The massive VE day celebrations in Moscow have put the rest of the world to shame. While the UK was experiencing election drama of a hung parliament, and the USA was still mulling over the collapse of Bears Sterns, Greek Contagion and banking reform, Russia held one of the largest VE day celebrations in the world in Red Square.
That there is something incredibly significant about the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism in Germany and Facism in Italy could be seen by the unprecedented sight of a US battalion and a UK regiment marching side-by-side Russian troops, so all was not lost as one of the largest shows of military force since the Cold War era flung Vladimer Putin into the international spotlight.
South Africa, which was a part of the allied forces which pushed the Nazis out of North Africa towards the end of WWII was however, nowhere to be seen, and Medialternatives has been unable to confirm whether or not any local politicians were in attendance. If they were not, then it was a poor show indeed as far as South Africa is concerned.
Have we nothing to celebrate in the defeat of the Nazis? Is there nothing to be learnt by the siege of Leningrad (now Volgagrad)? Are we not a nation which remains unbowed by tyranny and which still has a Bill of Rights expressing freedom?
Unfortunately, Julius Malema’s visit to Zimabwe could have played a part in the embarrassing shunning of overtures by Russia which is in the process of redefining its role in the world.
No longer the Cold War pariah, Russia is picking up where it left off but Malema’s feting of Mugabe, a staunch support of Hitler’s race supremacist thinking appears to have dampened the ANC ruling party enthusiasm for all things Soviet and our country’s support for freedom around the world.
It is therefore time for the ANC to move into the ranks of the opposition. Enough is enough, we need a ruling party which supports freedom and equality.