|
|
|
Travel Agency, donations facilitator and new areas of cooperation: An embassy in a COVID19-crisis
|
 by Karina Hedemark, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Denmark in South Africa
We all have to get used to a very different everyday life during the COVID19-crisis. As a diplomatic mission, our core work used to be to facilitate incoming and outgoing missions between South Africa and Denmark, issue visas so South Africans could travel to Denmark and prepare high-level visits.
Photo: Mr Tobias Elling Rehfeld, Ambassador of Denmark to South Africa and Dr Zweli Mkhize, Minister of Health of South Africa inspecting a donation by Danish company Maersk of personal protection equipment against COVID19
To travel and meet, to have a face-to-face dialogue and shake hands with the right people seemed to be fundamental instruments for diplomacy. But in this COVID19-crisis, we have had to very quickly adjust and shift focus in order to solve the urgent tasks at hand and transform the excellent South African – Danish relationship into activities that would benefit us all in this crisis.
We spent most of our time in March and April with close contact to our citizens in South Africa and the side-accredited countries. We lived and dreamt excel sheets, pax lists, logistics and travel documents. The big task was to get the stranded citizens on board repatriation flights back to Denmark. It was no easy task and the speed of the lockdown not just in South Africa but globally took many people by surprise. Thanks to a great effort from especially Germany and a fantastic cooperation among the European countries and with the South African government, the bulk of this work is now behind us. We continue to have citizens wishing to return, but at a manageable level.
South Africans stranded abroad
Contact +27 12 351 1754; +27 12 351 1756
 Even Prof Vincent Rigorio, who is all for face to face, people to people diplomacy had to resort to a webinar platform for his Human and Digital Diplomacy seminar. The webinar hosted in conjunction with the Diplomatic World Institute and moderated by Dieter Brockmeyer, Head of projects at the Institute, discussed the changing face of human interaction at a time when social isolation due the corona virus pandemic, which has infected millions of people around the world and left over 250 000 dead, has become a norm.
Prof Rigorio, who is the current Vice-Rector for the International Relations/Head of the international Department, Tenured Professor, Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis, Moscow Russian Federation, Team Leader European Commission co-financed project: “EU in the World” and Associate Professor at Presidential Academy for National Economy and Public Administration - RANEPA, Moscow, was aptly positioned to lead the discussions.
Describing what he terms “140 Characters Diplomacy” and its disastrous consequences. Rigorio says Diplomacy has been affected by the hyper technological world we live in as several sectors are moving into virtual reality. He noticed how government officials and heads of state, when discussing conflicts, took to the virtual stage to attack counterparts in an instant messaging discourse. This shift poses many risks as diplomats depart from their original roles leading to unprecedented consequences both at bilateral as well as multilateral level.
|
Politics, Covid-19 and the Lockdown
|
 by Greg Mills and Ray Hartley
“War,” wrote the strategist Carl von Clausewitz, is “the continuation of politics by different means.”The Prussian general was arguing for the subordination of war as an instrument of policy to a political objective. He was arguing that war is not thus an irrational, nationalistic urge, but rather a rational action – “a continuation of politics” in which decisions are constrained or encouraged by an assessment of political benefits against military costs and losses.
Economic policy, too, is politics by other means. The relationship between the two -- the ‘political-economy’ – is about who gets what, when and how.
To understand the battle over the direction of South Africa’s political economy, it is vital to get a grip on the fault lines within the ANC, which has dominated the political stage.
These have often been characterised as a battle between “left” and “right” approaches to the economy, with the trade unions, the SACP and the left within the ANC pitted against what has been characterised as a conservative “right-wing”.
In this simplified analysis, South Africa has veered from left to right. There was the RDP (left) which was supplanted by Gear (right), which was in turn replaced by radical economic transformation (left).
This oversimplification has, unsurprisingly, been the bread and butter of populists who like to caricature opponents and demonise them. But is entirely useless as a serious analytical tool and is frequently at the heart of the failure to understand how South African politics is playing out. To properly understand the political-economy dynamic, you need to change perspective by taking a jump to the left, as it were.
|
Tributes for Denis Goldberg
|
 President Cyril Ramaphosa has conveyed his condolences following the passing of Rivonia trialist and Esteemed Member of the Order of Luthuli, Denis Theodore Goldberg.“My thoughts are with Denis Goldberg’s family and his comrades around the country and around the world. This is a sad moment for our nation and a moment for all of us to appreciate Denis Goldberg’s brave dedication to our struggle and his lifelong activism in the interest of – and in the physical presence of - poor and vulnerable communities around our country,” said the President.Goldberg, who lived in Hout Bay, Cape Town, passed away on 29 April at the age of 87. In his tribute, President Ramaphosa said Goldberg’s first experience of prison was alongside his mother, who had been detained for four months.“Such experiences failed to intimidate him. Instead, it fuelled his determination that the liberation movement should use all strategies at its disposal, including armed resistance, to end apartheid.
|
In Cuba healthcare is a human right
|
 Health workers the world over have been at the forefront of figuring out this new pandemic that has overwhelmed all of our lives. With no clear treatment, no vaccine and no way of completely stopping the spread of Covid-19, lockdown has been the course of action for many countries including South Africa.
In many press conferences by politicians and medics alike, the reason for the lockdown in South Africa was explained as a measure to flatten the curve so as not to overwhelm our fragile healthcare system. In the interim South Africa has received large donations of personal protective equipment that is vital for medical staff treating Covid-19 patients and hospitals have been visited and assessed for their readiness to receive the many patients that are expected at the pandemic’s peak..
Cuba has, at the request of many countries, sent medical brigades to augment their health systems and on 26 April a medical brigade made up of 217 family physicians, epidemiologists, biostatists, healthcare technology engineers, biotechnology experts, among other specialists, arrived in South Africa.
It is remarkable that in Cuba, healthcare is free to everyone and so is education. In so many countries across the world, healthcare is unaffordable to the majority with medical aids, private clinics and pharmaceutical companies at the forefront of financialising this basic human right. Education is beyond the reach of many in most countries due to its exorbitant cost and many graduates are often burdened by large student debt.
In response to the arrival of the Cuban brigade Mr Rodolfo Benitez Verson, Ambassador of Cuba in South Africa said, “We live in a country where most of us work together to improve the lives of everyone and not just a few. We are very proud of our system and of our doctors, who are not looking for big payments or luxuries. Their priority is to save lives.”
|
|
|
|
|
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020 Print Edition
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
