ABBEY MAKOE
WATCHING the sheer scale of Israel’s brutal push for the extinction of the Palestinian people, the heinousness of which has never been seen in recent memory, it is impossible to remain neutral.
The quote has been paraphrased. But nonetheless, these are the thoughts and pronouncement of South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, who is also a leading leader in the ruling ANC.
He was speaking at the annual Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s Inclusive Growth Forum, also dubbed “dialogue among equals” retreat in Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal.
Minister Godongwana was scheduled to speak on the subject of “policy instruments for securing the country’s economic stability”.
Inevitably, he veered into the geopolitical causal factors of economic upheavals, noting in particular the worrying and shockingly blatant double-standards of the Western powers –without naming and shaming them.
But then again, in a gathering of the country’s leading minds and opinion-shapers as well as social media influencers, it was not hard to decipher that Minister Godongwana was referring to the inexplicable support of apartheid Israel’s brutish bombardment and wanton killing of the Palestinian men, women and children by the US, UK, Germany and France, among others.
Thanks to technology, it is almost impossible to hide any incident nowadays.
Israel’s immoral bombing of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, killing patients who had thought they had survived earlier attacks from air, sea and ground by the Israel Defense Forces, is captured as it happens.
The UN Human Rights body says nobody is safe anywhere in Gaza. They are correct. Their own staff members have perished together with their families.
Israeli defence minister says only animals live in Gaza, not humans. And true to his words, Israel has cut the supply of amenities to Gaza Strip including fuel (needed to run the hospitals), food, water and power.
In fact, Israel is literally suffocating anything that breathes life in the Gaza Strip. As if that were not enough, Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank attack Palestinian homes and businesses and set them alight.
They kill Palestinians whenever they can. The Israeli settlers are a law unto themselves. They commit all these heinous crimes with impunity and without any iota of fear for the UN Security Council.
The US insulates Israel from any consequence management outcomes at the UNSC, using Washington’s veto power to annul any resolution that seeks to reign in Israel. But then, the world is watching. The US is rapidly isolating itself on the international stage.
Thanks to the US in particular, by the time you read this article more than 9000 Palestinians had been killed in systematic Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, home to the resistance movement Hamas that has grown in popularity since it was formed in the late 1970s to push back the illegal occupation of their land by Israel.
The key objective of former president Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s annual “Dialogue among equals” series is to gather some of the country’s brightest minds to go into a three session, taking stock of the country’s development (or lack thereof), and identifying the causes whilst sharing their two-cents worth on what needs to be done to make SA a country Mandela and others envisaged.
The attendees include top academics such as university Vice Chancellors, professors, public office bearers, international scholars, diplomats, industry captains and the young minds that represent the future, among others.
Addressing the gathering, China’s top envoy in SA, Ambassador Chen Xiaodong, referred to the recent Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that was held in Beijing.
More than 20 Heads of State or Government attended the gathering in Beijing – a key symbol of a world that is increasingly looking to the East. Also in attendance were the UN secretary-General Antonio Guterres and representatives from some 151 countries and also 41 international organisations. To give it context, more than 10 000 delegates took part in the Third Belt and Road cooperation during which Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote address.
Ambassador Chen told the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation gathering that as they ponder the future of SA, they should bear in mind President Xi’s undertaking from which SA could benefit. This includes major initiatives to build a multidimensional Belt and Road connectivity network, promote green development, and advance scientific and technological innovation.
“They also include,” added Chen, “specific projects on practical cooperation, people-to-people exchanges and efforts to strengthen institutional building for international Belt and Road cooperation.”
He continued: “The Forum witnessed 458 outcomes achieved among the participants and the CEO Forum produced 97.2 billion US dollars’ worth of commercial contracts.”
South Africa was one of the African participants at the forum, at which it was agreed “to build high-quality, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, to foster an open world economy, to build a digital Silk Road as well as a green Silk Road”.
This is significant for SA inasmuch as it is great news for the entire global south. In the 21st century – an era of a globalised world that is inter-connected and inter-dependent – China has come to symbolise triumph over adversity.
Like most of the global south China, too, was once a colony of France and has since pulled itself by its bootstraps and took the bulk of their country’s 1.4 billion out of poverty and into the middle class stratum.
The UN has been loud in heaping praise on China’s development model, noting that the country – under the leadership of the China Communist Party with President Xi as the Chair – has achieved a UN Millennium Goal of poverty eradication ahead of the set deadline.
South Africa’s close bilateral ties with China are therefore strategic and their importance and cannot over-emphasised. There are too many good lessons that South Africa can learn from China’s leaf.
The personal attendance of China’s Chen and his wife, accompanied by a large contingent, stood as proof of the growing ties between the two allies who rekindled their diplomatic ties 25 years ago.
Amid the rapidly-changing geopolitical architecture, SA needs a flourishing China as an ally, just as the rest of the global south does.
Thankfully, the rest of the so-called Thirds World has found their voice. The voting pattern at the UN and the direction and nature of the discourse in the chambers in New York points to a fearless and audible voice of the once oppressed colonies.
The emergence of the BRICS Development Bank, a trusted lender seen as an antithesis to the domineering World Bank and IMF, has brought great joy and hope to most of the developing economies of the global south.
The blatant refusal of poorer nations to join the US-led NATO’s economic sanctions against Russia is another case in point for the growing independence of thought among the former European colonies, including SA.
Finally, also speaking at the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s annual dialogues was Mcebisi Jonas, SA’s former deputy minister of finance who is now the Chairperson of MTN. He spoke on the topic of “building blocks, the current economic and political climate in SA”.
He reiterated a call he made last year, saying the country – in the light of a myriad of growing socio-economic and political challenges, needs a national convention.
The convention will have to be attended by people from all walks of life irrespective of political persuasion, colour, creed or gender.
In a way, Jonas, said, SA desperately needs a national consensus that can form a firm basis for the rebuilding programme. SA needs to press a reset button, and agree on doing things differently in hopefully a common desire to rebuild a once-promising democratic project.
Hopefully as we do so, we would also reposition the country in the challenging unipolar world that is dominated by sectarian interests of the powerful nations of the global north.