LETTER: ANC must stop risking sanctions

The Russian ambassador seems to care more about the plight of South Africans than our own government (“Russia tells SA to pick a side”, June 29).

While the ANC seems blind, deaf and dumb to the increasing likelihood of economic reprisals as a result of its “neutral stance” on the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian ambassador has warned that varying degrees of sanctions will be levied on SA if the ANC doesn’t take a firmer, pro-Western stance.

But of course the ANC doesn’t understand or care about the very real threat to SA livelihoods. It romanticises sanctions — always trying to be like its comrades in Cuba, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Perhaps it sees being sanctioned as some sort of validation. Like being a martyr against the big, evil imperialist West.

It doesn’t really occur to the ANC that apartheid was partly destroyed by global sanctions. Was the National Party a moral agent because it was sanctioned? By ANC logic, perhaps it was.

Regardless, anyone who has followed at least a little bit of the news knows that the ANC’s claims to be pursuing a nonaligned stance is deceitful and downright fallacious. Its government has clearly been favouring the Russians due to ideological loyalty to a long-dead USSR, probable bribery and possibly downright stupidity.

Even the Russian ambassador seems to tacitly think this is a bad idea. SA should be backing the West in this conflict. The values of most South Africans align far more with those of the West, while our most profitable trade partners are all from the West as well.

We need the West. We must stop risking sanctions through some foolish attempt to grandstand for no legitimate reason.

Nicholas Woode-Smith
Cape Town

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