Mbeki's foreign policy failures

[Syndyre]

Well written article, shows how much Mbeki and the ANC have chosen ideology over realism.

A visionary South African foreign policy would take advantage of the enormous political capital of its global statesman primus inter pares, Nelson Mandela, along with the strengths of South Africa's political and racial diversity, the lessons of its own negotiation and transformation process, good and bad, and sophistication and muscle of South Africa's economy, 40% of sub-Saharan Africa's total. Its domestic political and economic success would offer a platform and resource for all of Africa, allowing brave and bold foreign-policy thinking that is fresh and independent, offering a uniquely African democratic development model.

Yet today what could have been - and might still be - has to be contextualised within the damage done by the current regime to South Africa's foreign-policy credibility and impact.

President Thabo Mbeki is supposed to be the great strategist, the Machiavelli of negotiations, the man who puffs his pipe giving little away, all the time sizing up his opposition while astutely thinking of the long game and envisaging dimensions and directions others only discern with hindsight.

This image is not been supported, however, by his Polokwane re-election miscalculation and in the one area he is supposedly both especially knowledgeable and passionate about: foreign policy.

The image and direction of South Africa's foreign policy is today bewilderingly far removed from Nelson Mandela's 1993 hope that human rights would be the light that guided its foreign policy, a beacon of hope for the world and for African development. Indeed, nothing would seem to symbolise President Mbeki's failures more than the disappearance of the "African renaissance" from discourse.

 

[Sherbang]

Is there a link to the original article in it's entirety? Or is that it?

 

[Nod]

Is there a link to the original article in it's entirety? Or is that it?

Click on the text quoted to see the rest at moneyweb.

 

[Sherbang]

Click on the text quoted to see the rest at moneyweb.

Ah right, thanks!

 

[Albereth]

Hang on - did we have a war?

I know that we were under immediate threat of invasion and had to buy a bunch of weapons to defend ourselves, but I don't recall a single shot having been fired. Clearly that is proof of his superior foreign policy - kept us all safe.

Can we send the slightly used submarines back now?

 

[Nod]

Hang on - did we have a war?

I know that we were under immediate threat of invasion and had to buy a bunch of weapons to defend ourselves, but I don't recall a single shot having been fired. Clearly that is proof of his superior foreign policy - kept us all safe.

Can we send the slightly used submarines back now?

No we can't as there are pirates everywhere, just waiting for us to turn our backs.

 

[Albereth]

No we can't as there are pirates everywhere, just waiting for us to turn our backs.

Speaking of which - what is going to happen when they try and lay that east coast submarine cable past Somalia?

 

[Nod]

Speaking of which - what is going to happen when they try and lay that east coast submarine cable past Somalia?

There will be some hostages I expect, or the "cable company" will have to employ some protection for a few hundred nautical miles.