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The decline and fall of South Africa When the elections of 27 April 1994 took place and Nelson Mandela was elected as the first President of a non-racial, democratic and free South Africa there was hope in the hearts of virtually every South African, even those living in foreign lands. The atmosphere in South Africa was one of exhilaration, joy and relief that the animosity of the past had been curbed. It would take time to dampen it entirely, to a point of relative normality. Nelson Mandela was a man who was prepared to do that, and could.
Although I did not support the ANC (regrettably, I voted for the PAC as the most viable opposition party; and thankfully, for the DA to preside over the Western Province), it was a party that, at that time, was filled with many passionate and competent senior leaders who had the future of South Africa, the building of a rainbow nation and good governance under our imperfect, but adequate, Constitution, as their collective national priorities. Those were heady and ambitious times. They were also achievable, if pursued progressively, tenaciously and patiently within our financial means and being constantly aware that successful transformation cannot take place in months or years. It takes more time than that. Yet, in the space of almost a quarter century (an entire generation), unemployment has soared, more South Africans live on our streets and beg for handouts at city intersections, squatter camps have grown, crime has ballooned out of control, corruption by government officials seems to have become compulsory, physical altercations in parliament have become commonplace and millions of our people still live in tin shacks. This is not progress. This is hell. So, where did we go wrong? The short answer is, we tried to run before we could walk. We decided to punch above our weight. This was also a fault attributable to the Mandela administration. Instead of focusing on our domestic needs, we strayed too far into the international arena and failed to learn from history. Our foreign policy took centre-stage as we focused on human rights (US President, Jimmy Carter had done the same, with disastrous consequences), multilateralism and regional interests instead of national interests. No doubt, Thabo Mbeki (an avid internationalist), who was one of two Deputy Presidents under President Mandela, had a key role in these misguided policies. From the early years of our new democracy we began to open new embassies and consulates abroad as we extended our pursuit of diplomatic acceptance and new relationships in the international arena. There are certainly advantages to pursuing new diplomatic relationships, but it’s not necessary to invest in physical diplomatic infrastructure in so many countries. Why on Earth do we need an embassy in Haiti? South Africa has diplomatic missions in 126 countries (only the United States has more missions abroad) at a yearly cost of about ZAR 3.2 billion ($244 million) to keep them going. How many low cost houses could we build for even a small chunk of that? A small country like Singapore has a few missions abroad and uses roving ambassadors based in Singapore to pursue diplomatic contact in other countries. Are we incapable of borrowing good cost-effective ideas from successful countries like Singapore? Apparently, yes. We prefer to emulate losers like Cuba. Under President Thabo Mbeki we joined every imaginable multilateral organisation and focused heavily on the goals of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU). Mbeki seemed to spend more time out of South Africa then in the country taking care of business at home. We even made it a foreign policy goal to reform the United Nations and make it more representative. We also foolishly believed we could prevent the Second Gulf War when it was obvious to most observers, including me, that America’s ultimate actions were unstoppable. Our country took money from foreign governments to fund the ANC’s election goals and the South African Communist Party (SACP) set about pursuing its own foreign relations with communist parties abroad, often to the detriment of South Africa’s national interests. Now we have the corrupt and stupid Jacob Zuma presiding over our country. A man who seems to believe the treasury is his personal bank account and the military services are his personal security guards. He places the interests of his cronies, the Gupta family, above the interests of our country and seems to believe the South African people exist to serve him and the ANC. Actually, Mister President, you are there to serve us. And, while on the subject of service delivery, where is it? Now, the latest step downward, as South Africa regresses toward the dictatorship of Zuma’s ANC, is the unhappy possibility that his arrogant and incompetent former wife may become South Africa’s next President. Despite her supposed medical background, Nkosazana-Dlamini Zuma was a disastrous Minister of Health, an expensive, incompetent and out of her depth Foreign Minister who once let a convicted sexual predator off the hook (the husband of our current Foreign Minister), and a deservedly loathed and directionless head of the African Union. Apparently our President couldn’t stand her as a wife, but now he wants to foist this useless addle-brained bully on the people of South Africa. Under the leadership of Jacob Zuma, South African bonds have been relegated