Africa Up Close

I recently attended an international conference in Pretoria, which, in addition to the excellent presentations and deliberations on the foreign policies of so-called “African driver states”, also featured a passionate exchange between a former South African diplomat and an Ethiopian intellectual. The exchange took place in the context of a session that was dedicated to interrogating challenges to South Africa’s regional leadership. Not surprisingly, the issue at hand was whether South Africa’s diplomacy in Africa was in sync with the expectations of other countries on the continent or, at least, was conducted in a manner that recognized the leadership of other African regional heavyweights. Earlier, a delegate from neighboring Botswana, citing examples of regional development projects that were supposedly derailed by South Africa, had in the same context likened South Africa’s behavior in the region to that of a self-interested hegemon. But, it was a suggestion from the Ethiopian scholar that seemed to have hit a nerve, and prompted me to reflect on the significance of historical bonds of solidarity to contemporary relations among African states.

According to the academic from Ethiopia, Pretoria’s African diplomacy has in recent times increasingly infuriated and alienated the leadership of fellow African countries [read: Ethiopia]. The former envoy did not only reject this assertion and the anecdotal evidence offered to back it up, but went ahead to make a claim of his own; that South Africa continues to enjoy strong diplomatic relations with the Ethiopian leadership founded mainly on years of political solidarity and personal friendships. Because this was a conference, and conferences are conducted within tight timeframes and are expected to maintain a certain degree of decorum, there was going to be no logical conclusion to this intellectual display of Africa’s leadership rivalry.  It was left to the members of the audience to make their own inferences from the contradictory claims. In the course of the discussion on the broader theme of that session, two such attempts would come to the fore.

The first tried to explain the inconsistency in the claims by drawing our attention to the plurality of opinions that can be expected in any African country on a political issue like this. The suggestion here was that perceptions that South Africa’s diplomacy in Africa comes with an air of arrogance and egotism, which makes partnership with other African heavyweights like Ethiopia difficult, should not be taken for granted as they may not be shared by other observers on the continent. After all, the argument can be extended to posit that, the nature of one’s opinion on any given political issue cannot be dissociated from the quality of information they can access on the issue. Given the often complex and opaque nature of diplomacy, and except in very rare cases, outsiders tend to have only a faint knowledge of the inner workings of particular diplomatic relations, and in varying degrees for that matter. This generally gives rise to differing opinions and misperceptions. And, of course, the opinions of diplomatic insiders take precedence.

The second interpretation, carried in the remark of another former African diplomat in the audience, reaffirmed this line of argument, invoking the view common among African foreign policymakers and diplomats alike that intellectuals and academics often provide inaccurate observations and analysis of the continent’s diplomatic relations because they are removed from, and do not fully appreciate the intricacies of these activities. There is truth in this argument and, in the context of the debate alluded to above, I have no doubt that it could constitute a plausible reference point for assessing the merits of the competing claims about South Africa’s diplomacy in Africa and how this is perceived by different continental actors. However, I am also of the view that the alienation between Africa’s political/diplomatic class on the one hand, and its intellectual/academic class on the other hand, cannot be blamed solely on either set of actors. It is a shared responsibility. That, however, is a discussion for another day.

Without discounting the plausibility of the preceding explanations, I came out of that session with a different interpretation of the debate; one that allows for the possibility that when founded on a wrong premise, even the perspectives of actors at the center of Africa’s diplomatic relations can be wrong. What struck me most throughout the entire debate was the primacy given to historical bonds of solidarity in trying to make the case that South Africa and Ethiopia continue to enjoy strong political and diplomatic relations, even to the point of discarding evidence to the contrary. It may indeed be true that despite perceptions to the contrary in some quarters, the rapport between Pretoria and Addis Ababa remains of a quality that can sustain a strategic partnership in the interest of the continent’s development. However, to suggest that this state of affairs can be inferred from a history of solidarity between the leadership and people of both countries is worrying, as it betrays a diplomatic calculus that is founded on a wrong understanding of the value of political solidarity, and which stands to impede rather than promote continental cooperation.

Granted, solidarity among different African groups united against political oppression and social injustice, including between South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) and the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Revolutionary Front (EPDRF), spurred strong bonds that continue to bind political parties, trade unions, countries and even individuals throughout the continent. However, while political solidarity may have contributed to dismantling oppressive and racial regimes, the contemporary relevance of the bonds it generated cannot be taken for granted. Leveraging old bonds to collectively address contemporary challenges could be a very smart diplomatic strategy, in which case considerable effort must be invested not just in nurturing historical ties of solidarity, but also in the search for common interests, generating new forms of mutual obligations and developing appropriate tools for engaging with former comrades in an ever-changing diplomatic terrain. However, engaging with old comrades with a self-serving hegemonic attitude, hoping that memories of past solidarity would be sufficient to generate acceptance and smooth over current relations is a highly myopic diplomatic approach that is not amenable to constructive partnerships on the continent. There is no doubt that the legacy of solidarity inherited from Africa’s many liberation struggles constitute an asset for constructive diplomacy to advance the interests of the continent. Yet, without a commitment to regularly update the basis of this solidarity and attune it to contemporary realities, it would at best serve a symbolic purpose and, at worst, be counterproductive to continental unity and progress.

Dr. Fritz Nganje is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the South African Research Chair in African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, University of Johannesburg.

Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Gill via Flickr Commons