Recent calls for South Africa to acquire a nuclear weapon become even more dystopian this week amid reports suggesting that the SANDF had defied an order from Cyril Ramaphosa to remove Iran from ongoing war-games. After all, giving a nuke to a military that ignores its commander-in-chief — what could possibly go wrong?
Two weeks ago, when the US attacked Venezuela and snatched away its dictator on trumped-up drugs charges, senior South African diplomat Clayson Monyela startled many by tweeting in support of South Africa restarting its nuclear arms programme.
At the time, it seemed like an eccentric view from left-field, but on Tuesday the idea was once again being floated in the corridors of power, this time by the EFF’s Carl Niehaus who asked defence minister Angie Motshekga in the National Assembly if she agreed that “additional resources must urgently be allocated to develop a nuclear armaments programme as an essential defence deterrent”.
Of course, we should take this from whence it comes. Given the speed with which the EFF is collapsing, we must expect its last few members to throw the odd Hail Mary when it comes to seeking publicity in an election year.
Niehaus’s X feed is also awash with passionate support for the murderous regime in Tehran, and some cynics might wonder if he and his fellow champagne socialists might be hoping to land the lucrative job of acting as a go-between should Iran ever offer to sell us some nuclear goodies.
Personally, I think this is extremely unlikely — at last count Niehaus has at least seven more dead parents to trade in for sympathy donations before he has to hustle for Iranian blood money — but one does have to wonder why a self-professed revolutionary and friend of the oppressed is so eagerly humping the leg of a regime that has reportedly massacred thousands of its people.
At the time of writing it was still unclear whether Ramaphosa’s instructions to the Navy had been directly disobeyed, or merely miscommunicated, or misunderstood, or lost in translation, or taken out of context, or any of the other words the ANC uses to dodge accountability.
Still, I have to admit that Monyela and Niehaus are not alone: some social media acquaintances I consider sensible have said similar things about the necessity for a nuclear umbrella, and there is some evidence that even those Nobel-awarding peaceniks in Scandinavia have started discussing the pros and cons of a shared Nordic nuclear defence pact.
These sorts of discussions are well above my paygrade as a lowly commentator, but, for what it’s worth, I can’t help feeling that those wondering about acquiring nukes haven’t, with all due respect, thought it through.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable, for example, to suggest that if we start developing a bomb of our own, or invite in some Brics pals to help, this country will be crawling with CIA, MI6 and Mossad saboteurs faster than you can say “Why is Koeberg on fire?”
And if we go the simpler route of buying one from a willing seller (Pakistan?), what’s the plan for dealing with the catastrophic sanctions and embargoes that get slapped on us the minute Washington finds out and declares us a rogue state like North Korea?
Both are grim prospects, but if they weren’t enough, this week the SANDF provided us with perhaps the best anti-nuclear argument of them all.
At the time of writing it was still unclear whether Ramaphosa’s instructions to the Navy had been directly disobeyed, or merely miscommunicated, or misunderstood, or lost in translation, or taken out of context, or any of the other words the ANC uses to dodge accountability.
If he was, in fact, disobeyed, We also don’t know if the low-key mutiny was led by Motshekga, the SANDF brass, the Navy, or just the pissed-off midshipman in the radio room, resenting the fact that he hasn’t been paid for a month and has to share his bunk with a penguin.
If it’s even partly true, though, even the most hawkish among us would have to admit that this doesn’t seem like an organisation you’d trust with a water balloon let alone a nuclear bomb.
So what does that leave us with?
Well, it leaves us with what we’ve had since South Africa deliberately destroyed its small nuclear arsenal in the 1990s: the soft power of diplomacy, strategic partnerships, and our traditional dance whereby we skip lightly from one side of the fence to the other.
Granted, it hasn’t been working so well since the Trump regime changed the tune. But, at the risk of being a dirty hippy refusenik, I would humbly submit that it’s still a hell of a lot better than the mushroom-cloud-shaped alternative.
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