Dear friends and fellow South Africans,
When Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille announced that US President Barack Obama would be awarded the Freedom of the City during his upcoming working visit to South Africa, the ANC was furious.
Although the Freedom of the City has previously been awarded to such prominent individuals as former President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, the ANC in the Western Cape accused the DA of a “secessionist strategy” which, they said, was evident from their offer of “honorary citizenship” to President Obama and the US First Lady.
The ruling party then went a step further and urged President Obama to reject the award on the basis that the DA-led Western Cape does not care about the plight of the poor, as evidenced, they said, by the lack of service delivery in the Western Cape. By that standard, of course, the ANC clearly doesn’t give two hoots about the poor anywhere else in South Africa.
But the argument was not meant to be taken seriously. It was meant simply to display the ANC’s ire at being outdone, yet again.
I could not help but remember how the National Party and the ANC had levelled the same accusation against me during South Africa’s constitutional negotiations; that I was pursuing a “secessionist strategy”. The IFP had drafted a provincial constitution for KwaZulu Natal based on a federalist model, memorialising how power could be decentralised and brought closer to the hands of the people.
Both the NP and the ANC steadfastly believed that power should be held at the top, in the hands of a few. To discourage debate on a federal constitutional model, I was labelled secessionist. Who then would dare open discussion on such an unpatriotic subject?
It was, however, absurd to suggest that I sought secession for KwaZulu Natal when I had rejected so-called independence for KwaZulu, despite enormous pressure from Pretoria. It was my rejection of independence that had derailed the grand scheme of apartheid to balkanise South Africa. I was determined to keep KwaZulu within South Africa, as part of South Africa.
But my efforts for the benefit of our country were often misrepresented and criticised during the liberation struggle. I was perhaps most maligned for rejecting the call from the ANC’s mission-in-exile for international sanctions and disinvestment against South Africa.
I recognised that this strategy would hurt the poorest of the poor the most, would damage the economy we would inherit and sow the seeds for massive unemployment in our future. I argued against sanctions and disinvestment in much the same way that the ANC now argues against international sanctions and disinvestment from Zimbabwe. They won’t admit it, but they finally understand my viewpoint, and they agree.
As the Chief Minister of KwaZulu and leader of Inkatha, I visited many Heads of State throughout the world, urging them not to encourage disinvestment by their countries’ companies and not to impose sanctions against South Africa. Among those who welcomed me, and listened attentively to my argument, were US Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior.
I therefore know, first hand, what America’s Presidents have done for our country. I know how carefully they considered the best interests of all our people during the liberation struggle and how deliberate they were in developing policy that could build South Africa’s future.
To my mind, we owe a debt of gratitude to the United States and particularly to its Presidents.
Even now, almost two decades into democracy, the United States is making massive contributions to South Africa’s development and success. There is, for instance, no other country in the world that has contributed as much to our long fight against Aids.
I therefore found it quite offensive when the ANC urged President Obama to reject the Freedom of the City of Cape Town for purely political, and deeply immature, motives. Cape Town is the seat of the national legislature. As a Member of Parliament, I welcome President Obama being honoured in Cape Town. I am amazed that the ANC was willing to discredit the image of our country to score a negligible political point.
To me, this was like cutting off our nose to spite our face. As a South African, I was offended and I somehow hoped our President would show leadership on this matter. To her credit, the Mayor of Cape Town indicated that she would be guided by the office of the President, as state protocol dictates on matters relating to Heads of State.
President Zuma, however, was silent.
Now another opportunity for our President to show leadership has come and gone, unutilised. The alliance partners of the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, together with other organisations like the “Friends of Cuba Society”, yesterday issued a statement declaring that “the visit of the US President to South Africa is an unwelcome visit that will be protested, picketed and resisted” because the US is “arrogant”, “selfish”, “oppressive”, “war-mongering”, exploitative and racist.
President Obama’s leadership, they say, is “an assault on human rights”.
I cannot imagine anything more embarrassing for the ruling party than to have its alliance partners speak in this way about a guest of the President. Yet the ANC’s reaction has been mild and non-committal.
They say that in a democratic country people are free to demonstrate according to their conscience.
They are right insofar as that is true. But they are dead wrong if they think that South Africa’s international image will sustain the damage being done by our glaring lack of leadership from the top.
Yours in the service of our nation,
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP
