There may be no Nelson Mandela imprisoned on a Robben Island today but it feels if all the values he stood for are – for they are clearly absent from mainland South Africa.
South Africa is losing its moral compass. Others less generous would say it lost it some time back. This article will only address the skewered perspective in the way South Africa conducts its peculiar foreign relations vis-à-vis Israel and Iran. Just look how some in the ANC are gearing up for the upcoming National Conference in December in Gauteng to debate the downgrading of the South African Embassy but has no qualms cozying up to one of the worst violators of human rights in the world – the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Yes, it was reported this week in The Teheran Times that Iran and South Africa plan to launch six scientific and research projects jointly. The agreements are expected following this month’s meeting between South African Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor and Iranian Minister of Science, Research, and Technology Mansour Gholami.
“South Africa and Iran have already cultivated relations and we are seeking closer ties between the two nations,” said Gholami.
South African Minister of Science and Technology, Nadeli Pandor (L) and Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mansour Gholami (R).
The South African minister expressed “We can enhance the cooperation, and the purpose of my trip to Iran …. is to strengthen scientific relations.”
This follows meetings in Teheran of South African National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete in September where after a beaming Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called South Africa a “friendly country”, noting the warm relationship that endured “especially during the time of sanctions.”
Well, if we judge a country by the company it keeps, what does that say about South Africa whose sense of morality is trending in the same nose-dive direction as its credit rating?
Obsessed with Israel over misconceptions, South Africa totally ignores Iran that literally is getting away with murder.
Just look at the 2017 Human Rights Watch World Report on Iran:
How do South Africans – whose country did away with the death penalty – feel when they read that the number of executions in Iran so far for 2017 has reached 437?
“Under Iranian law, many nonviolent crimes, such as “insulting the Prophet,” apostasy, same-sex relations, adultery, and drug-related offenses, are punishable by death.”
On August 2, authorities announced “they had executed at least 20 alleged members of a group Iran considers a terrorist organization on charges of moharebeh, or “enmity against God.” Rights groups believe that these individuals were among a group of 33 Sunni Kurdish men arrested in 2009 and 2010, and sentenced to death in unfair trials after enduring abuses and torture in detention.”
The simple truth is that it’s dangerous in Iran by simply being alive!
How do South African parents feels when they read that Iran executes children?
On July 18, Amnesty International reported that “authorities had hanged Hassan Afshar, who was arrested when he was 17 years old and convicted of “forced male to male anal intercourse” (lavat-e be onf). At least 49 inmates on death row were convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18 years old.”
Long done away with in their own country, how do South Africans feel about corporal punishment in Iran?
In March, the United Nations Children’s Rights Committee noted that “in Iran, flogging was still a lawful punishment for boys and girls convicted of certain crimes.”
Is the South African LGBTI community not “shocked’ over the treatment of gays in Iran?
According to the HR Report “… lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) children in Iran had been subjected to electric shocks to “cure” them”.”
Are they okay with their government wanting closer ties to a country that “cures” people with different sexual orientations?
How do South African mine-workers relate to the treatment of their peers in Iran?
“…authorities had flogged 17 miners after their employer sued them for protesting the firing of fellow workers.”
Mind you, here South Africa’s ANC government can claim one-upmanship on its Iranian friends, following its record in the Marikana Massacre of August 2012 where strikers were mowed down by South African police in what the South African media compared to the Sharpeville massacre of 1960.
How would South Africans, dependent on the internet, settle for a life without?
“Free speech and dissent in Iran remains “highly restricted, and authorities continued to arrest and charge journalists, bloggers, and online media activists for exercising their right to freedom of expression.”
In April, a revolutionary court sentenced journalists Afarin Chitsaz, Ehsan Mazandarani, and Saman Safarzaei to terms of ten, seven, and five years, respectively for the “crime” of colluding with foreign media.
Hundreds of websites, including social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, remained blocked in Iran. The intelligence apparatus heavily monitored citizens’ activities on social media. Hundreds of social media users – in particular on the Telegram messaging application and Instagram – have been summoned or arrested by the IRGC for commenting on controversial issues, including fashion.
This past October Iran set out to re-block the world’s top GPS-based navigation application WAZE due to “some disturbing issues”. The issues “disturbing” Iran – is the same issues that frequently disturbs some in the ANC government – the product’s Israeli origin. The free crowdsourced Israeli navigation app that allows users to share traffic information automatically in real time, was acquired by Google in 2013 for over one billion US dollars. Iran’s leadership however says, “NO WAZE”, and so like its leaders, the county’s motorists are now too directionless!
How would South Africans fun-lovers adjust to a country where it’s a crime to party?
“In the past year, the police and judiciary prevented dozens of musical concerts, particularly those featuring female vocalists and musicians, in different provinces.”
What would South African demonstrators who risked bodily injury or worse when facing the apartheid SA police tolerate such state abuse as in Iran?
“On February 22, a revolutionary court sentenced Ismail Abdi, secretary general of the Teachers’ Association who has been detained since June 2015, to six years in prison, for organizing a teachers’ demonstration in front of the Parliament”?
How do South African women feel on how their peers are discriminated in Iran?
“Iranian women face discrimination in personal status matters related to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. A woman needs her male guardian’s approval for marriage regardless of her age and cannot pass on her nationality to her foreign-born spouse or their children. Married women may not obtain a passport or travel outside the country without the written permission of their husbands.”
How would South African parents respond if their children were so abused as in Iran?
“The UN Children’s Rights Committee reported in March that the age of marriage for girls is 13, that sexual intercourse with girls as young as nine years was not criminalized, and that judges had discretion to release some perpetrators of so-called honor killings without any punishment.”
So are South Africans fine that their country
But, will embrace one of the world’s worst violators of Human Rights that paints on its continental ballistic missiles, “Death to Israel” and whose ‘Supreme Leader’ on Holocaust Memorial Day published a Holocaust denying video?
Is this who South Africa – in the words of the Iranian Minister of Science, Research – “wants closer ties” with?
South Africa may enjoy today an enviable constitution embodying human rights but it is meaningless if it has lost its way.
Where are its values?
See video indictment on South Africa’s friend, Iran, sponsored by : 
