“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be”. – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
The delusions of the ANC and its allies know no bounds. Confronted with the consequences of their three decades of misrule and poor policy choices, they retreat into a world of make-believe, a realm where cold hard facts simply do not apply.
US-South Africa Relations
A case in point is our rapidly unravelling relations with the United States. Following the expulsion of Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from Washington, DIRCO Director-General Zane Dangor led a delegation to the US to meet with their counterparts in attempting to breach the widening chasm between the two countries.
According to DIRCO’s Head of Public Diplomacy, Clayson Monyela, their US counterparts were “welcoming of their explanation and context of our policies”. I find this DIRCO spin difficult to accept. One of the major sticking points in the deteriorating bilateral relations is South Africa’s insistence that it will persist with its International Criminal Court of Justice case against Israel, even if President Trump removes the various restrictions he levied on Pretoria. This is hardly a good starting point to begin negotiations with the world superpower.
Moreover, the facts suggest otherwise. Trump after all has imposed a 30% tariff on South Africa. Brigadier-General Richard Maponyane, Pretoria’s military attaché to Washington, has been recalled, and the US is cutting all military assistance and cooperation with the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
Meanwhile, our Consul-General in Los Angeles, Thandile Babalwa Sunduza, has also been given her marching orders by the US State Department. Furthermore, US Congressman Ronny Jackson has introduced the US-South African Bilateral Relations Review Act of 2025. If passed, this includes advocating for sanctions on senior South African government and ANC officials who support Washington’s “adversaries”. Far from welcoming, Trump’s America has become a cold and forbidding place for Pretoria.
The SANDF in the DRC
Such delusions are not only confined to the realm of foreign policy, but also defence. This tragically played out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). With the M23 rebels advancing, South Africa’s poorly-thought-out and under-resourced military intervention came to a crushing end with soldiers killed, wounded and captured.
Some military analysts regard it as South Africa’s worst military defeat since the fall of Tobruk to the Germans in 1942. The deluded South African National Defence Force (SANDF), however, denied that troops had surrendered and that the white flag held up by SANDF troops in videos circulating on the internet was “not a flag of surrender”. Once more the truth was self-evident to all. The M23 rebels had effectively seized both North and South Kivu and in addition to a public surrender by our troops, the country was further humiliated with it being forced to repair Goma’s damaged airport before being allowed to evacuate its troops by air.
The ANC and the economy
Perhaps the biggest delusion of all, and one that directly impacts on each and every South African, is that the ANC can actually turn the economy around. Under their watch, our national debt has ballooned to R310.9 billion. Corruption, meanwhile, has cost the country R700 billion since 1994. Their incompetent stewardship of the economy has stifled business development and has condemned millions of South Africans to penury. In this recent budget debacle, the ANC could have chosen to cut expenditure – think here of our bloated civil service – free up the economy, and let corporations get on with growing the economy and thereby create jobs.
Instead, the ANC’s collective brains trust arrived at the unremarkable idea of a VAT increase to shore up our crumbling finances. Moreover, they resisted all attempts to cut the fat. This, of course, is too radical a proposal for the ANC as it would mean the end of cadre deployment and its patronage networks. From the ANC’s perspective, an added impetus to stay with the status quo is the fact that recent polls suggest that if an election was held now, the party would only garner 32% support. Thus, there is a frenzy at the feeding troughs before the ANC is tossed out.
Perhaps, more disappointing was the way other parties made common cause with the ANC’s VAT increase. Foremost here is Rise Mzansi’s Songezo Zibi, who actually understands how economics works. He worked in the corporate sector for the likes of Volkswagen, Xstrata and ABSA. He went on to serve as Associate Editor of the Financial Mail and Editor of Business Day. Yet, there he was, hitching his coat-tails to the ANC’s train to nowhere. I hope that voters remember this, come next year’s local government elections.
South Africa is in a parlous state. We cannot continue to suffer the ANC’s dangerous delusions. Hard choices need to be made, and the country cannot afford our current greedy political leadership and its lack of vision.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend