It was 11 August 1984. US President Ronald Reagan, running for re-election, was standing by to deliver his weekly radio address on National Public Radio.
The technicians asked The Gipper to do a sound check. Reagan responded: “My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
Reagan got a spontaneous laugh from the personnel and media present.
And then, the off the cuff remark was reported to the outside world.
There was a sense of moral outrage that the leader of the free world could make light of the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction.
The USSR was not amused. The Soviet official news agency, TASS, declared: “The USSR condemns this unprecedented and hostile attack by the US President. This kind of behaviour is incompatible with the great responsibility borne by heads of nuclear states for the destinies of their own people and mankind.”
Fast forward to 21 October 2013. SA President Jacob Zuma, running for re-election, was addressing a manifesto meeting of his party’s supporters at Wits University.
Msholozi was asked about the tolling of Gauteng’s freeways. Zuma responded: “We can’t think like Africans… In Africa… Generally. We’re Johannesburg. This is Johannesburg. It’s not some national road in Malawi.”
Zuma got a spontaneous laugh from the personnel and media present.
And then, the off the cuff remark was reported to the outside world.
There was a sense of moral outrage… Etcetera, etcetera.
For example, Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko said the comments were unacceptable, and an insult to South Africans and to the people of Malawi.
“It is for this reason that I will today submit three urgent parliamentary questions to President Zuma enquiring whether he has followed due process and sent an official apology or clarified his comments to the High Commissioner of the Republic of Malawi; and whether he will retract and/or apologise for his unacceptable insults to both South Africans and the people of Malawi.”
And I found myself asking: “What exactly are we upset about?”
As many people know, I’m generally quite scathing about the way in which Jacob Zuma has been running our country. That remains unchanged.
At the same time, I can say with absolute conviction that there is no way I can believe that the man looks down upon fellow Africans north of our borders. Integrity is in one’s actions, as my late friend Ketan Lakhani was fond of saying.
Unschooled though he is, the president speaks most of the major languages of the continent – Swahili, French, Portuguese, English, isiZulu, isiXhosa.
He was at various stages in his life based in Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia, and headed up the ANC’s military operations in Angola in 1985 or thereabouts.
Zuma’s first visit to a foreign country after his inauguration as president was to Angola. He has made repeated visits since to that country, particularly around resolving issues related to the DRC.
Jacob Zuma almost single-handedly brokered the accord that brought peace to the troubled state of Burundi in 2005 after a decade of civil war. Simon Allison of The Daily Maverick described “Zuma’s discrete yet forceful approach as mediator between the warring factions” as “perhaps the finest example of South Africa’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ ”.
What exactly are we upset about?
It’s a fact that Johannesburg is not Malawi. Malawi’s tax revenues are around 1 billion US dollars per annum – 36 percent of its income coming from donations. Johannesburg probably generates more money in a day than Malawi does in a year. Johannesburg needs its freeways. And Johannesburg needs to pay for its freeways.
But what irritates me about the reaction to what the president said is the untrammelled hypocrisy of all of us who trumpet solidarity with the rest of the continent but keep our borders firmly sealed to keep them out.
We allow Americans and Europeans to enter our country without visas but shut out Angolans, Zimbabweans, Zambians, Kenyans, Tanzanians, Congolese, Nigerians, and yes – Malawians.
To my fellow South Africans (and that includes you, Lindiwe Mazibuko), I offer this challenge: Call upon parliament to open our borders to our fellow Africans so that they may enter and leave freely without visas.
Let them live in our towns with the same freedom that Europeans buy property in the Cape.
Let’s report the rand exchange rates with the currencies of their countries with the same gusto as we measure ourselves against pounds, dollars, and euros.
The rest is silence.