May endorsed the land reform programme in the manner that South Africa is trying to implement it.
There were a host of other agreements that the UK premier entered into with her South African hosts.
And, yes, the question of Zimbabwe would inevitably arise.
She acknowledged the election of July 30 and its winner — EmmersonMnangagwa – and was encouraged by his undertaking to look at the isolated incident of post-election violence on August 1.
What a week in South African (geo)politics!
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