NEWS & MEDIA LETTERS FROM THE PRESIDENT

"Our international work advances the interests of our people "

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As 2003 came to a close and 2004 began, we had to pay some concentrated attention to our international relations. The programme, which engaged our government, focused on four areas.

One of these involved further attention to the accomplishment of the goals we are pursuing with regard to our Continent. This entailed visits to Zimbabwe and the DRC of delegations led by the President.

It included strengthening our relations with the African Diaspora. In July 2003 a Presidential delegation had paid an official visit to Jamaica. This visit also included our participation at the Summit Meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In December and January 2004, a Presidential delegation paid an official visit to the Bahamas and visited Haiti to participate in the Bicentenary of the Liberation of that country.

It also included the further strengthening of our relations with the developed countries of the North. This resulted in official visits by Presidential delegations to France and Canada. We were also honoured to receive Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, head of government of Germany.

The programme also entailed further promoting our relations with the rest of the world through our participation in multilateral and international forums.

This involved participation by Ministerial delegations at the Geneva World Summit on the Information Society and the annual Davos, Switzerland Summit Meeting of World Political and Economic Leaders. Ministers Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and Alec Erwin, respectively, led our delegations to these gatherings.

The process of globalisation is one of the defining features of contemporary human society. Among other things, this phenomenon entails the further integration of all countries because of various economic developments, the impact of the rapidly developing information and communication technologies and the related international dissemination of news, opinion and ideas.

But this process of globalisation affects countries differently. Clearly, an important element of this process is the further centralisation and concentration of power and influence in a few countries. These are the developed countries of the North, which account for a dominant share of the global economy, technological development and capacity, and the sources of news, information and ideas consumed by human society as a whole.

The process of globalisation results in the limitation of the sovereignty of countries. This has led to the emergence and currency of such concepts as "the global village" and "the common neighbourhood". But these concepts hide the reality of the continuous process of the unequal distribution of power and influence within this global village or common neighbourhood. They disguise the fact that countries lose their sovereignty in an unequal manner.

Reality communicates the clear message that some countries are more equal than others, that countries suffer loss of sovereignty in an unequal manner. This results in the situation that while the whole human universe, made up of different countries, indeed becomes more inter-dependent, some countries within this universe assume dominant positions, while others are pushed into dependent positions.

Naturally, the objective process of globalisation has given birth to its own proponents and ideological sponsors. These are people who not only observe and analyse this process. From this 'analysis", they also elaborate general propositions that seek to present particular elements of globalisation as the necessary and sole condition for the evolution of human society.

Among others, the ideological promotion of these particular elements led to the formulation and implementation of the so-called "Washington consensus". This, in turn, has led to the observation that those who promote this Washington consensus are guilty of "market fundamentalism", the deification of the so-called free market and the subjection of human evolution to the dictates of this free market.

Sometimes the emergence of the "ideology of globalisation" has led to some confusion about the difference between understanding the objective social process of globalisation, and acceptance of the propositions of the ideologues of globalisation. Some have therefore advanced the mistaken view that globalisation is a product of some ideological think tanks, and, therefore, that the recognition of the objective process of globalisation constitutes acceptance of the ideology of globalisation.

As a movement, we have proceeded from a position of recognition of globalisation as an objective process of human development. 19th century observers of evolution of human society had already written about this process, which, in their view, resulted from the natural development of capitalism and technology.

Without doubt, this process has accelerated considerably. It may be that a legitimate argument can be presented that the quantitative change in the pace of the process of globalisation has been so great that its contemporary manifestation qualifies to be recognised as representing a qualitative change in the nature and future of human society. But this is not the place to examine this argument.

Suffice it say that we accept the observation that globalisation has accelerated over time, and will continue to do so. At the same time, we have never accepted the ideology of globalisation, characterised as market fundamentalism.

Our foreign policy has therefore recognised the reality that our country is and must be integrated within the global community of nations. We have never accepted notions of autarky, the pretence that our country could ever be an island, sufficient unto itself. Indeed, in our political practice we have recognised the critical importance of human and international solidarity.

