South Africa Is Worth Defending Despite Its Terrible Government

South Africa is not perfect. But let’s have a sense of perspective and understand how much of a blessing it is to win the lottery of being born in South Africa...

Photo by Kathrine Heigan on Unsplash

I love my country, but I don’t support my country’s government. The last government I supported was that of President Thabo Mbeki and that was before I could vote (my political views were also different then).

I often must question my patriotism. Whether it’s really love for my country and people (and what this means in reality), or if it’s just a tribal response that is conveniently used by the government to escape accountability.

Yet I am certain that some South Africans have definitely crossed the line in the opposite direction. These people seem to view my country as nothing more than a location for a house and some of their wealth. They consistently take the side of foreign governments as if these people have our best interests at heart.

To understand why this is a problem, we must go back to the fight against Apartheid and how it relied on undermining South African sovereignty. Much of the struggle against Apartheid was waged outside our borders. The ANC and other movements were in exile and used their time in foreign lands to lobby for sanctions and other measures against the Apartheid government. This is what makes discussion of patriotism and sovereignty not as straightforward as it would otherwise be in most other countries.

It can be credibly argued that the end of Apartheid had more to do with the end of the Cold War. America was no longer willing to support an Apartheid regime that was unpopular in the US if it was no longer needed as a bulwark against communism in Africa. Even the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 came about as an act of the British parliament and not because of some homegrown independence movement. Although, the Boer republics and the South African War were important factors.

To go even further, in both World Wars, South Africa acted as the African extension of the British Empire. We were not pursuing some independent foreign policy. In fact, South Africa only really started becoming its own independent entity under the Afrikaner nationalists. That may be uncomfortable to some, but it is true and it does not mean that black and Afrikaner sovereignties did not exist before South Africa. We’re talking about sovereignty over the entirety of the land that makes up South Africa now.

So, does patriotism mean anything in this context? What can a Swati man who grew up in KwaZulu Natal be patriotic about in South Africa? For a long time, I could not answer the question. I knew I loved my community and the people in it. But what makes South Africa, as a political entity, good?

I think the answer can be given in two parts. In travelling to various parts of the country, I have discovered friendliness, pragmatism and simultaneously an optimism about the future among South Africans. South Africans have an approach to life that has us laughing through the worst situations and supporting each other even as our government fails. That is what makes our little failed experiment worth defending: the people.

Secondly, and this is something I have only come to appreciate in the last few years, our constitution is unique on this continent. We often do not appreciate how unique and revolutionary it is for this continent. So much so that I would make the bold claim that we are the only country on this continent with any freedom worth defending. I often hear some make the case that Botswana has more freedom than us but then you look into the details and realize you wouldn’t really want to live there. There is nothing like South Africa and this needs to be said more often.

Beyond this continent, we are unique globally. Yes, the American constitution protects more freedoms, but it was under that very same constitution that lands were seized from Native Americans and slavery was tolerated, to the point where it had to end via a violent war.

This is why some people need a little perspective. As bad as our government is (corruption, BEE, crime, economic stagnation) for a new country, we are not doing too badly. In fact, my sharpest critiques of the government are now focused on the things that have the potential to end this country.

As much as I love South Africa, I still support the secessionist political movements because I believe they are the best way to pressure our government into necessary reforms that would preserve South Africa as an entity. I think we need far greater decentralization if this country is to survive. We are far too centralized for such a diverse country and it’s ripping us apart. I also understand, tactically, that you will never get decentralization if you advocate for decentralization. Look at the cases where people actually got more decentralization. In most cases they were actually fighting for secession and decentralization was the compromise position.

I understand also, that given our history, working with foreigners is an effective method of getting change here at home. But in doing this, we must never get to the point where we actually support forces that want to destroy this country. This is why I find some pan-Africanists and some supporters of America to be so objectionable, these people are willing to destroy our country to get what they want.

The first example of this unacceptable disloyalty is what I saw when the news came out that South Africa had lost troops in the DRC fighting against Rwandan-backed M23 rebels. The Pan-Africanist useful idiots took that as an opportunity to attack President Ramaphosa (who they see as a Western stooge) and compare him unfavorably to President Kagame while claiming that South Africa was somehow enforcing Western interests and not operating under a UN security council mandate.

The problem with this thinking is that as much as there is something to admire about Kagame’s domestic reforms and his work towards African economic integration, he is still a dictator who eliminates his rivals. President Ramaphosa is the duly elected President who derives his powers from the best constitution on the continent. Yes, his party is often hostile to this constitution, but the ANC also played a key role in creating this constitution.

