US-SA Game of Thrones: Lights, Cameras and Genocide

Dr Nazreen Shaik-Peremanov

Metaphorical Orwellian allegories have become commonplace in contemporary international relations as never before. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. 

With the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and domestic legislation, the Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal was established. So too, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia read in culpability arising from superior command responsibility, finding that subordinates have a duty of diligence and application of mind when acting on superior commands.

When the Khmer Rouge regime did not bow to Western ideologies, the US began bombing in the 1950s and 60s, the subsequent genocide was more directly attributed to external northern influences. Vietnam demonstrated the US’s capacity to declare war on a nation that refused conformity to Western-dominated political ideals.

When the genocide was imminent in Rwanda, allied forces withdrew the last remaining Belgian soldiers on the brink of time. When 18 American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down did not sit by idly. Hastily, the US retracted. See: American lives matter more than those of others. American lives are more equal than those of others.

Costa Rica is a favoured nation housing US military launch pads in South America as if Greenland’s space is not enough for so-called training exercises. As peacekeepers wailed over horns to the UN in Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis revelled in demonising genocide and crimes against humanity.

Pray tell, how did these atrocities come to pass? Erecting reinforced walls to keep Mexicans out of North America; deporting immigrants in open military aircraft to their home states, supplying arms and ammunition to one brother against the other to indoctrinate Western political thinking, collapsing entire villages across South America willfully to destroy a whole or a part of a nation because they were endowed with individual political intellect are but some of the atrocities.

Forcibly disappearing and kidnapping (rendition if you will) by US agents exercising extra-territorial jurisdiction in Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and the like are crimes against humanity, bordering on genocidal conduct. 

Embarrassingly so, the truth of how this comes to pass is simple: if something does not adversely impact or threaten the north mainland of the US, then it does not matter at all. Atrocities are a bystander’s collateral.

South Africa was no bystander in the Oval Room this week. South Africa will never be a bystander in international relations, nor will she become apologetic. Forming the guard of honour around South Africa’s head of state, President Ramaphosa stood unflinchingly tall, almost as if he sat across, laying his balming hand on Trumptonia’s shoulders, saying, “It’s alright, old Boy. Calm down. Breathe. Genocide does not exist in the South African dictionary.

It does exist in the US dictionary.” Since Minister Lamola’s stature was disarming and simultaneously frustrating to the White House, perhaps the hope was that 49 refugee families would spin the wheel for the green card. Ernie Els’s surpassed brilliance on the course has little whittle at Union Buildings, or the Kremlin, let alone the White House. Yet, there he was on a US presidential invitation with Retief Goosen. To do what? To speak of untold genocidal atrocities against the minority white farmers on South African soil.

South Africa’s racially segregated history, perpetrated by the White minority, informs her history, and her crimes. Moreover, the charismatic leadership of Nelson Mandela ushered in a dispensation of unity, quelling White minority fears and Black majority zeal, along with the now President Ramaphosa as the ANC’s aide.

In recent years, crime has escalated in South Africa. Stats SA reports on crimes committed in South Africa. White farmers setting killer dogs loose on black farm workers mauling them to death, somehow escapes the US beams. White Afrikaner farmers killing their farm help and feeding the bodies to pigs also escape the Nazi-like beam. So, too, do the Krugersdorp attacks on Black citizens, followed closely by killings perpetrated by Afrikaner Whites in Ventersdorp.

Orania has carved out a state of its own in South Africa, beautifully relying on the exemplary South African Constitution’s article on the right to self-determination. The message is clear: WHITES ONLY. South Africa’s democratic constitutional dispensation protects constitutional imperatives.

Musk has carved out his state in Austin, Texas, and at the Italian compound. The message is clear: MUSKIEANS ONLY. The US had sent South Americans, Indians and others back home in droves. So, when popcorn is not served but visual clips are played at the White House, we should learn that people in glass houses should not throw stones or arms or ammunition or nuclear armament or…erect fences for Mexican expulsion... 

Freedom of speech is a hard-fought-for South African right, which was drenched in Apartheid censorship. The only limitation will be by a law of general application in an open and democratic society based on freedom, equality and dignity. So, it remains firmly a constitutional imperative for those wishing to express their thoughts, beliefs and opinions.

We know what genocide means, and will share its meaning with you, Mr President. Genocide is the willful killing or extermination by any acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, killing members of the group like collapsing South American villages or setting starved dogs on black farm workers; or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group like exclusive Texas and Orania... Mr President.

We thank you, Mr President.

* Dr Nazreen Shaik-Peremanov University of Fort Hare Law Faculty and University of Cambridge Wolfsons College Scholar (former)

** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.