If you had to think of a vessel that looked like something drawn up in Darth Vader’s ops room, then the Iranian helicopter carrier IRIS Shahid Mahdavi — at anchor in False Bay earlier this week — would be it.
It is, in fact, an anodyne Korean-built former container ship with a long, low hull and standard wheelhouse/accommodation block at the stern. But with its dark paint scheme and a towering superstructure that, at first glance, is reminiscent of a Royal Navy battleship circa 1939, it is a forbidding vision.
Impressions are everything, which is why the ship’s presence off Simon’s Town was making waves in the opposition ranks — and beyond our shores too.
Russia sent a corvette, which arrived in Simon’s Town flying the South African flag upside down
It’s not just that the Iranian navy was in town for Exercise Will for Peace, manoeuvres dubiously palmed off as a Brics co-operation fest (without naval heavyweight India), but that it was here at a time when its government is ruthlessly suppressing protests at home.
As of Tuesday, the Iranians had withdrawn from the exercise, leaving the gunnery drills to the other participants.
Russia sent a corvette, which arrived in Simon’s Town flying the South African flag upside down until the harbour master intervened, while the People’s Republic of China, which has been conducting naval exercises off Taiwan, sent a guided-missile destroyer.
Plenty to think about, then, in a week when the US Congress was scheduled to meet to discuss an extension to the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa), from which South Africa is facing banishment, risking hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Of course, it could be that those jobs were lost long before the foreign navies dropped anchor in False Bay, given seething global politics when non-aligned status looks increasingly like a quaint delusion.
As Dire Straits once so memorably sang:
“Sitting on a fence that’s a dangerous course.
Oh, you could even catch a bullet from the peace-keeping force.”
