Day of contrasts in SA’s relationship with US

On the same day that US ambassador-designate to SA, Brent Bozell, arrived on our shores, we received the sad news that American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson — a great champion of the struggle against apartheid — has died. The two men couldn’t be more different from each other, especially in relation to SA. In the late 1980s, Bozell was among conservative US voices that publicly backed PW Botha’s apartheid regime while campaigning against the scheduling of a meeting between then US secretary of state George Shultz and then exiled ANC president Oliver Tambo on the ground that the latter represented “a terrorist organisation”.

The meeting did eventually happen, thanks mainly to pressure from Jackson and other US anti-apartheid activists who insisted that no true resolution of the South African conflict could be achieved without the inclusion of organisations like the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners. History tells us that this meeting between Shultz and Tambo did play an important role in a global political process that was to eventually lead to the political settlement whose fruits we enjoy today. Jackson, in other words, was on the right side of history on SA as he had been, as a young man, during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jnr.

Hence, to large sections of South African society, his death is not only the US’s loss, but also our own. SA has strong ties to the US and these bonds have been strengthened over the last three decades through close political and economic co-operation. Though at government-to-government level, the relations may currently be strained due largely to the political posture adopted by US President Donald Trump since his re-election, these tensions ought not lead to a total collapse of the friendship.

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The genuine outpouring of grief among South Africans following the death of Jackson, an American politician, should be the first clue for Bozell that he has not landed in an anti-US republic. We just disagree on a couple of geopolitical issues and, in a truly democratic system, that should be allowed.

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