Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: Why has Mcebisi Jonas not yet set foot in Washington?

Contrast, if you will, my leader, Mcebisi Jonas’ diplomacy-by-remote-control with our uncharismatic General Rudzani Maphwanya who jetted off to Tehran for the whole in-person, lights-camera-action spectacle.

By Bhekisisa Mncube

22 Aug 2025

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! While you were preoccupied with the weighty burdens of statecraft — juggling the much-vaunted yet much-boycotted National Dialogue, pardon me, the National Convention to prepare for the National Dialogue — I, son of MaMlambo, was left twiddling my thumbs and gnawing at my nails like a trivia hero with no quiz to win. Hopeless like that, my leader.

Now, tell me, which insult cuts deeper? That I wasn’t invited to the so-called National Convention (how national can it be if I, the nation’s self-appointed letter-writer-in-chief, was not in attendance?) or that my labour of love — this column, this alleged intergenerational dialogue with you and your subjects — has trudged along from 19 February 2020 to now: 288 weeks — and yet, still it counts for nothing in your palace of selective listening?

Zoom coach, real wins

Speaking of trivia, my leader, please allow me to turn to football, the opium of the masses, where the gods of irony are at work.

Just this week, a fellow scribe, the editor of Impempe, reported that Kaizer Chiefs head coach Nasreddine Nabi — the head cook at that Naturena kitchen — served up a whole platter of nine points: three wins, three clean sheets, and four goals, all while working remotely from Tunisia!

Imagine, Leadership — the man is coaching Kaizer Chiefs like it’s a Zoom meeting. Who knew such things were possible? The Amakhosi faithful are now emboldened, demanding the Fifa Club World Cup replay. The last time they opened the season with three consecutive wins, back in 2014-15, they marched on to win the league. #KhosiForLife. How the Mighty have risen!

Meanwhile, down at the Sea Robbers’ camp (Orlando Pirates), the Moroccan tactician Abdeslam Ouaddou — hailed as the best coach ever to grace our beloved PSL — suddenly finds himself with a price on his head. In their trademark impatience, Pirates’ fans are calling for his dismissal.

My leader, I say grant him state protection before the mob swallows him whole. We dare not risk another diplomatic incident while the ink is still wet on the Iran debacle. I digress.

My digression is proof in the pudding as to why I never made the grade for your overhyped National Convention. But in the National Dialogue log table, we are square, my leader: one game, three own goals, and no points. President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa 0, Bhekisisa Mncube 0.

Matamela: neither loved nor feared

As if summoned from the dustbin of history, Tony Leon has resurfaced with the gall to declare that you, Comrade Leadership, are neither loved nor feared. Imagine that! The audacity of the man who gifted South Africa 13 lost years of liberalism under the Democratic Alliance, which is neither an alliance nor democratic.

And lest we forget, he too once served as an ambassador — to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay from 2009 to 2012 — under Jacob Zuma, and with the enthusiasm of a newborn suckling its mother’s breast for the first time.

During those years, he saw nothing, he heard nothing, and he certainly said nothing about the ANC’s long-standing solidarity with Palestine, its revolutionary ties to China, Russia and, dare I whisper it, Iran — all while happily hobnobbing with the G20 and BRICS+ countries.

Numbers aren’t numbering

Breaking news, my leader: hot off the presses from my publisher, Anivesh Singh (yes, of the Made in Durban fame). He informs me that my book The Ramaphosa Chronicles — the one that chronicles the genuine National Dialogue, not your much-boycotted Convention — has sold, brace yourself, a staggering 244 copies. This translates into 1,096 calendar days of “book movement”.

Do the maths, Comrade Leadership: that’s barely one book every five days over a full three-year stretch — utter rubbish. Not even a throwaway pamphlet shoved under car windscreens performs that miserably, and those don’t come with an author who breaks his back carrying 100% of the marketing on his weary, hunched shoulders.

