6 - ‘We Met the Enemy and He is Us’: Domestic Politics and South Africa’s Role in Promoting African Democracy

Abstract

South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy has disappointed scholars and
activists who expected the post-apartheid state to promote democracy and
human rights in Africa and the world, and who complain that it has failed
to fulfill that promise.
This paper examines South Africa’s role in democracy promotion since
1994 and, in particular, the argument that it intended to promote rights
and freedoms in Africa but was forced to change its approach by power
realities on the continent. It finds this explanation wanting and argues that
the core goal of foreign policy of the post-apartheid government was not to
promote democracy, but rather, merely to prove white racism wrong.
Since 1994, the African National Congress-led government has been aware
that much of white opinion, at home and abroad, expects majority ruled
African societies to fail. Its prime concern, therefore, has been to refute the
prejudice that black Africans cannot run successful societies. It is this concern
which has underpinned foreign policy: the aim has been to project
Africa as a continent whose states are measuring up to the Northern model
of a successful society. Hence, democracy promotion has been only a means
to that end, and this is the major factor responsible for its uneven and
sporadic application.