South Africa’s commitment to a non-aligned stance, while admirable in theory, has proven to be a difficult dance in practice. If the country is to be a respected voice on the diplomatic stage, it must speak with consistency, act with integrity and comply with the constitutional values that its people hold so dearly.
There is no thornier issue in that regard than Iran.
The latest faux pas on this front came last Friday when minister in the presidency for women, youth and persons with disabilities Sindisiwe Chikunga attended the Iranian Embassy’s Revolution Day commemorations. The guest appearance came as anti-government protests have raged across Iran since late last year. The state crackdown has been brutal. Internet and telephonic services have been severed to stifle co-operation. Thousands have been killed — it’s difficult to know how many exactly but reporting from The Guardian puts the upper estimate as high as 30,000.
The DA, the second largest party in the government of national unity, took particular umbrage with Chikunga’s timing.
“The fight for liberation by the people of Iran mirrors the fight for freedom waged by the people of South Africa against racial oppression,” wrote DA spokesperson on international relations & co-operation Ryan Smith.
That the DA and ANC have different perspectives on diplomacy will not be news to anyone (that tussle has played out repeatedly in the GNU). And in fairness to the latter, issues in the international arena are often more complex than their governing partners are wont to make them out to be.
To be sure, the attendance can be read as the minister using the commemoration to raise women’s rights issues behind closed doors rather than celebrating Iran’s domestic conduct. That is standard practice in international relations and does not necessarily mean moral approval.
But on this occasion, with the gravity of the context, Chikunga’s actions were, at best, extraordinarily clumsy. It is especially so when there’s no public diplomatic note explaining the intent of the visit and any steps taken to address human rights concerns.
The Iranian regime is clinging to legitimacy. Its people, who have suffered through decades of poor standards of living brought on by extreme sanctions, are demanding change. It’s clear that it believes that violent suppression is the only path to staying in power. That requires dressing its actions in a veneer of justification.
In remarkable comments on Wednesday in a speech to mark the 1979 revolution anniversary, President Masoud Pezeshkian apologised for the harm caused to protestors. But he stopped short of attributing the violence to security forces and blamed Western propaganda for exaggerating the violence.
Actors in and around his government have been eager to play off the protests as products of American and Israeli agitation. It’s an attempt that does find currency in a lot of quarters. So much collective Iranian trauma after all can be traced back to foreign interference.
Iran’s last democratically elected president, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was overthrown in a coup that we now know was backed by the CIA and British MI6 in 1953. The repressive Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was installed in his place, beginning a vicious cycle of political repression that the Iranian people have been forced to endure.
True non-alignment is the ability to recognise that history while acknowledging that the present Iranian government is conducting mass-scale human rights abuses.
Attending an embassy event can seem to be one of the more benign diplomatic slips. But tacit legitimisation can be powerful. Given the severity of what is unfolding in Iran, it is important that South Africa act and speak with purpose and integrity.
The nation took Israel to the International Court of Justice on the principles of human dignity and the right to life. If it does not universally apply those principles it will stand as a hypocrite.
Values cannot be selectively applied. South Africa must be unimpeachable.
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