South Africa’s diplomatic descent

Last August, as Russian missiles were pounding cities in Ukraine, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, delivered a key foreign-policy speech. For a country that was once a symbol of universal rights, this might have been the ideal time to speak out against Russia’s slaughter of civilians. Instead, Ms Pandor unveiled a new policy, making national interest the lodestone of South Africa’s foreign policy. This overtly overturned its former principle that human rights should guide international relations. As if to emphasise this shift, she lashed out at some of South Africa’s closest friends, accusing America of bullying African countries, the EU of being underhand in its trade relations, and the West in general of being duplicitous when talking about its shared values with poor countries.