{"id":57440,"date":"2015-11-11T06:44:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T04:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/2015\/11\/why-its-time-south-africas-foreign-policy-was-driven-by-ideas-again\/"},"modified":"2015-11-11T06:44:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T04:44:30","slug":"why-its-time-south-africas-foreign-policy-was-driven-by-ideas-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/why-its-time-south-africas-foreign-policy-was-driven-by-ideas-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it’s time South Africa’s foreign policy was driven by ideas (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Former presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. Both men had clear ideas about South Africa's foreign policy.<\/span> Reuters<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Understanding South Africa\u2019s foreign policy has proved elusive these 20-odd years past.<\/p>\n

The brilliant South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) once drew a cartoon likening the country\u2019s foreign policy to \u201cgreat unresolved mysteries\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/span> Zapiro<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In retrospect, Zapiro\u2019s was a harsh judgement. Over the past two decades, it has not been easy for any country \u2013 let alone a newly freed one, like post-apartheid South Africa \u2013 to understand the rapidly changing world. Why has this been so?<\/p>\n

Post-Berlin Wall uncertainties<\/h2>\n

The sudden ending of the Cold War in 1989 was the proverbial \u201cgame-changer\u201d in thinking about international relations and the ideas which inform the making of foreign policy.<\/p>\n

The fall of the Berlin Wall \u2013 the structure that symbolised the bipolar world \u2013 ended a long period of certainty in international relations. It was followed by the question: \u201cwhat\u2019s next?\u201d. What ideas for organising the world could replace an almost Archimedean idea that had underpinned Cold War thinking. This was that communism would be permanently pitted against capitalism, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

The resulting vacuum was filled when the idea of \u201cglobalisation\u201d entered the discourse. This view was anchored in the 18th-century idea that it was possible for history to end and, if this happened, countries (and their peoples) could live in harmony.<\/p>\n

In the revised version, advanced by Japanese-American thinker Francis Fukuyama, the free market and regular democratic elections could build prosperity and so secure a more peaceful world.<\/p>\n

And it was the Clinton administration\u2019s enthusiastic embrace of liberalising trade worldwide that drew the theory of globalisation into practice. It did this by underscoring the notion that the defining motive of foreign policy was to pursue free market economics.<\/p>\n

The ANC government, prompted by business, were quick to embrace this idea.<\/p>\n

All things to all people<\/h2>\n

Efforts to develop clear thinking on post-apartheid foreign policy was subjected to big conversions like these, as well as immediate ideas from within the liberation movement and elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n

Navigating these choppy ideational waters was not easy especially in the first five years when Nelson Mandela\u2019s global standing \u2013 and his rockstar fame \u2013 raised expectations that South Africa could be all things to people the world over.<\/p>\n

The notion was that Mandela\u2019s triumphant story represented the success of human rights as a normative force in global affairs \u2013 an idea that had been a feature of international relations in the post-second world war era. Such hopes were fanned by an article published in the world\u2019s most influential foreign policy journal penned by the soon-to-be president. The article advanced ideas on the country\u2019s future foreign policy.<\/p>\n

But the real conceptual shape, not to mention policy substance, had to wait for the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. He fully took the country into an historical tryst with the African continent.<\/p>\n

Mbeki\u2019s evocative oratory and sharp analysis drew on the idea of African Renaissance, which enjoyed currency in Pan-Africanist circles. In practice it would reshape continental institutions. So the Organisation of African Union became the African Union. It would also secure NEPAD, a self-policing mechanism for the affairs of the continent.<\/p>\n

But Mbeki\u2019s foreign policy ideas and his ambitious African agenda were lowly obstructed by the factionalism that gave way in Polokwane, the ANC gathering that saw Mbeki lose power to Zuma.<\/p>\n

9\/11 and the return to a binary world<\/h2>\n

In the meanwhile, confident talk of \u201cthe end of history\u201d and its doppelganger, globalisation, had given way to an international system that was fragmenting and increasingly preoccupied by the idea that security was to be the central worry of all states.<\/p>\n

This thinking was speeded by the events of 9\/11. The tragedy itself, however, seemed to confirm the idea, first advanced by Harvard\u2019s Samuel P. Huntington, in 1992, that the West was pitted against Islam in a \u201cclash of civilisations\u201d. Huntington\u2019s thesis and America\u2019s wars in West Asia which followed 9\/11 signalled a return to the binary logic that had closed off ideas during the Cold War.<\/p>\n

Faced with this shifting ground, the Zuma government moved in another direction. It aggressively explored the idea of multilateralism. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has been the most innovative achievement.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the country has continued an interaction with the affairs of the continent, especially through the idea of peace-keeping.<\/p>\n

National interest takes centre stage<\/h2>\n

In an instructive way, these various threads of thought were brought into conflict in June\u2019s perfect storm over the visit by the Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s early commitment to the protection of human rights by joining International Criminal Court clashed with its commitment to Africa. And, to add anguish to agony, simple-minded experts, particularly among security analysts, could only see al-Bashir through the clash of civilisations optic.<\/p>\n

Most recently it has become clear that the central idea in the making of South Africa\u2019s foreign policy has shifted again \u2013 this time towards the notion of the \u201cnational interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

The idea of putting \u201cinterest\u201d at the centre of foreign policy making is not new. Its most famous enunciation was made in 1848 by the then-British foreign secretary and later prime minister, Lord Palmerson. As he put it:<\/p>\n

\n

We have no external allies, and we have no perpetual interests. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The idea that national interest \u2013 and national interest alone \u2013 should determine a country\u2019s foreign policy is much criticised, notwithstanding that many countries nowadays use it to chart their respective foreign policies.<\/p>\n

Critics believe that the idea of the national interest is devoid of any real content. As a result, it can be easily appropriated (or simply manipulated) by sectional interests either within a ruling party, or within the country itself.<\/p>\n

In the South African context this idea is worrying because there has been no clear definition of what constitutes the national interest \u2013 even though, as rumour has it, cabinet has adopted a paper on this topic.<\/p>\n

The rumour is worrying enough. What is more troubling is a supporting rumour that the unreleased draft of South Africa\u2019s ideas on national interest was prepared by experts close to national intelligence.<\/p>\n

New and interesting ideas matter most for policy when they are openly debated. But introducing national interest into this debate in South Africa seems to have got off to a bad start.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Peter Vale is affiliated with SACOIR (the South African Council on International Relations) which was established earlier this year by DIRCO (South Africa's Department of International Relations and co-operation).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Join the fun:<\/strong> Add Your event<\/a> | Submit a Press Release<\/a> | Add your listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. Both men had clear ideas about South Africa's foreign policy. Reuters Understanding South Africa\u2019s foreign policy has proved elusive these 20-odd years past. The brilliant South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) once drew a cartoon likening the country\u2019s foreign policy to \u201cgreat unresolved mysteries\u201d. Zapiro In retrospect, Zapiro\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4635,3818,8885,7050,8886,3821,8737,3576,2220],"class_list":{"0":"post-57440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africas","8":"tag-again","9":"tag-driven","10":"tag-foreign","11":"tag-ideas","12":"tag-its","13":"tag-policy","14":"tag-south","15":"tag-time","16":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}