JOHANNESBURG - President Cyril Ramaphosa must have the courage to tell his friends when they are wrong.
That is the view of political analyst Sipho Seepe, who has criticised the Ramaphosa’s apology over xenophobia, saying the President should have used the recent SADC Summit in Durban to challenge his regional counterparts over governance failures that are contributing to illegal immigration.
“When you are faced with a regional crisis, you need to be honest with your comrades," Seepe says.
"You need to be able to say, yes, the manner in which South Africans may have acted may have embarrassed the continental solidarity, but at the same time, go to the cause and effect. The solution starts with being honest about the causes."
At the same time, Seepe says South Africa must remember that its neighbours are friends and have historically contributed to the country’s economy, particularly through the mining sector.
“Those countries must also understand they are our friends; they are not our enemies. And most of those countries have been active in building our own economy. The mining sector relied on the neighbouring countries. So, we should not wish that away.”
He argues that South Africa’s challenges, including unemployment and economic stagnation, cannot simply be separated from the broader regional picture.
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“Simply to say that we also have our own challenges, unemployment, economic stagnation and all that,” he says.
Seepe believes friendship should not prevent Ramaphosa from speaking frankly about problems within the region.
He says:
But you cannot not tell your friends when they are wrong.
He says regional meetings such as the SADC Summit should be used for honest discussions about the challenges facing member states, rather than simply for expressions of solidarity.
“You're not going to fuel that sense of xenophobia by simply acknowledging first that, yes, we are comrades, we are friends, we've been on this road together, we are anti-colonial, but we must also take responsibility for our citizens,” Seepe says.
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