A...um...erm, uh, "victory"?
Live reaction to the ICJ's "announcement" from the Blue Oyster in Cape Town - with Max du Preez, Des Bailes and Dan Corder’s father.
Max du Preez has taken his shirt off and is preparing to hand the car guard a sjambok to whip him (the chap happens to be Congolese with a degree in veterinary science). Des is as he was when he arrived to hear the International Courts of Justice announcement: pissed off that the people he calls “racist” call him “pedo” in response - and he’s especially pissed off about UFC World Champion Dricus du Plessis. Meanwhile the other guy - whatever his name is - has been on the phone to his son the DJ, the latter complaining that he’s developing hair on his palms.
A sense of victory? According to Qaanitah Hunter of News24, “South Africa won on every account”. Not sure about that one love, but Judge President Joan Donoghue did agree that “it was the correct court to take the issue to”. For which, whew - because there was yet another stomach-churning row in Luthuli House as to whether the complaint should be sent to The Hague, or to the dropbox of an employment tribunal in Santiago.
Tragic things occur in war, but one could argue that Israel has done more to protect innocent civilians than the vast majority of other countries or groups in conflict - and context is important. Do Dr. Tedros’ Tigrayan forces fighting in Ethiopia employ the same level of consideration? Unlikely. Were the United Kingdom today to have the beef it did with Iraq in 2003, would it be hauled into the same court? Highly likely.
On the order of the ceasefire, alas, South Africa was unsuccessful. As we were led to understand, this was the objective - the ultimate relief. It did not happen. Instead, the judges issued a laundry list of requirements, much of what I expect Israel is already doing, and agreed with each other - with the exception of a berserker called Judge Julia Sebutinde, from Uganda, who appeared to vote against her colleagues throughout the operative conclusion. Keep an eye on her. She looks fun.
But as Max here demonstrates, there will be those in SA who will take a moment from washing the feet of, erm, liberation heroes to acknowledge that we’ve “regained the moral high ground”. And that’s what it’s all about really: bugger murders, unemployment, inflation, and the living conditions of the poor, forgotten by their oinking leaders. Bugger the cost of the exercise, almost certainly sponsored from outside the country. It’s about humanity you see, apartheid, the fact - according to the yas-kweens-das-right generously lending their views through X - that “Palestine is a part of South Africa” and finally, it is about that special kind of ubuntu - the one that makes its way out of the Mercedes dealership now that the ANC’s liquidity crisis is “over” - and heads in a straight line toward The Butcher Shop and Grill.