Some South Africans have a tendency to blame the world for the country’s problems, while simultaneously expecting the world to come to our rescue. The bad news is that nobody is coming to save us. The good news is that we can save ourselves.

Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the Global Progressive Mobilisation in Barcelona, Spain, a gathering of left-wing elites hosted by Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

After greeting his fellow “comrades, friends, and campaneros,” Ramaphosa reflected nostalgically that “it also feels like the good old days, where many of you through your various movements supported our struggle against apartheid.”

In doing so, the President attempted to draw moral authority by invoking South Africa’s unjust past while avoiding any uncomfortable scrutiny about his own government’s woeful track record.

In his formal remarks, the President bemoaned the breakdown of global multilateralism, the “climate crisis” and the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. “Inequality within and between countries is growing,” he lamented, mostly blaming the West for the rest of the world’s inadequacies.

“The resurgence in unlawful wars of aggression and genocide in places like Palestine are linked to ideologies of superiority that continue to treat places like Africa, Asia, and Latin America as second class global citizens,” he said to rapturous applause.

Ramaphosa boasted about South Africa’s ongoing case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) but failed to mention the horrors inflicted by the Islamic Republic of Iran on its own people, of which his government has said little.

His spirited remarks in apparent defence of democracy also belied South Africa’s cosy relations with authoritarian regimes such as Venezuela, Russia, and Cuba, which have brutally suppressed dissent.

Ramaphosa’s speech was designed to position South Africa as a vanguard state among global progressives. Instead, his address was a litany of complaints, an exercise in self-aggrandisement (and self-pity) from an irrelevant middle power.

Begging bowl

Ramaphosa also called on the forum to address “the debt burden that holds back many developing economies. We must reform the financial architecture and close the financing gap for development,” he said.

The global debt burden is indeed a problem. Here in South Africa, public debt has supposedly peaked at 78% of GDP in 2025/26, but the accumulated debt of R6.12 trillion is still eye-wateringly high.

But whose fault is this: the lender or the borrower?

The President makes out as if developing countries have no choice but to bury themselves in debt, but this denies their own role in spending beyond their means. Begging for debt relief from the same institutions you now condemn reveals a lack of agency and self-responsibility.

Ramaphosa’s speech in Barcelona was somewhat ironically followed by news this week that the government of France is in discussions to lend the South African government R1.9 billion to assist with upgrading failing municipal infrastructure.

Through its development financing wing, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the French government will be augmenting an existing US$925 million loan from the World Bank. Together, these loan facilities will fund the South African National Treasury’s Metro Trading Services programme, which aims at upgrading water, sanitation, sewerage, and electricity services.

While nobody can dispute that South Africa’s cities are in desperate need of repair, and that this will be a capital-intensive exercise, the danger is that the original causes of urban decay have been overlooked: namely, a failure of accountability and an inattention to the boring details of maintenance and fiscal management at the local level.

Ultimately, it is ordinary South Africans who will have to foot the bill for the government’s profligacy. As Nick Hudson remarked on X, this amounted to a “loan funding Lambos for comrades that our children must pay off.”

Foreign governments don’t lend through the goodness of their hearts. We would do well to remember the words of that famous Frenchman, Charles de Gaulle, who said that “countries don’t have friends, only interests.”

Mindset problem

Last week, I wrote that Elon Musk is right about race law in South Africa. The world’s richest man is keen for his satellite internet company, Starlink, to operate in South Africa, but the government insists on taking its pound of flesh, supposedly in the name of ‘redress’.

That policymakers are prepared to vindictively block Starlink at the expense of their own people demonstrates that broad-based black economic empowerment is an extractive patronage machine for political elites, I argued.

I am used to taking controversial stances, but even I was surprised by the heated reaction to my article on social media.

The emotive response revealed a mindset problem that pervades in South Africa. We seem to believe that the world owes us something because of our history, and anybody who dares question our failed policy choices is themselves to blame for our shortcomings.

The President’s rhetoric in Barcelona is a case in point – simultaneously railing against the West while demanding its help and money.

The fact that Musk, who is busy launching reusable rockets to colonise the Moon (and maybe someday even Mars), while spearheading advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, could take ten minutes out of his busy day to raise awareness of what is happening in South Africa, is something of a minor miracle.

We should be grateful for his attention.

But even Musk with his considerable resources and talents can’t solve South Africa’s problems. Nor can Donald Trump, leader of the most powerful military and economic power on Earth, who has taken an unusually keen interest in developments here. The same goes for the leaders of Spain, France, or anywhere else.

Instead of blaming other countries, or begging for their support, South Africa should look to itself first.

Ultimately, if we South Africans want to live in a prosperous and successful country, we must build it ourselves. This means recognising that we are the authors of our own destiny while understanding the difficult trade-offs – as well as the abundant opportunities – that lie before us.

Failure or success is a choice. We should choose wisely.

Ansara is CEO of the Free Market Foundation.