Deployment of Roelf Meyer is a stroke of genius

The new South African ambassador to the US, Roelf Meyer. Picture: Gallo Images Fun fact #1: In 1997, Bantu Holomisa founded the United Democratic Party with Roelf Meyer. Meyer was later elected as its deputy leader.

Fun Fact #2: 20 years later, when the EFF went to the Constitutional Court on the Nkandla matter against the speaker and President, their bedfellow was the second applicant, AKA the UDM. There was never any mention that they’re an evil party because they were half founded by a former apartheid minister. Today, however, in terms of EFF lore of South Africa, we must remember that Roelf Meyer was an apartheid minister and in the reductive manner of EFF storytelling, that makes him unsuitable for anything.

It demonstrates a CT scan of the EFF’s political mindset; there’s little room for positive effect if it doesn’t meet with a political narrative. I don’t think anybody, even the EFF, is disputing that the appointment will shore up USA-SA relations. I also don’t think anybody will say that’s a bad thing.

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Where we will get contestation is when we debate the costs of such shoring up. The cost of sending Meyer in to bat doesn’t seem to be much. People like to engage with people who can speak their language.

It’s why Liam Jacobs is a sought-after commodity in Western Cape politics, why drag shows appeal to a disproportionately large section of queer communities and why dagga smokers like to jam to Van Pletzen. Does Meyer have a checkered past? Perhaps, though, even his biggest critics aren’t making plain what he did that they don’t like.

They mostly only point to this occupation of office. If that’s the case, they do themselves a disservice to ignore his inclusion in the “verligtes” within the Nats. That was a group that sought far more moderate ideology than required by Verwoerdian beliefs.

They even pushed the National Party so far that the real Verwoerdians split off to create the Herstigte Nasionale Party because how dare the national government allow Maori players and spectators during a New Zealand rugby tour. Meyer was part of a faction that pushed the real, serious, radicalised racism out and to those of his age, he was considered an awful lefty. Did he single-handedly free South Africa?

Of course not. Not even Mandela can claim that. Did he play far more of a role than people give him credit for?

Absolutely. He certainly played a greater role than the army of retweeters.

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