Clueless and immoral

TO UNDERSTAND how far South Africa has strayed from Nelson Mandela’s legacy, one need only peruse the latest foreign-policy paper drafted by grandees of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The fall of the Berlin Wall, it reads, marked not the freeing of captive nations in Europe but a regrettable triumph of Western imperialism. The pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in China were an American-backed counter-revolution. Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine is a conflict “directed from Washington”. America’s policies in Africa and the Middle East have “the sole intention” of toppling democratic governments. As “part of the international revolutionary movement to liberate humanity from the bondage of imperialism”, South Africa should seek to have American military bases thrown out of Africa.

If this were a spoof, it might be amusing. Yet the document is entirely serious: its contents are to be debated at the ANC’s policy conference in October. Its authors include several serving and retired cabinet ministers, including a former foreign minister. South Africa risks becoming a laughing-stock, not least in Africa itself.