to “junk status” by the world’s premier rating agencies. This is no mean feat. It obviously required sustained thought about his personal enrichment and his reliance on the Guptas to be able to destroy our country economically in such a relatively short period of time. His appointment of a malleable sycophant as Minister of Finance was certainly a master stroke in his apparent plan to ensure the death and burial of our once hopeful democracy. I have no doubt his former wife will continue his legacy should she attain the lofty, and apparently profitable, heights of presidential power and privilege. What a pity there is no Hippocratic Oath (I particularly like the part that reads: “I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm”) for Presidents. It would then be so much safer for the rest of us. Duke Kent-Brown p.s. Get a free sample of my new book "Hail To The Chief". Click here >>> My next book "Diplomatic Notes - Memoirs of a Diplomat" is launching soon. Web: www.Duke-Kent-Brown.tk Source: Gareth van Onselen, Sunday Times, http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2015/11/15/SAs-spends-R3.2-billion-a-year-on-diplomatic-missions (accessed 23 April 2017)
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Assessing President Trump’s performance so far Every US president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) has been subjected to the “100 days” test. The purpose of the test is to determine the competency of the president. The theory is that his performance during the first 100 days will provide a good idea of what to expect during the remainder of his term in office. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. Some presidents, like Richard Nixon, started out well and finished badly. Others, like Bill Clinton, started out badly and finished well.
President Donald Trump is very different from previous US presidents. He was never a politician and never previously held any public office. He also quite obviously lacks the temperament of a politician and is far more comfortable in a business environment. Therefore, there was always a strong likelihood that his first 100 days in office would be littered with mistakes, failures and disappointments. There was also always the possibility that he would enjoy some successes. After all, he defeated a lot of experienced Washington insiders and the very best the Democrats could come up with, to be elected President of the United States (POTUS). In doing so, he also confounded most of the pollsters and turned the news media fraternity on its head. As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump made a number of promises to American voters and now that he is the POTUS, he’s obliged to keep those promises. Regardless of the time-frames he spoke about, though, what he does is far more important than the time he takes to do it. Therefore, there is no point in comparing the promises Donald Trump made on the campaign trail with what he has achieved or failed to achieve during his first hundred days. This is voodoo journalism that I would prefer to leave to voodoo journalists. I believe the focus should really be on what he has actually achieved and what he has attempted and failed to achieve during this relatively short period. Keep in mind there are 1461 days in his first term. Therefore, 100 days is a very small portion (less than seven percent) of his first four years as President. So what did he achieve and what did he fail to achieve? Although this was not one of his promises, Donald Trump has ensured that everyone knows the name of the current President of the United States. Love him or hate him, he makes news every day, both in the US and abroad. Expect him to be Time Magazine’s Newsmaker of the Year, four years in a row. Unlike former presidents like Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and even Barak Obama to some extent, President Trump could never be regarded as an invisible or low key American President. Trump’s also successfully had all his Cabinet Secretaries approved by the Senate. His choice of men and women to serve in his cabinet has also been generally far more successful than unsuccessful. He said he would drain the swamp in Washington and he has effectively done a lot to keep this promise. The vast majority of his cabinet choices are not politicians. His restrictions on lobbyists are also part of draining the swamp. During his first 100 days in office, President Trump signed more than 30 Executive Orders into law; more than any American president since FDR. These Orders range from an order directing a top-to-bottom audit of the Executive Branch to an order to lengthen the ban on administration officials working as lobbyists (there is now a 5 year-ban on officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government and a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government). Other Executive Orders signed by President Trump focus on important aspects of his many campaign promises and include the following:
