Former ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, returns home with scores of supporters welcoming him at Cape Town International Airport.
Image: Ayanda Ndamane/Independent Newspapers
EXPELLED South African ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool would not hesitate in repeating the remarks that landed him in hot water with Washington, saying he viewed the “unwelcome person” label as a badge of honour.
Rasool arrived at Cape Town International Airport on Sunday, having been expelled from the US for remarks made during a webinar held by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) under the theme 'Implications of changes in US administrations for SA and Africa'.
“The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the US, the Maga movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the US in which the voting electorate in the US is projected to become 48% white,” he had said during the webinar.
The Trump administration then declared him a persona non-grata for what it described as an attack on its president Donald Trump.
This was the latest decision in a series of moves that the US government has made against South Africa since Trump took over in January. Others include cutting of funding to essential HIV/Aids programmes.
Trump has also taken a hard stance on South Africa over false claims, mainly peddled by Afriforum and Solidarity, that land was being confiscated from white people.
Arriving to crowds gathered on Sunday during an event organised by the ANC’s Dullar Omar Region, Rasool appeared unmoved by the decision to axe him.
Rasool remained resolute in the idea that South Africa should continue efforts to rescue the relationship with the US.
“We must reset the relationship with America because our relationship with America (has been) over 50 years has not always been with the White House. It has sometimes been with Congress and it has always been with the people of the United States of America.
“We have this relationship that we must reset, and we must rebuild. We must hope that President Cyril Ramaphosa will be able to pick up where we left off, but we cannot have a simplistic idea that when we say there must be an ambassador, that you must put a white ambassador for a white president in the United States. We know it's not right.”
Rasool explained that they tried the conventional diplomacy route with the US but that they have had to rely on the diplomacy of Ubuntu.
“The diplomacy of mutual inter-dependence that I am because you are. The diplomacy of Ubuntu is not the art of lying for your country. It is the art of speaking the truth, but gently. The diplomacy of Ubuntu is not flattering your host, and the diplomacy of Ubuntu is not denying what is wrong. The diplomacy of Ubuntu is intellectual engagement, and it is persuasion of your host about a better way… And that's what I thought was the way forward in this very difficult and challenging situation of our relationship with the United States,” Rasool said.
Asked about attempts made to make contact with the White House, Rasool said part of the design of the ‘persona non-grata’ (label) was to make sure that the “access we got would not be used, because there is a different agenda that wants to prioritise white suffering over black needs in South Africa”.
Rasool said that the label of “'persona non grata' was meant to humiliate you, but that when you return to a crowd like this, and the sense of Ubuntu, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity”.
“I want to say that South Africa is not a military superpower. South Africa is not an economic superpower, but South Africa has the ability again to become a moral superpower. To stand up against chauvinism, and to say that when our people died going to Sharpeville on the 21st of March 1960 - that that's what we stand for. Foremost amongst that is justice. Foremost amongst that is inclusion. Foremost amongst that is truth. We can modulate our truth. We can have a megaphone that is loud, or we can have a megaphone that is soft, but we will never stop speaking the truth. So, we are not here to throw away our interests with the United States.”
He also confirmed that he has started preparing the report for President Cyril Ramaphosa over the situation with the US. Ramaphosa intends sending envoys to the US to explain South Africa's position on issues including the Expropriation Act.
SACP provincial secretary Benson Ngqentsu commended Rasool, saying he represented the country “very well”.
“If you listen to Rasool, every statement he makes is grounded in the era of our revolutionaries. Rasool refused to submit to the right-wing populists and authoritarian imperial forces, and for that reason we commend. We reject his expulsion, no other country must tell us who we must deploy as our ambassador,” Ngqentsu said.
Cape Times