‘Trump se moer’ — Parliamentarians hit back at US

‘I had wanted to talk about domestic issues … but we are living in strange times.” Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi summed up the mood of Parliament on Tuesday when he took to the podium during the annual joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces dedicated to debating the State of the Nation Address (Sona) given by the President the week before.

Usually the focus of the post-Sona debate is on the failure of the government to live up to whatever extravagant promises the President has just made. This year, there was some of that as normal.

But as Zibi rightly pointed out, these are not normal times. One issue dominated speeches across the political spectrum: US President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at freezing aid to South Africa and offering asylum to Afrikaner farmers.

The untruths the US was peddling, said Zibi, were “deadly serious” because they affected 17% of South Africa’s HIV budget and about 15,000 associated jobs.

“Mr President, we must not be caught napping,” was Zibi’s appeal to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“It is only a matter of time before we are removed from the Agoa [trade] arrangement and God knows what other consequences,” said the Rise Mzansi leader. He urged the South African government to urgently foster and entrench relationships with other trading partners around the world.

Broad support for anti-bullying stance

The debate revealed broad support across South Africa’s represented political parties for Ramaphosa’s message to the US in his Sona: “We will not be bullied.”

This was the case even for the two parties usually responsible for the harshest critiques of Ramaphosa, the EFF and MK — although MK made it clear that, actually, it was not opposed to all of Trump’s stances. Particularly those involving Russia and nuclear power.

“While we expect President Desmond Trump…” began the leader of the opposition, John Hlophe, before trying again: “While we expect President Donald Trump to end the imperialist war of Nato in Russia and disassociate from the neocolonial and dishonest so-called green energy transitions imposed on the developing world, we do not agree with him and his promotion of white supremacists who claim that they are facing genocide in South Africa.”

Hlophe’s boss, former president Jacob Zuma, was watching intently from the gallery. Hlophe had spent the bulk of his very long 24-minute address eulogising the presidency of Zuma in a manner that had other MPs chortling, rolling their eyes and attempting to call him to order for relevance.

The high-water mark of his Zuma praise-singing was reached when Hlophe proclaimed: “During his tenure as president and head of state, President Zuma never told lies. He never claimed any easy victories. President Zuma prioritised the work on the ground and delivered services to the people.”

(Since we are living in an era where history is rewritten daily and misinformation seems to be threatening the very fabric of human society, please remind yourself of the real legacy of the Zuma presidency). – Ed

But from the EFF, there was something close to unequivocal support for Ramaphosa’s stance to the US. Leader Julius Malema had a strong message for the President: in reality, he suggested, this was all about Israel.

“Mr President, we are not being attacked by the Trump administration because you did anything wrong,” said Malema.

“They are attacking us because of our stand on Israel. They are attacking us because of the action our government has taken to ICJ [the International Court of Justice, aimed at having Israel’s actions in Gaza classed as genocide]. We are saying to you: Do not be misled by people who are saying you are under siege because of expropriation of land, which is a meaningless Act. That Act does not say anything and they all understand that language.”

But, said Malema, “It is not enough to simply say you will not be bullied. You must tell us what action you will take.”

Freedom Front Plus not going anywhere

The Freedom Front Plus took a markedly different line, with its leader, Pieter Groenewald, thanking Trump in Afrikaans for putting a spotlight on Afrikaners and reminding the world of their existence.

Referring to the offer of asylum for Afrikaners in Trump’s US, Groenewald said: “Ek is hier om te bly.” [I am here to stay.]

But he hit out at the land reform project, saying: “It is not true that expropriation without compensation will solve the land issue.”

There were intense quantities of schadenfreude in the response from ActionSA, whose leader, Herman Mashaba, has previously expressed support for Trump.

Chief whip Athol Trollip was driven to use a term which has almost certainly never been heard before in any nation’s Parliament: “Fafo” [fuck around and find out].

“The backpeddling in the face of Trump’s executive order and the looming threat of Agoa’s revocation has been remarkable. It reminds me of the popular acronym Fafo,” said Trollip, without spelling it out.

“You have chosen friends that are pariah nations, who are neither democratic nor uphold human rights; nations at war with their own people; oppressive regimes. Conversely, we treat democratic nations, our major trading partners, with disdain and insult. The new world order sees which side you have picked, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.”

The DA offered possibly the most neutral take on the diplomatic imbroglio — or the one intended to mollify as many different stakeholders as possible. Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen did not voice any criticism of the US stance, beyond assuring Parliament that the Trump regime would “put America’s interests ahead of ours”.

But Steenhuisen, in his position of minister of agriculture, also did nothing to address the misinformation campaign from AfriForum about farm murders — although he stressed that violence was targeting “farmers and farmworkers of all races”.

Still, he noted: “Every day, across our rural agricultural areas our farming communities fear for their lives” — and announced that he would design “a comprehensive plan to combat farm murders”.

Possibly the most memorable contribution to the debate, if not the most highbrow, was delivered by Northern Cape Premier Zamani Saul — who told the House that he believed that a sizeable proportion of white South Africans were “disgusted and enraged” by Trump’s executive orders.

“Just yesterday at the airport I met a very enraged white middle-aged lady called Magdalena,” said Saul.

“Magdalena and her husband own 16 farms and the hectorate of those farms combined is bigger than Kimberley.”

Saul said Magdalena had asked him to please deliver a message on her behalf to the members of Parliament: “Trump se moer.” DM