Necessarily, this also means that we will continue to resist the assertion of an ideological determinism according to which we are supposed to submit to policies and practices elaborated from a paradigm informed by market fundamentalism.

The activities we mentioned at the beginning of this Letter, from the visit to France to our presence at the Davos Summit must be placed within the context of the observations we have just made. In addition, these observations will continue to inform what we do with our international relations.

Our country is an integral part of the African continent. It is difficult to visualise its successful development without the successful development of the rest of the continent. But, obviously, this should not be read as a static mathematical equation, signifying that failure in any African country necessarily means failure in ours, and vice versa.

But we are interested in the transformation of Africa into a continent of democracy, human rights, peace and stability, social progress and shared prosperity. The pursuit of these objectives in our own country will be greatly strengthened if these also inform the efforts of our sister African countries.

Freedom from poverty and underdevelopment in our country will become that much more certain and permanent if the peoples of Africa are also free from poverty and underdevelopment. The realisation of all these goals constitutes the central purpose of our recent visits to the DRC and Zimbabwe. They will continue to inform our further interaction with these and other African countries.

The same considerations apply to our relations with the rest of the developing world. In this context, it is only natural that we should pay particular attention to the African Diaspora. A cruel history obliged millions of Africans to become citizens of other countries. We neither can nor wish to reverse that reality.

But rather, we share with these African millions the common aspiration to free ourselves from poverty, underdevelopment, racism and marginalisation. We are convinced that the sooner we combine our strengths to pursue these goals, the sooner will we realise our shared aspirations. We visited the Bahamas and Haiti to give effect to this conviction.

At the same time, we are fully conscious of the fact that we pursue our objectives in a common world that we share with others who are more developed than we are, and to whom we are tied by many bonds. With these fellow human beings, we seek to build a system of mutually beneficial relations, based on the principle and practice of partnership, on the human capacity to act in a manner informed by the noble sentiment of human solidarity.

It was for these reasons that we visited France and Canada and were happy to welcome Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to our country. We interacted with him and his delegation, and with the leaders and peoples of France and Canada further to strengthen the already existing relations of friendship, cooperation and solidarity.

Accordingly, together with them, we considered many matters of mutual interest ranging from political and economic cooperation, through cooperation in the fields of arts, culture, science and technology, as well as the challenges posed by the struggle for Africa's Renaissance, to our efforts to host the important 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Countries that feel and are more equal than others may consider a democratic multilateral system of governance, necessitated by the process of globalisation, an encumbrance and an unjustified fetter on their freedom to act decisively to advance their interests. This would translate into an almost instinctive tendency towards nationalism.

But those, like ours, that feel and are less equal than others would consider a democratic multilateral system of governance to be the only way through which to address the reduction of national sovereignty, brought about by the process of globalisation. This would translate into an almost instinctive tendency towards internationalism.

For a long period of time already, our history and situation have determined that we could not but be adherents of the principle and practice of internationalism. The process of globalisation could only serve to reinforce this spirit of internationalism.

This makes it necessary for us to play as active a role as possible to contribute the little we can to the emergence and strengthening of a democratic multilateral system of governance. Globalisation dictates that, to advance the interests of our people, we should ensure that their voice is heard in all the international forums that have formed as both the result and the motive force of the process of globalisation.

This is the reason we considered it important that we should participate in the World Summit on the Information Society and the Davos Summit Meeting. Thus as the old year closed and the new one began, we could say that we made a contribution, however limited, to the determination of outcomes of international discussions that will inevitably impact on our future as a country and a people.

We begin this new year, the year of our Decade of Liberation confident of a bright future for our country and people. This will come about as a result of our united national effort, expressed in the concept of a people's contract, to build a humane and people-centred society.

But it will also come about because the majority of the peoples of the world are with us in the conviction that we owe it to one another, regardless of whether we are rich or poor, whether we come from the North or the South, to build a human universe that truly addresses the interests of the poor and marginalised of our common world.

It has truly been a privilege to all of us, the South Africans inside and outside of government, to have rung out the old year and rung in the new with a message of hope and confidence in the future of our country, firmly and passionately communicated to us by the peoples of the world.