An undoubted success for President Trump was his appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court. Justice Gorsuch replaces Justice Antonine Scalia, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. This appointment will make a solid contribution to his legacy after he leaves office. Trump has also been in touch with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to set activities in place for re-negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He has begun to restructure and simplify the US taxation system and has taken a strong stand against terrorism, Syrian human right violations and North Korean threats. He has strengthened relations with Israel and, more recently he quietly negotiated the release of an Egyptian-American journalist who had been unjustly imprisoned in Egypt for over three years. On the more negative side, President Trump has made virtually no progress in his first 100 days, on the Mexican Wall (despite his Executive Order) or the banning of potential Muslim terrorists (temporarily thwarted by the courts). However, these promises can still be kept by the time his first term ends. Although he did not achieve everything he wanted to during the first 100 days of his presidency he still has enough time to do so. Nonetheless, his promises were to achieve these goals within 100 days, so they are failures. Unfortunately, President Trump has not displayed any sustained ability to behave presidentially. He has made inaccurate and often bombastic statements, he has provoked some foreign leaders, made powerful enemies among the news media, polarized congress and the American people and has continued to project an image of an out of touch and unstable POTUS despite people who know him well (for example, Conrad Black and Chris Cuomo) testifying to his many positive attributes. In addition, his appointment of General Flynn was a serious mistake from a moral and security perspective and the appointments of his daughter and her husband to the White House staff have earned him accurate and unnecessary criticism on grounds of nepotism. These negative actions have all been his personally. Therefore, on his performance to date I have graded him as a C+ but will still be very surprised if he does not finish his first term as a B+ or A- POTUS. Only time will tell. Duke Kent-Brown p.s. Get a free sample of my new book "Hail To The Chief". Click here >>> My next book "Diplomatic Notes - Memoirs of a Diplomat" is launching soon. Web: www.Duke-Kent-Brown.tk Will French voters follow the lead of their American and British counterparts? In the wake of Brexit and the largely unexpected triumph of Trump, it would take a brave pollster to wager his or her next paycheck on the outcome of the French Presidential election. Right now Emmanuel Macron has the edge and could squeak in for the victory that will shoo him into the Elysee Palace. But Marine Le Pen is all fired up and may yet shut out her rival. That would be a major upset, and an event of great historical importance.
There is skepticism in France over the future of the European Union (EU) and there is fear and great uncertainty about the dangers of accepting vast hordes of asylum seekers and refugees from Muslim countries who threaten French jobs, French culture and French security. It is not racism that fuels these concerns, but nationalism. And Marine La Pen embodies the very spirit of French Nationalism. French nationalism is not new. It has always been there, lurking either just below or just above the misty surface of the French political sea. It is a mixture of pride, culture, community and independence. Charles de Gaulle tapped into that nationalism when he took France out of NATO and created France’s independent Force de Frappe as a deterrent against the Warsaw Pact countries of the Cold War era. It is nationalism that now fuels the goals of Marine Le Pen and those who support her. Macron, in stark contrast, is a candidate who is embraced by French Capitalists, the political elite and the pro-EU factions. He represents the “establishment” whether he sees himself in that role or not. Can Macron bring real change to the French people in terms of job creation, security, leadership within the EU and the preservation of those national values and characteristics that represent the uniqueness of France? This is a question that needs answering, so let us look at the backgrounds, core values and proposed policies of each of these candidates. Marine Le Pen, as a daughter of France’s most right-wing political leader, experienced violence and exclusion from an early age. When she was eight years old, she and her sisters were woken by a bomb explosion that destroyed part of their house and left their bedroom looking like a war zone. It was a failed attempt to kill their father or chase him permanently from the political stage. At school Marine was ostracized for being Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter. She was not invited to the homes of her classmates. This is how the “sins” of her father were effectively visited on her. At the age of 15 her mother left her marriage and her children without warning. When Marine came home her mother was gone. They didn’t see each other again for the next 15 years. Marine, herself, has married and divorced and has three children, including twins. Marine Le Pen qualified as a trial lawyer and often took on pro-bono cases on behalf of poor immigrants. In 2014 she expelled her father from the Front Nasionale (National Front) because she hated his extreme views about the Holocaust and his support for France’s war-time Vichy leader, Marshal Petain. The killing of her favorite cat by her father’s two Dobermans was the last straw for her. She moved out of the family home. She is certainly not the monster her most vociferous opponents would like everyone to believe. She is a patriot, a nationalist and a proud daughter of France. Le