Malawians feel slighted as Govt summons South African ambassador after Zuma gaffe

Blantyre, Malawi, Oct. 23 (MaraviPost) _ South African High Commissioner to Malawi Cassandra Mbuyane-Mokone was summoned in the capital, Lilongwe, Thursday by Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Ephraim Mganda Chiume to explain President Jacob Zuma’s ‘disparaging remarks’ against the southern African country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed.

“Her Excellency Mbuyane-Mokone explained to the Hon. Minister that President Zuma was quoted out of context,” she said. “As far as we are concerned the issue is resolved, it’s now water under the bridge. Malawi and South Africa enjoy good relations.” 

Jacob Zuma was defending the government’s plans to introduce e-tolls on the highway between Johannesburg and Pretoria on Wednesday when he made the remark that angered a lot of Malawians.

“We can’t think like Africans in Africa generally. We’re in Johannesburg…. This is not some national road in Malawi,” he said.

Zuma’s spokesperson Mac Maharaj also said in a statement that Zuma’s remark had been taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

But these remarks infuriated a lot of Malawians who took to twitter and facebook to lampoon Zuma. Stanley Onjezani Kenani, a Malawian writer based in Geneva, Switzerland, wrote Maharaj, saying Zuma’s remarks were ‘condescending towards sovereign states’.

“I have just read your ‘clarification’ of the remarks made by the President of South Africa, which are most disparaging to the Republic of Malawi. Despite your efforts to clarify this statement, it remains entirely unclear to me why President Zuma mentioned Malawi in his analogy.

It can only be with one intention, that is, to use, by way of example, what he considers the most backward nation, one that thinks most ‘African.’ It does not escape some of us that most South Africans, despite the help they got from fellow African states to fight apartheid, do not consider themselves African, but it scares us when such thoughts are shared by the President of the Republic of South Africa.”-maravipost