Hon Speaker, since 1994, South Africa has gradually emerged as a key player in Africa and the international community broadly. South Africa became the champion in African politics; development; peace and security; human rights; democratic and good governance; and a developmental role involving the private sector. These were South Africa's national interests and we, in Cope, believe that they remain the same even now.
The world had expected South Africa to fulfil what may have been seen as an inevitable leadership role in Africa. However, South Africa failed in this expectation. Firstly, because sectors involved in the country's relations with Africa do not form a monolithic block. These are government, business and civil society.
The business community's activities on the continent is characterised by allegations of behemoth - rabid self-interest, profits, etc - pursued at the cost of mutual benefits and good neighbourliness. This conduct gives South Africa a bad image.
Positioning South Africa on the continent, tension exists for South Africa and government in whether to play a role of partnership, alliance builder or to assume a hegemonic role with regard to relations with countries on the continent. Being a hegemon is a difficult role for South Africa to play and will remain so for a along time to come. The hegemon has to be able, for example, to use its domestic market to stabilise the larger continental economy and be able to resist domestic pressures. Given South Africa's domestic needs and demands that flow from the apartheid legacy, it is indeed impossible for South Africa to be a hegemon within the continent of Africa.
In its national interest, South Africa pursued certain strategies. The preferred strategy pursued by the two former Presidents, President Mandela and President Mbeki, was the partnership and alliance formation with key African states: Nigeria, Mozambique, Algeria, Tanzania, Ghana, etc. The key goal of South Africa and its strategic partners was promotion of an African Agenda in pursuit of development on the basis of this progressive agenda.
A key tactic was to play the progressive role of norms builder and promoter of principles through initiatives such as the African Union, AU, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, Nepad, and the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM. We also promoted norms like civil society participation; the independence of the judiciary; combating corruption; term of office for public office holders; and gender empowerment.
The image of South Africa on the continent is being judged by the world, particularly investors, on the basis of such core values. Currently, the consistency or not of South Africa's international relations policy with regard to the above norms is continuously under scrutiny so as to give comfort to those interested in building relations with South Africa at economic and political level.
On combating corruption currently, with the huge amounts of money that are being siphoned out of the system in government and the private sector, South Africa is presented with a yellow card by the continent and the world.
On the independence of the judiciary, the former Chief Justice, Mr Arthur Chaskalson, is giving us a yellow card judging by his recent article in one of the newspapers with regard to the introduction of the new Legal Practice Bill.
On the term of office for public office holders, with the unconstitutional removal of former President Mbeki before the end of his term in office, the world and the continent are presenting us with a yellow card, if not a red card.
These are the serious challenges that need to be addressed if we want to be recognised as a reliable partner on the continent, one with consistent international relations policies, otherwise we will continue to carry the stigma of an unreliable and untrustworthy partner in world politics.
As a member of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, Brics, South Africa has to develop a more comprehensive political and economic strategy to maximise benefits for our participation. With the growing economy of Africa, we have to produce a more simplified strategy for us to benefit maximally from this growth. With the growing migration of the people of the continent to our cities within South Africa, and the tragedy of Marikana which has impacted negatively on Lesotho, Swaziland and other countries, this calls for an urgent political and economic regional integration strategy. We must have clarity and principled positions on all international activities. Our position should never be fuzzy, as it was in the recent intervention in Libya by the UN Security Council. Therefore, we should continue our diplomatic positions and ensure they correlate with our national interests. Long live the progressive agenda for Africa, long live! [Applause.]