What with television and radio appearances week in, week out and, for two whole years, appending the website details at the end of my column — pleading with readers to click, visit and buy the damn book — I became a one-man marketing department, press secretary and street hawker rolled into one. Yet, despite all that sweat the numbers still mock me like they did the mighty ANC in May last year.

But perhaps I should take comfort in politics’ favourite trick, Comrade Leadership: declare the numbers “a resounding success”. After all, 244 copies sold can be spun into a landslide, just as 40% of the vote can be paraded as a “clear mandate from the people”.

So perhaps, in that respect, we are bound by the same fate, Comrade Leadership. Like you, I too am neither loved nor feared. Perhaps like the Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro vowed: “History will absolve me [us].”

Bizarre

While on the subject of the bizarre, tell me, my leader: Why has South Africa’s Special Envoy to the US, Mcebisi Jonas, not set foot in Washington since his April appointment by your very hand? Is this a new invention in foreign policy circles? Like sending a child to buy sweets at the Pakistani spaza shop while he remains rooted in his bedroom — arms folded, slippers on, TV blaring.

What are we to call this, Comrade Leadership? Diplomacy by email, attachments in PDF format stamped “URGENT”? Or perhaps diplomacy via Zoom and wi-fi calling, with a dodgy microphone that cuts in and out: “Mr Ambassador, you’re on mute.”

Maybe Jonas has pioneered a fresh school of international relations: diplomacy through Checkers Sixty60, where one orders bilateral trade, defence pacts, and investment treaties, all delivered in under an hour, plastic bag included.

If so, I demand the syllabus because the rest of us were taught that diplomacy requires passports, visas, handshakes and at least one poorly translated press statement. Yet here we are, watching our envoy conduct international affairs like a bored teenager livestreaming from his bedroom.

Diplomacy: lights, camera, action

Contrast, if you will, my leader, Jonas’ diplomacy-by-remote-control with our uncharismatic General Rudzani Maphwanya — who skipped the memo on Wi-Fi diplomacy and jetted off to Tehran for the whole in-person, lights-camera-action spectacle.

Forget emails, attachments and Checkers Sixty60 diplomacy; our man went straight to the Ayatollah’s doorstep to collect loyalty points.

There he was, in the full glare of Iranian media, shaking hands with his counterpart, Major-General Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi. With chest puffed out and medals polished to a blinding shine, he solemnly declared that South Africa and Iran had “close ties” and, wait for it, that “we always stand alongside the oppressed and defenceless people of the world”.

But he realised his sermon wasn’t landing — because Tehran has heard this soundtrack before — the general cranked it to full throttle. Cue the encore: he condemned Israel’s “bombing of civilians standing in line for food” and its “ongoing aggression in the occupied West Bank”, according to Tehran Times.

One almost expected him to break into revolutionary song — Senzeni na? Sung in Farsi. My leader, this wasn’t diplomacy — it was karaoke foreign policy. Who knew our army chief, under whose watch little happens at home but body bags and grounded fighter jets, would be jetting around the world peddling political manifestos in uniform?

Hawu, Matamela! Is this what happens when you let a youngster barely out of varsity run the Department of International Relations and Cooperation? With egg dripping off your face, Washington demands answers about the Tehran diplomatic circus.

You should have sent our ever-reliable Johannesburg diplomat instead — he would have seen nothing, heard nothing, and, in true service to the Republic, said absolutely nothing.

Three comrades, three Setas, same old story

My leader, I am still smarting from your snub. Still, I was jolted awake from crying myself to sleep when the new Minister of Higher Education and Training, Buti Manamela, instead of appointing board chairpersons of the embattled Sector Education and Training Authorities, placed them under administration. These are the Local Government Seta, the Construction Education and Training Authority, and the Services Seta.

Yep, just like that — three comrades got new jobs to fix what other comrades broke. Sadly, one comrade, who hobnobs with the Luthuli House apparatchiks, dismissed the move as “useless appointments that won’t bring change, only a fresh crop of looters”.

Till next week, my man. Send me an invite to the next iteration of the National Dialogue. DM

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