We’ve got the seat. Let’s use it

THE election of South Africa by an overwhelming majority of countries to serve on the UN Security Council – the third time in a decade, after 2008 and 2011 stints – is a good indicator of the country’s standing in the world.

It was elected with a 92% majority in the UN General Assembly, suggesting the country was trusted to represent the interests of those who supported its candidature.

This is a matter for deliberation in and of itself, especially the extent to which the country will, working with others, advance the greater interests of this membership, a huge population of the world with the poor in the majority.

But the focus being elected to the council is not sufficient evidence of South Africa’s role in global affairs until the country can turn opportunities that come with this into influence.

Participation in a powerful forum is one thing; deriving benefits from it is another. Much of this comes down to strategy and the country’s capacity to harness opportunities.

South Africa has on many occasions known how to get itself on strategic platforms for global affairs, but whether it has been able to harness these opportunities to demonstrate real influence is a matter for debate.

It got elected on to the council twice before, in 2007-8 and in 201112, but the influence it had on the role of this body in advancing a peaceful, weapons-free world is still being debated by academics and activists.

The government is convinced it did very well in these two stints because it raised certain issues and used its vote to convey certain messages. But that is the government talking about its interests and plans during the period. Whether the country must regard these stints as significant in advancing what the country stands for is another matter.

It is about the extent to which the people of South Africa think their interests are served by the way in which the South African government played its role at the UN in general and its Security Council in particular.

The safest way, in my view, for a government to exercise this responsibility to advance a country’s role in global affairs is by extracting out of its constitution, its laws, policies and its plans, that which might be taken together to imply a country’s interests to be pursued in global institutions when opportunities arise.

The foreign policy thus becomes an expression in global platforms of the national agenda.

Therefore, we cannot fully assess how the SA government has used the country’s opportunities globally without interpreting the extent to which the express foreign policy in writing and action is in fact a reasonable representation of the national agenda, not just the agenda of national government.

The principles of the constitution balance the country’s economic, political, social and cultural aspirations, but whether these find expression in the foreign policy that the government pursues requires elaborate discussion.

In respect of the specific policy positions already declared as the government’s focus at the UN Security Council, some principles are more prominent than others.

In this regard, the peaceful resolution of conflict, dialogue, and co-operation stand out.

The point is that society has to be vigilant to ensure the government does not pursue its own elite interest in being seen on a major platform among the big powers, in terms of projecting itself as a good government that occupies places of prestige in global affairs.

Such concerns do not of themselves meet the country’s vital interests, unless there is an express intent to ensure whatever is done and attained seeks to fulfil the country’s interests as outlined in the constitution, national development plan and policies.

Part of the challenge in explaining the value derived from a seat on the council is that we are yet to see a comprehensive review of the country’s previous two terms, in respect of the extent to which these were used to advance the national agenda.

We are yet to dissect what might be understood to be in the interests of the people of South Africa.

This is principally the fault of foreign policy observers and analysts, as well as students of international relations in South Africa.

If it’s accepted that the majority seek freedom from structural, social and economic inequality, poverty, alienation, unemployment, a lack of wealth-making opportunities, social deprivation, racism, sexism etc, it must follow that South Africa’s membership of the UN Security Council or any other platform of prestige should be used to help the country meet these national interests.

This enjoins the government, which is mandated by elections to represent the country’s interests, to indicate how the announced priorities for the term constitute the country’s interests.

It has to show it is interested in more than just reputation and prestige. It has to show how these priorities set out to address the needs of the people of South Africa and the continent to which it belongs. Priorities announced were:

Promoting the maintenance of international peace and security by advocating the peaceful settlement of conflict and inclusive dialogue.

Promoting close co-operation between the council, as the premier platform for international peace and security, and other regional organisations, including the African Union.

Ensuring an inclusive pursuit of peace, including the involvement of women, in line with UN Security Council resolution 1325 adopted in 2000.

Unless all of this is done for the well-being of the people of the world, Africa and South Africa, it is less significant than assumed.

The Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Lindiwe Sisulu, said of South Africa’s election to the nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council: “Only when we have peace and a culture of peace can we have sustainable development”.

This enables the government to claim every peace effort as laying the ground for development, a paradigm about sequence between peace and development that must be taken with caution.

How this is achieved is also dependent on how the government pursues the three priorities. It must always bear in mind that it is all about the well-being of the people. It must act in keeping with an internalised ubuntu paradigm of life as an underlying orientation that underpins what we do and say, and how we do what we do.

Ubuntu puts human well-being at the centre, not self-interest.

This encapsulates the interests of those who suffer from our failure to achieve certain things.

Ubuntu means we end the sense of beings and sub-beings, reject racism, bigotry, supremacist tendencies and other things that normalise dehumanisation.

We have to watch how decisions are made, what is said and done, and determine if what is done is for the well-being of our people.

That will tell us whether ubuntu lies at the heart of what is done, or the government is merely pursuing prestige.

Zondi is a political science professor at the University of Pretoria.