Give Ambassador Bozell the boot

It is exactly a year since South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, was ordered out of the country for apparently having expressed criticism of President Donald Trump. According to US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, Rasool is “a race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump. As a result he had to go. And he went.

But now a new US ambassador arrived in South Africa. And, within weeks, Leo Brent Bozell III, revealed him self to qualify for the nickname, “Bozo” Bozell, as an arrogant trumpeter of his master’s ignorance and bigotry. And it soon became obvious that he came equipt to give South Africa orders.

They were, in fact, a repeat of the allegations and demands voiced by Trump last year when he promoted his “white genocide” myth following visits by self-styled Afrikaner nationalists. However, he did, initially, seem to at have least mastered some idea of diplomacy, because he first phrased the orders from the White House to the Union Buildings as “asks”, later amended to “official requests”. In other words, as any good mafioso would say: offers you had better not refuse.

What is interesting is that this local capo of the would-be global godfather was once bitterly critical of Trump. At the time of the 2016 presidential primaries he, along with establishment — and other Roman Catholic — hard right conservatives, found the brash, media grabbing superficiality of Trump and his ill-educated evangelical supporters, almost distasteful.

At the time, Bozell referred to Trump as “a huckster” and “the greatest charlatan of them all”. According to Politico magazine, he noted: “God help this country if this man were president.” Now Trump is president — again. And Bozo is an ambassador.

These developments may, off course, have some bearing on the fact that Bozell does owe a debt to the president. It was Trump, after all, who got Bozo’s son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, out of jail and pardoned on ten counts relating to the attack on, and vandalism in, the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

As Bozo later explained to the Washington Post, although he felt it was “absolutely wrong” for the thuggish MAGA mob to attack police and the capitol, the rioters were “furious that they believe(d) this election was stolen. I agree with them”.

In any event, it is this particular incident that appears to have solidified Bozell’s support behind Trump. Now the flip-flop is complete: all we are likely to hear from Bozell are accurate impersonations of his master’s views.

The first of those views were the five “asks” or “official requests”. These began with a reframing of the ludicrous “white genocide” nonsense spewed forth by Trump last year. This figment of Trump’s racist imagination is supposed to become South Africa’s “priority crime focus”. It is linked to another example of wilful ignorance: a call to condemn the anti-apartheid struggle song Shaya Mbhunu/Bulu because it calls for beating and shooting “Boers” (in the context the racist supporters, mainly police, of the apartheid state).

The third element in this bastion of bigotry is the claim the the South African government is moving “to normalise nil compensation in new expropriation laws”. Yet, in line with many — if not most — countries everywhere, the South African government has the right “in the public interest” or “for a public purpose” to expropriate property. But, as South Africa’s justly hailed Bill of Rights (Section 25) states, this may only be done subject to just and equitable compensation “agreed to by those affected or …approved by a court”.

Then came that tired essentially racist canard about Black Economic Empowerment. BEE has certainly been hijacked and fallen prey to cronyism and corruption, but it was never aimed at “mandatory surrender of ownership or control of corporate (white?) decision making”.

Against this background and with Trump having threatened trade war and sanctions as well as having lied as he promoted his pathetic fiction of “white genocide”, the final “ask” seems almost outrageous: betterment of trade relations by expanding digital and critical minerals cooperation.

Given Bozell’s performance to date and the precedent set by Washington last year, perhaps it is time for the South African government to give this US ambassador his marching orders.