Why nothing will stop Trump from throwing mud at SA

UNDER US president Donald Trump, it is no longer debatable that the American empire is irrelevant as a beacon of exemplary and ethical leadership in global affairs today. 

But this is not entirely new, Trump simply makes the unravelling of American imperialism more dramatic, if not tragic. What perhaps remains unresolved, is how long the American electorate will allow Trump to reduce their country into a paranoia state, an empire of appalling tantrums and ragtag diplomacy.

American exceptionalism continues to put the country’s common sense into the deep freeze. As things stand, there is no charitable way to look at Washington beyond the stubborn nightmare of an unbelievably manic and dubious warmongering presidency. 

When president Cyril Matamala Ramaphosa spoke to the nation on Sunday night, to briefly report about the recent G20 summit, he was indirectly inviting citizens to reckon with Trump’s vitriolic attacks on South Africa.  

But I doubt that most people in our country will ever fully know why Trump hates South Africa  like a jilted lover. They may never understand why he announced on X that we are not invited to next year’s G20 meeting to be hosted by the US in Miami.

The American president has swallowed a lie like candy, thanks in part to a handful of lunatic Afrikaner traitors like AfriForum’s Kalie Kriel who told him whites were being forced out of their land and wantonly killed, so to speak,  by a corrupt black government and its white genocidal impis.   

But why is truant Trump obsessed with condemning Mzansi without a shred of evidence? Simply put – the man is ducking and diving.

Thanks to the US government’s entrenched entanglements in support of Israel, a real genocidal regime, Trump is playing dirty so that South Africa withdraws the case lodged against Israel at the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations accusing the Zionist of genocide in Gaza.

This historic and bold case brings international law to bear on the legacy and currency of white settler colonial violence in Palestine.  South Africa has become the symbolic battleground in which the complicity of the US and other Western countries in aiding genocide in Gaza and parts of Palestine, has come under sharp international scrutiny.

Last month’s 23rd Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture addressed by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, was yet another cause for Trump’s tirade.

Hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, preceding the lecture were conversations with survivors of genocide, faith leaders, human rights advocates, diplomats and community activists. Albanese was scathing towards: “The occupation of Palestine must be understood as part of a broader project of domination. This is not merely about the physical borders of historical Palestine.” 

Describing the crisis in Palestine as “apocalyptic”, she did not simply invoke history, but also firmly indicated the present. “What’s shocking is that it’s still the same. What changes are the numbers. Nothing changes, it has just gotten more extreme. And even in the face of this, it goes on with impunity.”

As Ramaphosa intimated on Sunday, Washington’s straw man was livid again after the successful conclusion of the G20 South Africa Summit. Trump can’t fathom that despite his insults and ill-advised boycott of the event; we put together a good show that culminated with the adoption of the leaders’ declaration, an ambitious, albeit contradictory document premised on neoliberal idealism. Without sucking up the US or his nihilism, we once again proved to be an impactful political force on the global stage.

The complex explanation of current US intransigence is a burden of deep-rooted imperialistic violence. Imperialism is a tendency for countries or people to want to dominate others by force to advance their economic and geopolitical interests.

No matter what South Africa says or does via ethical diplomacy, because Washington’s straw man worships his own propaganda, Trump will continue throwing mud at us. After all, he is the quintessential malice man, bluster and all.

Despite it all, South Africa must draw impetus from their long-established traditions of fighting for justice and equality and the ethos of human rights-centred transnationalism solidarities epitomised by among others, the Bandung Asian-African Conference of 1955. We are not easily bullied. We march, we make noise and yes, we can be ungovernable.

President Ramaphosa is right to call on all of us to “continue to fight, advocate and work for a more equal world.” This is what Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO, Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi describes as “acts of solidarity and love.”

It is commendable that Ramaphosa is urging the nation to meditate on our times beyond the glamour and glitz of G20 and its massive PR boost to our national ego. A lot of work still needs to be done. 

Ordinary South Africans must be galvanised to support justice-based positions we have taken internationally. When the country is on the right side of history, this must be the seed for the sustenance of our future.

Our quest to bequeath to the world what Steve Biko once called “a more humane face”, requires resilience and stubborn hope.  The struggle continues in Palestine, Sudan, and now, Venezuela, among others.   Singajindi. 

Ngidi is an activist-poet, literary critic, communication specialist and freelance journalist. He writes in Zulu and English.