"My US friends and the scholars around me used words like devastated, anxious, worried and deeply disappointed" WHAT does the US election mean for South Africa? Not much, actually.In the 1970s or 1980s, it was a different story with the Cold War and the partisan involvement of the US in the Southern African theatre that pitted “communist regimes” supporting liberation movements against white minority governments and their armed surrogates supported by the West.With the election of Donald Trump, the only effects might be in trade relationships, where a nativist president might well tighten agreements in favour of the US.If his inward-looking platform was anything to go by, foreign policy excursions will be a thing of the past. I doubt the president-elect knows the difference between Botswana and Bechuanaland.For some strange reason I felt safe under Barack Obama: on a writing sabbatical in the solidly Democratic state of California, and in the progressive Bay Area of the Golden State...
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