Much is being made of the fact that President Jacob Zuma refused to meet with First Lady Michelle Obama during her week-long official visit to South Africa and Botswana, which ends on Sunday. Indeed, it’s arguable that he intended to convey a deliberate slight by arranging only for his female minister of prisons to greet her at the airport on Monday and for one of his three wives to meet briefly with her on Tuesday.
But, when placed in proper context, there’s nothing surprising or inappropriate about Zuma’s behavior. After all, Zuma is not only culturally disposed to male chauvinism; he’s also personally disposed to raping women.
This, in part, is what compelled no less a person than Archbishop Desmond Tutu to oppose his candidacy for president by warning South Africans that:
They should please not choose someone of whom most of us would be ashamed.
(London Times, December 16, 2007)
Therefore, nobody should be surprised that he dissed Michelle in this way. Mind you, she could not have hoped for any greater honor during her visit than the one she got by being accorded a private visit with Nelson Mandela. Never mind that, at 92, he’s treated more as a tourist attraction these days (like the Statue of Liberty or, perhaps more to the point, a Carnival freak worthy of being shot by Charles Eisenmann) than as an elder statesman.
Of course, if not out of respect for Michelle, you’d think Zuma would be wary of doing anything that could even be perceived as a slight against the mighty United States.
I am convinced, however, that he has made the strategic calculation that – just as the Soviet Union was the patron of choice for many African countries during the Cold War – China will prove a far more beneficial patron for South Africa than the U.S. in the years to come.
Not to mention that China’s largesse does not come with any of the situational morality that now impinges on the U.S.’s bilateral relationship with countries within its sphere of financial influence. And, given the ostentatious way China has been buying up political influence throughout the continent, Zuma’s behavior seems more shrewd than rude (i.e., dissing America pleases or curries favor with, China).
In a similar vein, there’s probably merit to claims that Zuma snubbed her to register his pan-African opposition to the ongoing, U.S.-led military strikes against Libya. No doubt his opposition is informed by the fact that Gaddafi supported the ANC during its struggle against the Apartheid regime:
We strongly believe that the (UN Security Council) resolution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign military occupation.
(Zuma, African Herald Express, June 18, 2011)
Granted, Zuma’s mood could not have been helped by his failure to broker a ceasefire between Gaddafi forces and rebel fighters during two visits to Libya earlier this year.
Ultimately, though, I think there’s poetic, even if ironic, justice in his snub of Michelle; not least because President Obama has made promoting equality among nations in international relations a hallmark of his presidency. Accordingly, just as nobody would expect Obama to meet with any of Zuma’s wives on a solo visit to the United States, nobody should expect Zuma to meet Obama’s wife on a solo visit to South Africa.
That said, I’m acutely mindful of the self-abnegating stereotype which holds that blacks invariably show more respect towards whites in positions of authority than towards blacks in those same positions. But I have no doubt that if this were First Lady Laura Bush visiting, Zuma would have dissed her too. It’s just unfortunate that historical happenstance has him treating the first black first lady of the United States in a way that only perpetuates this stereotype.
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