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Mcebisi Jonas is a deeply principled man and a good choice as envoy to the US

Redi Tlhabi
By Redi Tlhabi
16 Apr 2025
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All Jonas’ malicious detractors listened to was that Trump is a ‘racist, homophobe’ and a ‘narcissistic right-winger’. They have forgotten that Trump’s Vice President, JD Vance, once declared ‘I am a never Trump guy. I never liked him.’

Mcebisi Jonas delivered the 11th annual Ahmed Kathrada Lecture on 8 November 2020 – five days after Donald Trump lost a seminal election to Joe Biden and four days after prematurely declaring himself the winner.

There was an immediate, scathing, bipartisan rebuke, with some of his strongest allies pushing back and warning of a political crisis. Then Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell cautioned against the victory claim while counting was still under way.

Former National Security Adviser to Trump, John Bolton, was more strident, saying Trump’s claims, “were some of the most irresponsible comments that a president of the United States has ever made”. He called his actions “a disgrace”. 

It is in this context that South Africa’s former deputy finance minister and newly announced Special Envoy to the United States spoke. When Jonas gave his broad lecture, titled Hope After State Capture – Towards an Agenda for Change, America had already chosen its president. It was not Trump.

This matters, it matters a great deal. The political moment could not be ignored.

It is worth remembering what was happening in the United States at that time. The economy was in decline, affected in part by Covid-19. There was a significant concern about long-term unemployment and reduced consumer spending.  

The nation was also in mourning. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of white police officers ripped open America’s long-festering wound of racism. Black Lives Matter (BLM) erupted on the streets like a haunting elegy. Trump did not calm the storm, but labelled BLM “A symbol of hate”.

This event was preceded by violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia where white supremacists and those who openly identified as neo-Nazis coalesced at the “Unite the Right” rally. Trump famously said, “you had very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” Enough said.

It was in this context that Jonas warned against the rise of “nationalist populism”, adding that “these are the tendencies we must collectively fight against as we build a new consensus around which society must rally”.

Unbridled mean-spiritedness


But now, manic hysteria and unbridled mean-spiritedness suffocate the very air we breathe. A lazy and hapless media that cannot concentrate long enough to identify salient themes in a 32-minute lecture found a small reference to Trump, delivered after the election. The keyboard warriors lapped it up, of course, without a modicum of curiosity about Jonas’s ideas on global cooperation and what fair, inclusive economic growth should entail.

Jonas provided a critical landscape analysis of the global economy, asserting, as many renowned scholars have done, that neo-liberalism, with its focus on rampant financialisation, quick returns and wealth accumulation for the super-rich, has failed to create a shared prosperity for all of humanity.

His fierce words reserved for his own comrades should remind a fair and decent critic that Jonas is principled. Many have forgotten how he was pushed into the political wilderness when he took on a powerful, corrupt Zuma and his benefactors, the Guptas. His party did not support him and threw him to the wolves.

In this 2020 lecture, he again lamented the “grand corruption” that had contributed to the “collapse of the state”. Not shy to continue putting a mirror on the movement he served diligently all his life, he upped the ante, saying “a small but powerful black elite created through boardroom deals and access to state rands” is not a symbol of economic growth. He called for tough economic and political decisions.

But all they heard was that Trump is a “racist, homophobe and a “narcissistic right-winger”. You can almost hear the “Gotcha!” moment among his malicious detractors who have forgotten that Trump’s Vice-President, JD Vance, once declared, “I am a never-Trump guy. I never liked him.”  It escalated to “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon… or that he’s America’s Hitler.” Years later, he asked not to be judged on his previous position.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Trump a “con artist”, and “a very touchy and insecure guy… not well informed on the issues”.

SA party leaders


Leaders of South African political parties have also weighed in, with DA leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen tweeting in 2016 that, “Donald Trump is a disturbing individual. Clinton is by no means perfect, but on her worst day is better suited to be US President.”

When former senator and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said after Trump’s 2016 victory, “Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud”, the feisty DA leader Helen Zille, who was premier of the Western Cape, wrote, “I have to agree” and concluded that it was “beyond comprehension” that America chose Trump.

Right now, Trump is about to send to South Africa an ambassador who once lamented that Trump is “the greatest charlatan of them all, a huckster, and a shameless self-promoter… God help this country if this man were president.” 

You may argue that these are Americans criticising their own. But US ambassador-designate to South Africa, Brent Bozell, took a stand against the anti-apartheid movement, blocking ANC president Oliver Tambo’s meeting with then US Secretary of State George Shultz.

Bozell thought supporting the anti-apartheid struggle was an “unsatisfactory trend in US policy towards South Africa”.  Should Ramaphosa block his candidacy for the diplomatic post? No! Why? Because we must be adults!

There are bigger issues at stake and we must build bridges and make the journey towards a different culture of engagement – one that is constructive and devoid of infantile outbursts. We must recognise the humanity of everyone, even those with whom we differ.

South Africa must demonstrate its enormous emotional capital for tough dialogue, even in the face of relentless bullying and racism. DM

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