If President Cyril Ramaphosa is serious about making headway with US President Donald Trump and his administration, then he has little choice: he must pick either Marthinus van Schalkwyk or Marthinus van Schalkwyk as ambassador. Either one will do. Either one is qualified. Either one has a better chance of opening the doors of power in Washington than anyone else South Africa has available.
It’s a bit confusing, I know. Let me explain. When conditions change, an astute leader changes their strategy, tactics and even personnel. When Trump won the election in November, it was clear that a tectonic shift had happened in world relations. Even before he ascended to power, and going by his first term from 2016 to 2020, any decent analyst at the department of international relations & co-operation (Dirco) in Pretoria could have predicted that major pain was on the way for South Africa.
So who chose to send Ebrahim Rasool back to Washington as South Africa’s ambassador to the US? Any envoy who represented South Africa in the US during the Obama years would clearly not be the right person to represent a South Africa in the crosshairs of a new administration. Obama was begging to be loved by South Africa. His great hero is Nelson Mandela. Rasool’s first tenure was therefore a walk in the park.
Yet to be fair, except for Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s presidents have not taken their relationship with the US seriously at all. Former president Jacob Zuma sent Rasool to Washington only after the now expelled diplomat was entangled in a scandal.
After that, Zuma sent a former homeland leader turned ANC bigwig to DC. Then Ramaphosa deployed Nomaindiya Mfeketo, possibly the worst mayor Cape Town has ever had, to the post. During one visit to Washington she apparently could not even remember Ramaphosa’s name.
Then Ramaphosa sent Rasool back. Genius. Not!
With Rasool back in sunny South Africa and probably off to depressurise somewhere nice, Ramaphosa must choose a new ambassador to the US. Hopefully this time he won’t revert to ANC mode where ambassadorships are doled out to weary struggle veterans or their children, but to people who are suited to the host country and the job. This appointment needs creativity and imagination. I hope Ramaphosa can show some of that.
The Trump administration is obsessed with Afrikaners and, as The New York Times wrote recently, accuses South Africa of discriminating against and killing white people while warning that the same could happen in the US if attempts to promote diversity are not stopped. These messages will not stop.
However, those who should be making the South African case to the US should be the ones whose mere presence and leadership on the issue would make the most impact. The times we live in dictate that South Africa’s ambassador to the US should be an Afrikaner. Optics matter, and they will matter to this appointment.
Ramaphosa is lucky. He has two qualified candidates he can turn to right now. They are both named Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
The times we live in dictate that South Africa’s ambassador to the US should be an Afrikaner
The first Van Schalkwyk is the last leader of the party of apartheid, the New National Party (NNP), before it gave up the ghost and folded itself into the ANC. Since 2005, when the NNP died, Van Schalkwyk has served as environment minister and tourism minister (he had already served as premier of the Western Cape between 2002 and 2004). Then he was put out on the diplomatic circuit, first as ambassador to Greece and then to Australia.
The second Marthinus van Schalkwyk is perhaps even more qualified. He is South Africa’s deputy permanent representative to the UN and specialises in multilateral affairs and social development. He has been stationed in the Netherlands, and those who know him say he is an excellent diplomat and a credit to the country at the UN.
I am sure there are many others like them at Dirco, of course. The point is this: doing things the same old ANC way is not cutting it and is not going to cut it. Ramaphosa can choose to listen to his doctrinaire advisers and comrades and send another scandal-soaked party veteran to Washington, but it will not help South Africa’s cause even one little bit.
It’s time to change strategy and tactics. Who am I kidding, though?
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