Pen wants France to become a country of one language, one culture and one community. Her opponents interpret this to imply religious intolerance, but the nature of the French state exhibits a distinct separation between religion and politics. Therefore, Protestantism, Judaism and Islam would be as secure under a right-wing government in France (comprising Catholics) as under a left-wing government (comprising atheists). Her immigration policy is nonetheless quite draconian. Only 10 000 legal immigrants per year will be accepted. Deportations will be easier and French residence or citizenship will become harder. She also distinguishes clearly between patriotism and globalism. Le Pen wants to see a new world order that respects individual states. She is hostile to the EU and its policies which impinge negatively on France. She wants to create jobs, reduce taxation where possible, reduce energy prices and lower the retirement age to sixty. She is more supportive of small business than big business. On the crime front, for serious crimes she wants to ensure that life imprisonment is not only an ideal, but also a fact. She wants to expand the number of security and police personnel to fight terrorism and other crimes. Marine Le Pen is not an advocate of greater European integration. She doesn’t even like the EU as it is now. She wants France to leave the EU so that France can control its own borders and return to using its own currency, the French Franc. She also dislikes the EU flag. Le Pen seeks the independence of France from NATO to avoid being drawn into the wars of other countries. She wants to strengthen France’s armed forces with more soldiers, a second aircraft carrier, more jet fighters, ships and armoured vehicles. Her policies toward Russia and Syria seem to be somewhat nebulous and contradictory, but we can safely assume she prefers sanctions to war. So, what do we know about Emmanuel Macron? From 2008 to 2012 he was an investment banker with Rothschild. He served briefly in France’s economic ministry and more recently in the cabinet of President François Hollande, the deeply unpopular socialist President of France. Macron is the leader and founder of En Marche, a Centrist independent political party. Although by no means the country’s youngest leader, at age 39 (King Louis XIII and Napoleon were younger) Macron would be France’s youngest President. His wife and former high school teacher, Brigitte, is 24 years older than him. Like America’s Donald Trump, Macron has never previously been elected to political office. In the run-off election two weeks ago, he got 24% of the vote and Le Pen received 22.1%. That leaves more than 50% of French voters, including about 18% of undecided voters, to determine who the next President will be less than a week from now. Many leftist voters may decide not to vote as they see a choice between Macron and Le Pen as a choice between cholera and the plague. Macron is pro-NATO and pro-EU. He wants to keep France fighting extremists in Iraq, Syria and Africa’s Sahel region. He wants to meet NATO membership defence targets by contributing 2% of GDP by 2025. He does not intend to reduce the number of French troops assigned to NATO, currently some 200 000. In line with the EU member states, he wants to promote peace, prosperity and freedom. He also wants the EU to be led predominantly by Germany and France. He has also proposed the deployment of 5,000 European border guards to patrol the external borders of the Schengen passport-free travel zone and, like Germany’s Angela Merkel, he wants to welcome Syrian refugees. Macron is not a natural politician and maybe too much of a greenhorn to successfully stave off the very experienced Marine Le Pen, a veteran of many political battles, including a previous campaign for the presidency of France. The Trump administration has made French voters very aware of the pitfalls awaiting a non-politician in high political office. Why would they want to risk the consequences of a political amateur taking responsibility for the future of France? I watched the debate between Macron and Le Pen. My French isn’t that good. I understood a lot of the words, but not much of the meaning. However, it was still interesting for me. Le Pen came across as calm, dignified, and patient, and gave Macron the most charming, but demeaning look that I’ve seen in a long while. He came across as excitable, forceful and impatient. There were some obviously testy moments though. Nonetheless, I felt I was watching a debate between a Labrador and a Jack Russell. According to observers in France Macron handily won the debate. We shall see. This election is not going to be a walkover for either of them. However, if voter turnout is low, I expect Marine Le Pen to win. She has a solid core of support that will stick by her, whereas Macron’s support will come mainly from voters who are against Marine Le Pen. So I’m betting on her. As she said during the debate. French voters must choose who will rule France. Angela Merkel or Marine Le Pen. How could I not believe she will win? She loves cats, and so do I. More important, though. She’ll be better for France. Please share your views in the comments section below. Duke Kent-Brown p.s. Get a free sample of my new book "Hail To The Chief". Click here >>> My next book "Diplomatic Notes - Memoirs of a Diplomat" is launching soon. Web: www.Duke-Kent-Brown.tk |
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