Someone who echoed my dislike for bullying was Nelson Mandela. Four years after becoming president, he unequivocally let then US president Bill Clinton know that South Africa did not take instruction from the US, and that our government’s stance on Cuba would not be swayed by the US despite possible trade sanctions.
Fast-forward to 2025 and President Cyril Ramaphosa is also facing attempted bullying, this as the world participates in an eerie right-wing theatre of the macabre play. I’m concerned that there isn’t a universal authoritative and revered adult who can be a calming voice, bringing sanity and gravitas to this inflammatory production.
In an article written by my colleague Stephen Grootes, he painted a rather worrying picture that had at its centre the assertion that democracy (rightly so) has limits and tempers political power. Fascism and dictatorships, on the other hand, have no such tethers and tend to rule and act without the pesky boundaries of a democracy that has human rights principles and recognises the sovereignty of all countries.
This has never been clearer than in recent weeks as US president Donald Trump and Rwandan President Paul Kagame issued threats and blustered and gnashed their teeth about our president and country.
South Africa suddenly finds itself the target of right-wing bullying, with Trump threatening to withdraw critical life-saving aid and programmes, allegedly because of our BRICS alignment and his misguided belief that our government is “confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”.
Meanwhile, Kagame is trying to intimidate Ramaphosa because of SANDF soldiers deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo being involved in the conflict against Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
Thinly veiled threat
Kagame accused Ramaphosa of lying and distortion, and in a thinly veiled threat he said: “South Africa is in no position to take on the role of a peacemaker or mediator. And if South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day.”
Of course, one would have hoped Ramaphosa would have responded in the same decisive way as Mandela, but given the intemperate leaders he is up against, one can appreciate the quandary he finds himself in.
It seems that the age of democracy, human rights, respect for human life and our continued collective wellbeing as a global society are under siege, and the international instruments that were set up to mitigate the destruction of the principles of democracy are being undermined, manipulated and sabotaged.
I struggle to believe that the current crop of leaders is invested in the world’s wellbeing, never mind the wellbeing of their own countries. We cannot go back to a time where countries were insular and protectionist in their world views, because that would mean a regression to possible war times – something I think we can all agree that we can ill afford. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
