As a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle and himself a victim of the inequities of that racist system of government, Ebrahim Rasool was always unlikely to mince his words when it came to assessing the new United States (US) administration.
But in a message to family and friends, South Africa’s top envoy in Washington sounded almost relaxed about the diplomatic ructions that he had caused.
Soon after it was announced at the weekend that he was going to be expelled from the US, Rasool wrote that he and his family were “all packed up and looking forward to returning to South Africa” and said he was leaving the US with “no regrets”.
On Friday, his prepared remarks on the new government in the US were delivered in a thoughtful, measured manner–with no hint of the trouble that they would trigger.
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In a webinar organised by a South African think-tank, the 62-year-old seasoned politician was speaking about the policies of President Donald Trump and the implications for Africa.
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The talk was coming after weeks of pressure on South Africa from Washington over a controversial land law that resulted in the US cutting off funding to the country.
The US government alleged that South Africa’s white minority was being unfairly targeted. An allegation robustly refuted by the government in Pretoria.
In Rasool’s view, he thought that Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US.
The comments resulted in sharply divided opinions locally and internationally over whether he was walking a “fine line” as a diplomat in giving an “honest assessment” or “crossed a line” that no ambassador should cross.
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was unequivocal in his response, saying that Rasool was “no longer welcome” in the US because he was a “race-baiting politician who hates America” and Trump.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said the US decision to expel Rasool was “regrettable” as the president himself defended the “great deal of progress” the ambassador had been making prior to his expulsion.
“So this is actually a hiccup… that we are working on straightening out,” Ramaphosa told reporters on Monday, repeating a stance aimed at cooling temperatures.
Officials in his government, however, were more scathing in their assessment of the diplomat’s actions, telling South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper, in an anonymous briefing, that Rasool’s actions were an “isolated incident of somebody who crossed a line that diplomats know they shouldn’t cross”.
In the US, the chairperson for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, lauded Rubio for calling out Rasool’s “disgraceful” remarks.
But to those in South Africa who know Rasool, his views on the White House’s policies and the way he expressed them came as no surprise.
Growing up in Cape Town and classified as “coloured” by the apartheid system, Rasool, as a young boy, along with his family, was forced to leave his home in the centre of the city.
The racial zoning imposed by the government meant that people who were not classified as “white” had to live in poorly provisioned areas a long way from the heart of Cape Town.
Rasool’s activism began in the 1970s during his school years.
“I really had no idea where I was going until after I tasted my first tear gas, saw my first rubber bullet and fled my first whop from the police when I entered high school in 1976,” Georgetown University quoted him as saying for a profile piece in 2015.
“That experience was life-altering. It gave me a crash course in politics.”
This activism would later result in his imprisonment near Cape Town, where he crossed paths with Nelson Mandela, who would go on to be South Africa’s first democratically elected president.
Rasool served in various leadership positions within the governing African National Congress and South Africa before being appointed to his first stint as US ambassador from 2010 to 2015, when Barack Obama was president.
He was named as ambassador again in 2024, because of his previous experience and extensive network of Washington contacts.
Faiez Jacobs, who has known Rasool for over 30 years, first as fellow activists fighting against apartheid and then within the ANC, came to his defence over his recent comments.
He was one of the attendees at the virtual event.
According to Jacobs, Rasool was asked to provide an analysis on the current situation in the US and did so in a “very objective, academic” way. He added that though the envoy was explaining his honestly held views and was not trying to stir up trouble, he detected another motive for the reaction.
“The fact that he [is] a Muslim, the fact that he represented our country’s views on Palestine… Those are all the real reasons why he’s been he’s been targeted,” Mr Jacobs told the BBC.
Last year, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel was engaging in “genocidal acts” in Gaza, which it denied.
University of Johannesburg international relations expert Oscar van Heerden said that on his appointment Rasool was “dealt a bad hand” and “knew and understood” what he was getting himself into this time around.
“Knives were already out for Rasool before he even arrived in Washington… [and] by the time he arrived it was a mere formality to find a reason to be able to get rid of him,” Van Heerden said.
The academic first crossed paths with Rasool in 1985 while he was a student and the diplomat was a high school teacher who was “guiding youngsters” like himself and giving them the “necessary political education”.
He described Rasool as a “devout Muslim” who “stands for the Palestinian cause of self-determination”.
On Rasool’s view of the Trump government, Dr Van Heerden said the diplomat was caught in a “difficult position” because he had to deal with an “openly antagonistic” host nation that in his opinion had weaponised diplomacy and foreign policy.
And while plans are reportedly under way to find a replacement for Rasool, Dr Van Heerden argued that no amount of experience or seniority would be enough to appease the Trump administration and that only someone they “completely agree with” may succeed.
