Former South African Ambassador
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
I think what Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power. by mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency at home. And I think I've illustrated abroad as well.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
I don't think that I come back with any regrets. I think that we are dealing with an administration in the US that is unapologetic about the stances it takes, the cost to human lives and so forth.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
And so in the scheme of things, I think my characterization of the political phenomenon, not the personalities involved, not the government involved, but the political phenomenon is one that I think comes more easily to a South African, having been to a large extent, the last nation that has felt and borne the brunt of supremacism and especially the
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
when there is an unapologetic outreach to a very privileged, small, fringe, white community, and then alleging unapologetically that that community, that white Africana community, is under siege, is being oppressed, there's a genocide against them, and that their land is being confiscated. It's an unadulterated lie.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
I'm not drawing the parallel. They are drawing the parallel. They are drawing the parallel by embracing a privileged white community, giving them refugee status because ostensibly they are oppressed in the land. We have never drawn that parallel. That parallel has been drawn by that administration itself.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
I think I'm describing a phenomenon. It's familiar to Germans who found a very surprising phenomenon of a vice president coming, embracing the ultra right, the alternative for Deutschland, mobilizing them ahead of an election. Everything is so obvious that only the blind or the timid will not call it out. So essentially you're saying that the Trump administration is racist?
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
I'm saying when a piece of wood has a hinge, you begin to suspect it's a door. And I think that the deportations that's happening, the abductions of particular people on the streets, the mobilising of certain far-right communities, etc., I think it is self-evident.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
The fact of the matter is we had black people voting for apartheid, and that doesn't mean that apartheid is non-racial. I think apartheid has the ability to co-opt because it has certain abilities to dispense patterns.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
to certain communities, and that's not to patronize the communities, but I do think that the presence of blacks in a particular movement, such as homelands, supporting apartheid, does not make apartheid non-racial.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
No, I think that the surprise is the thinness of the skin, the ability to dish out. and not to accept. We've smiled through a lie about white genocide. We've smiled through the punishment of cutting all aid, whether it is PEPFAR for HIV and AIDS, USAID, WHO funds, just energy transition funds. We've smiled through all of that.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
We've tried all the conventional ways to get that until you hit a brick wall. And you begin to say, this is not the normal phenomenon of diplomacy. I think it cannot be business as usual.
Global News Podcast
Myanmar earthquake kills at least 144
still to come on this podcast. Diplomacy is not the ability to deny the reality that you see. Diplomacy is not to flatter your host into liking you. Diplomacy is not lying. I think there cannot be business as usual.