I was a hothead, says our man in Paris
South African Ambassador to France, Rapu Molekane, on diplomacy and what he misses most about home
CHARLES DE GAULLE, French president of the 1960s, was probably not speaking of our man in Paris – ambassador Rapu Molekane, when he opined: “Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”
A career diplomat, Molekane is a man for all seasons.
Before Paris, where he is into his third year, he was in Bavaria, Germany, taking over from well-travelled Khulu Mbatha.
Molekane is soft-spoken, almost like he never wishes to hurt his interlocutor.
But then a quote that is likely to fit his character snugly is from Bisaac Goldberg who said: “Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest thing in the nicest way.”
Molekane comes from that generation of the ANC Youth League of Peter Mokaba. “We were very close with Peter,” he’d say later in the interview.
Mokaba was a hothead. So too Molekane, by association.
Their relationship dates back many years in the youth formations; Mokaba was president of the Mankweng Youth Congress; Molekane was his opposite number at the Soweto Youth Congress.
They were arrested for organising Cosas affairs, the Congress of South Africa Students, Molekane recalls.
For their trouble, they were bundled into Sun City, the Johannesburg Prison, where they were joined by the famed Cradock Four (Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli).
Mokaba was belligerent. The kind of fighting talk that appealed to Julius Malema when his turn came the ANCYL.
While Mokaba’s militancy was the bane of adults, especially the pacifists, it was to the younger Molekane that the task of taming Mokaba was left.
I venture the suggestion that diplomacy has mellowed him.
“I haven’t changed; I’m still the same. Diplomacy does not mean one has to be softer. It’s just the conditions that have made us to grow.”
That’s Bisaac speaking!
Molekane says of the lovehate relationship with Paris when the subject of Dulcie September comes up: “That’s where diplomacy comes in. You’d do well to avoid issues that are a sore point, that will create animosity and concentrate on what we need from the French. But you don’t sweep these things under the carpet. When things don’t go well, you remind them. But we try to be civil.”
Assassinated on 29 March 1988 as she was opening the door to her office, September’s killers have still not been brought to book.
It can’t be easy traversing the road to a metamorphosis, from a fierce Young Turk to a diplomat watching every word.
“We were handpicked by Alfred Nzo, the four of us,” he says of their introduction to the diplomatic corps “in 1994, during the First Parliament”.
He names the three others making up the quartet: Jerry Ndou, Louis Mnguni and Jackie Selebi.
This reporter wonders if the first on the list is not Jerry Matjila but it seems rude to interrupt Molekane, the ambassador.
He says the rationale behind to head Goldberg their sabbatical into the diplomatic corps, still under Foreign Affairs at the time, was to find younger people “who understood the politics of the ANC”.
Fast-forward to 2018, the young man who had to run the gauntlet of the De Klerk laws, when FW de Klerk was minister of education in the apartheid government, now has bigger fish to fry – selling the good story of South Africa to the world, from Paris.
The South Africa story is a good story, Molekane says.
“We achieved our freedom through the help of many countries, throughout the globe, especially those in Europe. In the UK you had the Anti-apartheid Movement that was very active. Successive governments in Europe were supportive of apartheid. Most of them now pretend they were on our side. They were not. You go to the UK, the Labour government supported apartheid. Even here in France, the socialist government supported apartheid.”
“Our mobilisation of the anti-apartheid struggle was not targeting governments, we were targeting society … trade union movements, the churches, all over the capitals of Europe.
“So even today we have a much better relationship with movements than we have with some governments.”
Molekane says: “The world has changed so much that no country in the world can do without Africa. They need us more; they need the natural resources. Africa has got a young vibrant society; they have ageing societies. They need Africa more to sustain their lifestyle. With all their knowledge and skills, they need us more.”
South Africa has a unique Big Brother role it is playing in this regard. “Here I am always called to give a view of what South Africa thinks about whatever happens on the continent ... in Zimbabwe. Do we lift the sanctions, do we continue? In the Seychelles … the former French colonies.. We are a reference point for them.
“Even ordinary people want to hear the South African viewpoint about what is happening on the continent. We continue to be held in high regard,” says ambassador Molekane, now also the vice president for Africa in the executive board of Unesco.
“We have done quite a lot to strengthen relations between France and South Africa,“the ambassador says.
He will not take the credit but salutes the work of his predecessors upon which he now builds.
In education, he says, the French have opened their doors to South African students.
“We have about 50 post-graduate and PHD students at various universities throughout France. This did not start three years ago. It was begun long before I came here.”
Education is just a part of the huge basket of co-operation areas South Africa has with France and Molekane speaks about each with relish.
“The French are shrewd business people. They have a huge contract with Prasa through their structure here called Alstom. We didn’t come to buy trains here. We bought the knowhow. The trains are built in South Africa, in Boksburg. We have taken their IP, we are training South Africans here who are becoming artisans and engineers to build these trains.
“Some of them will be hitting the road very soon (going back to South Africa).”
“The programme was started by Ben Martins, then Dipuo Peters. This is just one of the key flag projects,” says Molekane, who clearly does not know how to steal the thunder from others.
He then talks about Koeberg, how the French helped build the nuclear power station, together with the Israelis.
“So we continue to co-operate and collaborate with the French around nuclear technology for peaceful use. We sell isotopes for radiation for use as cancer treatment. They buy these things from us in South Africa, through Nersa and the Department of Science and Technology.
“They are quite advanced in secondary medicine, especially nuclear medicine.
“We co-operate with them. They continue to service that station. Before we came here, Koeberg was buying everything from here – even the bolts and nuts.
“We changed that. We now have South African technicians to produce these things.”
He talks at some length about the balance of trade between the two countries – R20 billion exports into France, while we buy about R40 billion from them, he says.
He laments the trade barriers regarding South African wine in France. He returns to the trade gap between France and South Africa, obviously a sore point for him. He sings the praises of the Forum for Political Dialogue “to discuss all our various areas of collaboration with them”.
“Of course they always want to sell us things.”
Time has really healed the militant, though he’d not admit to such. He now talks about the urgency to do away with the visa requirement when, in his youth, the subject for passionate discussion would have been De Klerk’s ban on over-age students at tertiary institutions.
“I’m a full-time diplomat,” he says, responding to clarify a point about what’s next after his four-year terms ends in 2019.
Family life of a diplomat is highly disrupted, he confesses: “My daughter who is 23 speaks perfect German; my daughter who is 14 speaks French, my son is confused. We were in Germany, Ghana, then came here; so he is culturally confused.”
Do you miss SA cuisine? “No, I get those each time I need them. I miss Soweto. Going to a shebeen ... Vilakazi street, mixing with friends, attending funerals, that sort of life.”