BONUS - RUSTENBURG - Ebrahim Rasool, South African ambassador to the United States, was expelled from his country of service and was given only a few days to pack up and leave the United States of America.
This apparently follows quite a list of non-diplomatic utterances and comments about President Donald Trump and the USA - notably that the US President was fighting for white extremism. Rasool was expelled after what has been described as hateful statements towards the American people and President Donald Trump.
The South African government’s lukewarm reaction to the American government’s expulsion of Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, indicates that it disapproves of his comments about the Trump administration. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said there would be no retaliation and no challenge to it either. “On the expulsion of Ambassador Rasool, while regrettable, there are lessons to be drawn from the experience, and we will reflect on that lesson,” said Magwenya.
The Sunday Times quoted an anonymous South African government official as saying: “You can’t criticise your host country in the manner that he did, using the type of language he did. Rasool made his comments at a foreign policy webinar organised by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection on Friday.
Rasool’s comments include: “I think what Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilising a supremacism against the incumbency at home.”
Meanwhile, South African Minister of Justic Ronald Lamola, said the US didn’t follow correct diplomatic processes to expel Rasool.
“So in terms of that, 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 which the voting electorate in the US is projected to become 48% white.”
Did Rasool shoot himself in the foot? International reputation management expert Tshepo Matseba said: “With Washington already misrepresenting SA’s expropriate action laws and foreign policy stance, Rasool’s comments only deepened the divide.
A diplomatic crisis for SA
Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast, a political expert from Nelson Mandela University, said SA has no grounds to protect Rasool because he made the wrong statements while the two countries were at loggerheads over the Expropriation Act, which saw the US halt funding to health projects.
“A person of his calibre would have known that making such comments about the US president would cause serious damage. “We understand that those were his personal comments, not those of the government, but as an ambassador, he was not supposed to say that.”
