By Pieter du Toit, News 24
Ebrahim Rasool is no longer welcome in the US. (ER Lombard/Gallo Images)
Ebrahim Rasool’s mindless, ill-advised comments will all but scupper attempts to bring South Africa and the United States closer together, writes Pieter du Toit.
It really doesn’t matter what Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to Washington DC, thinks about US President Donald Trump.
Neither his analysis of the new American government, nor his analysis of changes in US society matters.
What matters is that this country’s ambassador to the US is able to establish and maintain diplomatic relationships to protect South Africa’s interests and mitigate the turbulence that Trump’s America First policy is causing globally.
It defies belief that Rasool thought it wise to both address a seminar of the Mapungubwe Institute of Strategic Reflection (it is run by former Mbeki policy chief, Joel Netshithenzhe) and to make statements about Trump leading a “supremacist” assault on “incumbency” based on demographic shifts and whites in the US possibly becoming a minority.
Rasool, leading a South African mission whose diplomatic nous and ability have been severely depleted and neglected over the past decade, tried to explain Trump’s worldview and foreign policy in the context of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, which holds that US interests should come ahead of every other consideration.
He added that much of what’s happened in America under Trump could be considered “instinctive, nativist, racist things”.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State, responded by effectively expelling Rasool, calling him a “race-baiting politician who hates America and hates the president”.
Everything that Rasool said might be true. His arguments could very well stack up and his logic might even be spot on.
But the job of an ambassador abroad is not to antagonise his hosts. It is not to get involved in political debates, or policy issues, or to deliver comment or pass judgement on how another country arranges its affairs. That happens at a political level between members of the executive or heads of state.
Rasool and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) have proved out of their depth in trying to navigate this quagmire. South Africa, in a precarious position, patently did not need its Washington ambassador to launch an attack on Trump.
It remains unclear if Rasool’s comments and statements were sanctioned by Dirco, or whether he made them off his own bat. Be that as it may, South Africa’s relationship with the US is now in a state of full-blown crisis.
Where this frayed relationship needed cool heads and sound minds, the government and its deployees decided to be confrontational and derisory.
I cannot recall a South African ambassador being expelled anywhere in the world since 1994, certainly not from our major trading partners, Western democracies and economic powerhouses.
His actions have now all but scuppered various nascent private and governmental efforts in Washington to bring South Africa and the US closer together.
Rasool’s job is not to offer public analysis or comment. His job is to manage a relationship and deal with the situation as it presents itself. He failed. His comments were mindless, damaging, and ill-advised.
It actually beggars belief.
– Pieter du Toit is News24’s assistant editor overseeing investigations and a former parliamentary correspondent.
Martin Plaut 