Opinion: The latest joke from South Africa

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics, Headlines Friday, July 10th, 2015

’Tunji Ajibade

South African government officials will make good dramatists. But if they ever win an award, I won’t clap for them. After they saw to it that Omar Hassan al-Bashir, safely left South Africa the other time, government officials had it reported that the Sudanese president escaped in the course of the African Union Summit that held in their country in June. They gave this excuse because a court in the country had ordered the South African government to arrest al-Bashir as the International Criminal Court directed; all of that because South Africa was a signatory to the Rome Treaty that established the ICC. In the aftermath of al-Bashir’s “great escape”, a South African court announced that it was checking if it should punish the government for flouting its orders. Obviously, in search of an escape route because of the threat, government officials said they were considering withdrawing South Africa’s membership from the ICC. Their Lordships in South Africa have since decided that the government has questions to answer, a thing that has got officials scampering to court to file an appeal. As for the threat to withdraw, I think South Africa can withdraw from Ithe CC. I will return to this point; but first, I take up the accusations levelled against the ICC from a different perspective.

When some bring up arguments against the efforts of the ICC to hold leaders on this continent accountable, I believe they overlook many angles to the debate, and they place blame where it shouldn’t be. It’s the reason some don’t see any good in this judicial instrument that I essentially consider a forerunner to the establishment, on the African continent, of a tradition of holding leaders accountable for their actions. This is important where leaders notoriously don’t want to be held accountable. In any case, that anyone would want to overlook the death of hundreds of thousands of Africans by lampooning the ICC on the grounds that it doesn’t punish leaders in other continents sounds strange. It is, because the ICC doesn’t call up people unless there’s little chance of such being made to account for their actions in their country; this is one feature most African countries demonstrate.

There’s also the argument about this judicial instrument being the western world’s tool to dominate the rest of the world. My response to this is that anyone familiar with world history will find nothing extraordinary in this accusation. Every phase of civilisation had those that grumbled about dominance by others; one thing however was that some who were once dominated later rose to also dominate. The British Isle, for instance, that was once occupied as part of the Roman Empire dominated the world at a later stage. The point is, power relations on the global stage embolden those that have the power to seek to spread their influence; it’s natural. But nothing stops the dominated from amassing power, get their acts together and equally exert influence. All past powers on the world stage went through the phase: These included Egypt of the time of the Pharaohs, the Assyrians, the Romans, the British, and the Chinese.

Interestingly, in the later part of the 19th century when a British envoy visited China, one of its high state officials boasted that the latter was the best in the world. The 20th century had also witnessed the West in general seeing itself as the best thing to ever have happened to mankind, a state of mind that made Francis Fukuyama theorise that mankind had come to the end of history, seeing liberal democracy as the ultimate in man’s history of social, economic and political development. I think Fukuyama’s position amounts to the mistake the Chinese made in the 19th century. Earlier world powers made this same mistake, thinking themselves unassailable. Yet, the lessons present day China offers Africa is where I am going. Today, China believes it provides alternatives to the West in some ways, running its politics and economy the way it chooses, and so efficiently too. This baffles the West which often prefers to see China as being antagonistic because it channels its own course. Note, China provides alternatives in the face of a rampaging West, and the West cannot stop it no matter how much it tries. The West can’t stop Africa if it chooses to rise and provide alternatives rather than point accusing fingers when others provide theirs.

It’s worth noting that China arrives here because its leadership organises itself and its people, enamouring the nation against bulls from outside. China works on itself, drawing on its strength, promoting those values that empower any country to influence other parts of the world as past civilisations did. When leaders loot in China, they are executed. That’s the extent of how serious the country is in promoting values that enable it resist domination from outside. The other day, the United States and China engaged in an annual dialogue where the US Vice-President, Joe Bidden, said what the country and China did together “defines 21st century for the remainder of the world”. Days before the dialogue, President Barack Obama stood before a crowd of roaring Americans and said America must stand up and define the direction the rest of the world should go, and if it failed, China would; so, America should join China to define the direction the world should go. He was talking about world economy. Note that China strengthened itself from within so much that a hegemon like the US could not ignore it. China didn’t sit back and bemoan hegemons, rather its leaders got together after the 2nd World War and defined the direction they wanted to go. In comparison, African leaders mostly work against the values that can help the continent stand and resist the West in a positive way. Unlike China, Africans band together to castigate the West more than they band together to adopt and see through positive measures that ensure the West doesn’t have reasons to embarrass them through instruments such as the ICC. The Chinese don’t have to worry about their leaders being embarrassed; it’s because their leaders engage in what they themselves are proud to be identified with as a nation.

Back to South Africa that threatens to withdraw from the ICC. It may, and for the following reasons. One, with the order of its court that al-Bashir should be arrested in compliance with the ICC’s warrant, South Africa’s judiciary has demonstrated that under its watch no leader in the country who commits crime against humanity will get away with it. South Africa as a nation has also shown that no such crime would be swept under the carpet in its territory; this was demonstrated with the establishment of the Truth Commission that investigated the atrocities committed under the apartheid regime. Moreover, a political leader in South Africa that wants to stay in power indefinitely and engages in mass murder for the purpose will have mass violent rebellion on his hands; it’s because every South African black man above the age of 30 has been raised on the diet of resistance under the apartheid regime. Also, South Africa has big businesses capable of checking the leadership such that if the country withdraws from the ICC, the chances of a political leader staying in power indefinitely, murdering people and throwing the nation into chaos to achieve his purpose as is the case in Burundi is nil. Such a setting is bad for big business, and South Africa is home to some powerful arms manufacturers and monopolies in mineral resources such as diamond and gold.

Moreover, South Africa can withdraw from the ICC because Julius Malema, the militant youth leader who was thrown out of the African National Congress but now heads a political party that may rule South Africa some day said in parliament that al-Bashir must “rot in jail” for his atrocities in Darfour. It means today’s leaders may withdraw South Africa from the ICC, but tomorrow’s leaders will return it. So, unlike most African nations where the judiciary would not dare query the government, South Africa is in safe hands if it withdraws from the ICC. But, does it do South Africa any good to withdraw its membership? I don’t think so, and for several reasons. For the moment though, I think its officials have sounded ridiculous enough by bringing to the public space the very idea. And that’s where this threat to withdraw should stop, at the level of idea.

-Punch

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Posted by admin on Jul 10 2015. Filed under Africa & World Politics, Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry