The clouds have now settled and everybody who wishes South Africa well makes a sigh of relief.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s meeting with US president Donald Trump, at least, avoided the Zelensky fiasco.
But, because of the “Ubuntu philosophy” African leaders have not yet grasped the lesson that imperialists do not wish us any good. They are not missionaries. No amount of goodwill on our part will change their nature.
Brother Cyril, displaying that African gift of “ubuntu,” showed considerable skill and empathy, thus deflecting and de-escalating an attack which would have become another Zelensky affair.
Nevertheless, his host was unrelenting in accusing him of complicity in white genocide in South Africa. Trump even showed Cyril photographs of what was supposed to be a graveyard of 1 000 Boer farmers.
No such graveyard existed and the 11 white farmers who have died were murdered by criminal gangs without political motivation.
Any yet no amount of reasoning would move Trump an inch. In the event, Cyril narrowly avoided being Zelenskied by a hair-thin margin.
Cyril could have gotten himself thrown out of the White House if he had simply repeated Professor Jeffrey Sachs monologue. The real genocide is happening in Gaza, aided, directed, funded and supported by the US.
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“There is no question that Israel is starving the people of Gaza…outside morality and outside international law- (and this is) celebrated in fact by the murderous (Israeli) government. The intention of genocide is made clearly by the Israeli government, (which) is armed and financed by the US government.”
Similarly, US surgeon, Fenoz Sidwa, with the World Health Organisation reported that in the five weeks he was in Gaza, “I did not treat a single patient…though there were many cases with shrapnel in their hearts and bullets in their brains. Every clinic, hospital, school…is being obliterated.”
The moral of the story.
The US State Department spokesperson explained why South Africa was being singled out for retribution.
Both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden supported Israeli’s genocidal actions in Gaza. South Africa should shut its mouth and be content.
Further, South Africa had entered into naval exercises with the Soviet Union without permission from the US.
Thirdly, South Africa did not always vote with the US at the United Nations.
Rob Hersov, who headed the Rupert Murdoch organisation in the UK before returning to South Africa after 34 years explains that as long as South Africa was playing ball with the US, between 1994-2008, it experienced a growth rate of 5 percent per year.
With an average of 400 000 million jobs a year, South Africa was able to absorb Zimbabwe’s 3 million refugees.
Since 2008, South Africa has lost the Nelson Mandela magic, slowing growth to less than one percent per year.
The decline coincides with the Jacob Zuma years (2008-2016) in which South Africa established a more pro-independent foreign policy away from collaboration with the US and Israel.
The main issue, however, is that South Africa is the home of massive US-Jewish financial and industrial interests. Port Elizabeth is the home of US General Motors Corporation. The Jewish families such as the Oppenheimer’s, head global diamond and gold conglomerates.
Cyril was sponsored by these globalists as an anti-dote to Zuma. But what the western interest groups failed to appreciate was that Cyril is torn between serving his white masters while at the same time remaining an authentic African.
It was the US intelligence agency, which betrayed Nelson Mandela’s hide-out at Rivonia Farm in 1963 by tracing his telephone called to Libya. The US was the last country to withdraw its support from the apartheid regime in 1984.
While South Africa followed a moralistic approach to its attack on Israel, the issue arises.
In learned jargon, South Africa faces “cruel choices.”
Do you want to eat, or do you want to be moral? Should an African government be a toddy to the US government which has a record of betraying Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, and Muammar Khaddafi?
The diversionary attack on Cyril by Trump had nothing to do with Boers in South Africa. It was an attempt to divert attention from Trump’s genocidal complicity in Israel’s attack in Gaza. It would have been extreme bad manners for Cyril to mention Gaza while a guest in Trump’s house.
The African “ubuntu” idea that if only Trump can see reason, Africans will be treated as equals and “listened to” (Cyril’s words) is misplaced. Sachs argues that morality and international norms are absent from imperialist repertoire.
Trump’s weapon is economic. By removing US$400 million direct aid immediately in addition to US$2 billion in military expenditures, US sanctions will soon be felt in South Africa.
My problem with the brothers is that without exception, they are caught unprepared for retaliation. Say for instance, all HIV-Aids medicines are a gift fromUSAid. That affects 20 million people.
Suggestions
Africans have been too slow to learn that imperialists do not wish us any good. They are not missionaries.
Rhodesia’s Ian Smith had the common sense to with draw USD$200 million in foreign reserves held in London in 1963 in preparation for unilateral declaration of independence.
When Muamar Khaddafi was overthrown, most of Libya’s reserves were in London and New York. They were frozen and distributed to enemy puppet warlords.
Any trade with Europe and the US can easily be frozen and sanctions applied without notice. Russia suffered a loss of US$350 billion in funds held in European banks as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine.
Increase inter-African trade as a matter of life and death, while at the same time minimising use of the Swift financial system. All credit cards, as we know them, originate in New York or London and can easily be sanctioned by US treasury.
Foreign contractors slow down acquisition of skills. The New York Hudson bridge was built by a35-year-oldIrishman, just out of architectural school.
*Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. He writes from the US.
