11
Nov
Critical Themes in South Africa’s Foreign Policy: An Overview
In his state of the nation address on 14 February 2013, President Jacob Zuma re-iterated some of the essential leitmotifs which have shaped South Africa’s foreign policy since 1994 and echoed very similar values, emphases, and priorities as those which underpinned the presidencies of his predecessors, Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. He talked, inter alia, about contributing to a stronger African Union (AU), supporting efforts to build a more stable and peaceful continent, building the pillars of South-South cooperation through BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and strengthening North-South relations particularly with the United States (US), Europe, and Japan (Zuma, 2013).
In short, President Zuma was referring to the very strong foreign policy foundation and legacy he had inherited in promoting South Africa’s international engagements and external relations, a foundation that is essentially held together by the mortar of its moral capital, normative agency, and political stature.
However, there are legitimate concerns that this capital, agency, and stature are fast depreciating because of recent missteps and strategic blunders in the conduct of South Africa’s foreign policy, especially under President Zuma’s watch (Le Pere, 2013). While obviously subject to debate and contestation, reference is often made to South Africa’s controversial tenure on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the ongoing Dalai Lama visa debacles, the misguided and divisive campaign to win the chair of the AU’s Commission, and the tragic military misadventure in the Central African Republic. But probably most egregious was the embarrassment of ‘Guptagate’ when a planeload of private wedding guests arriving from India was allowed to land at a secure military base in Pretoria, officially designated as a ‘national key-point’ rather than the international airport outside Johannesburg. Media innuendo flew fast and furious that the plane was allowed special landing-rights at the military base since the wedding guests were family and friends of the dynastic Gupta family who not only had accumulated enormous wealth since settling in South Africa but were closely associated with Jacob Zuma who allegedly had sanctioned circumventing official protocol.
Access and download the full University of Pretoria paper here: http://web.up.ac.za/sitefiles/file/46/1322/04%20Le%20Pere%20-%20pp%2031-56.pdf