Dalai Lama’s visa Refusal: A test of South African Credibility.
LoveWorld Newsroom.
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009.
There are important distinctions to be drawn between South Africa’’s performance as a non permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, especially on the issue of Burma , and South Africa’s denial of a visa to the Dalai Lama and its implications for South Africa’s international reputation.
Indeed, the ban on the entry of Tibet’s spiritual leader to participate in the 2010 Soccer World Cup peace conference, provides insight into the dilemmas governments face as they navigate the tightrope of human rights and the geopolitical imperatives dictated by national interests. It also says a lot about intra-south power relations between Asia and Africa, especially between China and South Africa.
One of the serious problems with international human rights campaigns is their tendency to approach human rights issues in moral isolation of the geopolitical calculations that must inform how governments respond on particular issues.
Added to this is the general polarisation between western and non-western governments on human rights issues. The west tends to adopt righteous moral postures against authoritarian regimes seen as serial human rights abusers, though their economic interests tend to dilute such posturing. Non-western governments, out of solidarity, tend to close ranks around principles of non-interference and hostility to what they perceive as western imperialist bullying under the guise of moral righteousness. Whether we like it or not, the real politics of international relations will almost always trump “morality” in world politics.
But there are and should be exceptions to this rule. Tibet and the Dalai Lama are a case in point.
While criticism of South Africa’’s stance on Burma , including from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was understandable, the magnitude of the hostility in the absence of any understanding of the broader issues informing South Africa’s’s position went way beyond what could be considered constructive. The case of the Dalai Lama and Tibet, however, presents South Africa with a different set of challenges as a result of the decision to deny the Dalai Lama’s entry on the basis of an appeal from China. This places SA in a considerably more untenable position. Not only is Tibet’s status within China contested but the Dalai Lama, as a Nobel Laureate who would interact with other recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, such as Tutu, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, at the invitation of the Premier Soccer League, is an internationally revered iconic figure, in direct contrast to the disrepute of the generals in Burma . For that matter, the Dalai Lama enjoys a level of international legitimacy as a man of peace that is not matched by Beijing.
Beijing, for its part, is so obsessed with any sign of recognition, official or unofficial, of Tibet and Taiwan that it runs roughshod over everyone else’s interests and sensibilities in an effort to impose its will in areas where a balance of interests is urgently needed.
South Africa’s continued refusal to allow the Dalai Lama to participate in the peace conference will be widely interpreted as a slap in the face for Mandela, De Klerk and Tutu. While Tutu’s protests over his country’s UN decisions on Burma went overboard, his threat to pull out of the World Cup peace conference is eminently understandable and will be widely supported. Indeed, that entire conference could be called into question.
Does China care? Does it see any other issue at play other than its own parochial interests in Tibet, where the legitimacy of Chinese vitriol against the Dalai Lama and his appeals for cultural autonomy is internationally called into question?
It is not as if the Dalai Lama would be entering South Africa on an official state visit. Yet China is totally insensitive to placing the government in such a politically and morally untenable position. And South Africa, for its part, shows how it can be intimidated by Beijing to the point at which its behavior becomes an object lesson in naked geopolitical power politics.
The dilemma for SA is that bowing to China’s request for it to refuse a visa to the Dalai Lama could damage its credibility in Africa as much as if it had caved in on the issue of Burma and voted for the US resolution in the security council.
China, arguably, needs South Africa within Africa as much as South Africa needs China. It all comes down to a matter of South Africa’s foreign policy independence and national sovereignty.
South Africa, by its decision on the Dalai Lama, could be seen as signalling the continent’s subordination to China as Beijing’s moves inexorably to incorporate Africa into a 21st-century version of its ancient tributary system.
