Art of the Week: Medu Art Ensemble, Arms of Thami Mnyele and Monica Holts, 1981
“We as South Africa face neither East nor West, we face forward, we move forward.”
Those were the words of South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola earlier this month — echoing the great Ghanaian revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah — as he affirmed South Africa’s non-alignment amid Washington's latest assault on his nation’s sovereignty.
Minister Lamola’s statement to the South African Parliament followed Donald Trump’s infamous Executive Order halting critical financial aid under the false pretence of protecting Afrikaners from "government-sponsored race-based discrimination."
Trump’s true motivations — shaped by South African white supremacists in his orbit, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel — are clear. Far from “protecting” a vulnerable Afrikaner population, Trump’s order aims only to punish South Africa for its pursuit of land justice for rural workers at home and international justice for Palestinian communities abroad.
Today, more than 100 parliamentarians from across the globe – co-ordinated by the Progressive International – have united to condemn Trump’s order, call for its immediate repeal and stand in solidarity with the South African people. You can read the letter here.
From Argentina to Australia and Brazil to Belgium, the lawmakers are clear: “This order echoes the darkest chapters of U.S. foreign policy, recalling its support for apartheid and its labelling of the African National Congress as a terrorist organisation.”
The humanitarian consequences of Trump’s retaliation are dire: 6 million South Africans on HIV/AIDS treatment risk losing PEPFAR funding, while 350,000 jobs and $7 billion in exports are now under threat.
Washington’s assault, however, has further-reaching ramifications. “We write today not only in defence of South Africa,” warn the parliamentarians, “but also in defence of the UN Charter that guarantees the sovereign equality of all nations without fear of foreign intervention.”
Before the South African Parliament, Minister Lamola recalled the lyrics of Sing Our Own Song, written and performed by the British reggae group UB40:
“We’ll fight for the right to be free
We will build our own society, and in our own society
We will sing, sing our own song
(Amandla Awethu, Awethu)”
The song, said Lamola, was created as an anti-apartheid anthem and faced censorship in South Africa. “Our foreign policy echoes the spirit of this song. We will indeed build our own society. In our own society we will sing our own song.”
Today, in these efforts, the people of South Africa are joined by a chorus of voices from around the world as they face down Donald Trump’s assault on their right to self-determination. Read more about the letter in The Mail and Guardian here and share the news here.
In solidarity,
The Progressive International Secretariat