Morally speaking, Kagame cannot hold a candle to Ramaphosa (even with Phala Phala factored into the equation). Kagame is also fomenting instability in the DRC in violation of international law. These violations have been so egregious they forced the normally passive UN to authorize the creation of an Offensive Force Intervention Brigade under MONUSCO. This was led by South Africa. And ironically, Kagame is more of a puppet for outside interests than South Africa is. Just recently, it emerged that Rwanda has avoided US sanctions for violating the DRC peace agreement negotiated by President Trump (Washington Accords), by asking for a favor from Senator Lindsey Graham.

In fact, Kagame received training in the USA when he was an officer in the Ugandan army. This was just before he took charge of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

The other example of disloyalty comes from the South Africans (I call them Brenthurst Foundation types) who seem to always take the side of America and Western powers against the South African government. This is true no matter which administration is in charge in the USA. This often leads to the ridiculous situation where Americans are debating the foreign policy chosen by their President, while pro-Western South Africans will take whatever the current policy is, as gospel.

There are many examples of this, especially among my liberal friends, who really should know better. When South Africa wanted to pull out of the Rome Treaty (the legal instrument behind the International Criminal Court), those same South Africans were big fans of that court. And they even told us to ignore the fact that the USA doesn’t allow its politicians and military personnel to be subject to the court. They still supported it when it issued warrants for the arrest of Vladimir Putin. In fact, their support for the court stopped at exactly the moment when the court issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu.

A similar example is how these believers in international law somehow took issue with South Africa taking Israel to the ICJ. These are the people who believe that relations between countries should be governed by institutions, unlike realists like me who believe this is not really possible, and that power and its balance is the best we can hope for, for stability. The same people were ok with America violating international law in 2003 by invading Iraq without a UNSC resolution, they are ok with America violating international law bombing Iran, but they somehow appeal to the same international law when condemning Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

Of course, it’s all a big pretense that they care about institutions, these people simply support American power because they like the USA. They believe the more powerful America is, the better the world is, no matter how America chooses to use its power. They never seriously address the negative consequences of past American interventions.

The problem with this type of disloyal South African, is that they end up buying into false narratives like the discredited white genocide narrative. This can have serious consequences, including sanctions (something liberals used to oppose when the ANC were calling for sanctions against Apartheid South Africa) and possibly even military actions, you just don’t know how the dynamics of US politics can play out and risking the livelihoods and lives of South Africans for a false narrative is the highest form of disloyalty.

They will argue that we shouldn’t spend so much time correcting their false narratives when the government is doing so many demonstrably bad things, which is classic whataboutism. Would they say that if Trump ordered airstrikes killing innocents? How can they guarantee that their lies won’t lead to that?

And if they want us to stop correcting their lies and focusing on the things the government is doing wrong, stop telling the lies and tell the truth. No one is forcing them to lie. And these lies are not just a fringe belief when the President of the USA and the richest man in the world are sharing them as truth to their millions of fans.

I am grateful for Johann Rupert and the other prominent South Africans who made clear to Trump in the White House that we do not have a white genocide but were also honest about our crime problem.

I am also grateful for the South Africans who campaign honestly against BEE without having to lie. It is important to remember that as much as Americans will use words like “precision” and “guided” to describe their bombs, they still killed between 13,000 and 41,000 civilians (in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) since 9/11. When the bombs fall, they don’t discriminate by race or ideology.

And that’s not including deaths due to the chaos caused by other US interventions.

Our constitution gives people plenty of recourse to challenge government policies they don’t like. We have the freest speech on the continent, citizens can participate in the legislative process (even though our inputs are often ignored), they can vote against people who pass these laws, they can buy land and nullify much of the effect of these laws. If we had the constitution we have now during Apartheid, I am certain no one would have gone into exile, even if you still prevented black people from voting and you had similar policies to the discriminatory policy of BEE today.

Yes, South Africa is not perfect, the government is certainly not perfect, in fact the government is about as bad as it gets, their only redeeming feature is that they have not completely abandoned the constitution. But let’s have a sense of perspective and understand how much of a blessing it is to win the lottery of being born in South Africa, despite the crime, corruption and unemployment.

So, let’s engage robustly in political debates and present solutions to the problems we face, but let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I guarantee the American President doesn’t really care about us, at least our politicians are dependent on us for their livelihoods.

Mpiyakhe Dhlamini is a libertarian, writer, programmer, entrepreneur, and associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes about personal finance and wealth-building from a South African perspective. The views in this article are his own and not those of any organisation he is associated with.