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Thursday 9 March 2017

Membership of the Order of Good Hope (Part 3)

                                                                                                                                               
                                                                           
SOUTH AFRICA


The Order of Good Hope

Deon Fourie
Professor in Strategic Studies (Retd)
and Professor Extraordinarius
of the
University of South Africa
Department of Political Sciences
PO Box 392
Pretoria

0003 South Africa

After the institution of the Order in 1973 a wide range of personalities was admitted. The first to be admitted was the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Rui Patricio, followed by members of his entourage, during an official visit to South Africa in March, 1973.  In November, 1977, a circular went to heads of South African diplomatic missions asking for recommendations of deserving foreigners for admission to the various classes, mentioning that the persons should have had at least seven years= association with South Africa.[i]  In the beginning, for the most part the persons recommended were honorary consuls-general and consuls and also businessmen in various countries.  Occasionally lower ranking politicians or people active in the various associations concerned with promoting South African interests were also recommended.  No one's support was recruited in this way – all recommendations and awards were made ex post facto.  The pattern changed only gradually.

In 1980 an amendment to the Warrant allowed the admission of South Africans citizens.[ii]  The outcome was a very restricted list and perhaps that was intended.  The Secretary and Keeper of the Register, Brand Fourie, the Director-General of Foreign Affairs and a diplomat of extensive experience, was recommended for admission to the First Class on the 5 March, 1980.  The Minister of Foreign Affairs, RF Botha was recommended on the very next day by virtue of his office as the Grand Chancellor and Depository of the Order. [iii] In the same month the Minister invited the Secretary to recommend South African officials so as to honour past services and to encourage future work.[iv]  After the kidnapping and presumed murder of the South African Ambassador to El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala, AG ‘Eddie’ Dunn, the Minister requested the State President to admit him to the First Class posthumously.[v] This was somewhat uncommon for orders which are associations of living members.  It confused an order with a decoration which is a personal honour that is capable of being conferred posthumously.  Once more it indicated that in South Africa for want of tradition, experience and research - as elsewhere – orders were not correctly understood.  Evidence of this is continually seen in the way a number of modern republics organise and deal with orders. While the French Légion d'Honneur does have most of the characteristics of a traditional order, countries such as Austria and Germany treat their orders as though they were decorations.[vi]

            Roy Coaton had written that, despite the concept of diplomatic reciprocity, the order should always “strictly maintain its aspect of ... merit”.    In 1977 the Chief of the Defence Force, General MA de M Malan, expressed the same approach in a minute concerning the award of honours to members of foreign armed forces who had ‘rendered services’ to the Defence Force.  Malan wrote “It has been decided that all recommendations for such members of other armed forces should be submitted by way of a citation on Form DD792... .  Recommendations must be extremely selective and with the object of maintaining the dignity of the honour, it stands to reason that only meritorious cases should be submitted. .... mutual relationships of friendship ... should not be regarded as the determining factor.” [vii]  Coaton had drafted the preamble to the Warrant for the OGH with this as a clear qualification.  It was his commendable view that where reciprocity was not at issue, awards of membership of the order should be made sparingly and exceptionally ‘using merit and political advantage as the main yardsticks.’   He did not see any gain from opening the order automatically to all departing ambassadors as it would cost prestige.  Nor did he think that South African ambassadors should themselves be allowed to accept ‘automatic’ awards.  Even reciprocity, he believed, should be influenced by the ‘criterion of merit’.  In a memorandum dated 22 December 1970, the criteria for awards to foreigners and the issue of reciprocity were closely examined.  Coaton concluded that reciprocating automatically, compelled a government to ‘enter into permanent reciprocal commitment with the countries concerned.’   To avoid this debasing of orders he advised that they be used ‘only to return honours rather than to invite honours as the prudent and dignified course.’ [viii] 

The Order of Good Hope was conceived for use as a tool of diplomacy.  This might suggest that it could have been used recklessly.  Did it ultimately serve any significant role as an instrument of diplomacy, particularly in recruiting political support as the National Party government became ever more isolated?  The initial intention was to provide an answer to the problem of how to respond when foreign honours were bestowed on South African politicians, diplomats and officers.  However, when the initiating memorandum and Presidential Warrant were drafted simple reciprocation was not the primary consideration.  The bestowal of honours to recognise merit as well to encourage intergovernmental amity, diplomatic support and a degree of personal loyalty to South Africa were recognised as very important goals.  Minuting discussions and decisions in the British manner is not customary in the South African civil service.  Thus evidence has to be anecdotal.  On balance the Order seems to have played a very small role in recruiting support.  It was too little known to foreigners and, as Coaton intended, it became a means of rewarding ex post facto rather than a means of recruiting support.

During the years of National Party rule the opportunities for close foreign relations and the exchange of honours were slim. State or official visits were not always exchanged and they were restricted to visits to Portugal and Spain in 1956, to Ghana in 1956, from the Netherlands (1953 and 1954), and by the Australian and British Prime Ministers (1953 and 1960).  After Sharpeville and South Africa's becoming a republic outside the Commonwealth, the few visits paid to South Africa were by the King and the Prime Minister of Lesotho, by the Presidents of Paraguay and Malawi, the Vice-President and the Prime Minister of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, and senior politicians from Côte d'Ivoire, Zaire and Israel.  Numerous official and unofficial visits were paid by the various South African Prime Ministers and from 1986 by the executive State President but state visits were paid only to Iran (1971), Austria (1971) and Swaziland (1986).[ix]  There were also opportunities for recognising the active help of a variety of civilians who promoted the foreign interests of South Africa or its government in business and trade, in cultural work and in attempting to favourably persuade or influence foreign public opinion and politicians.

Nevertheless, the Department of Foreign Affairs remained very austere in recommending admissions.  No systematic Foreign Service approach to the Order was to be found in the archives.  Individual heads of mission were left to make their own decisions.  Questioning and discussion revealed that the majority of South African diplomats were really quite uninformed about the concept of honours and particularly their potential value as diplomatic instruments in particular.  Two retired ambassadors confessed to never having considered making recommendations at all.[x]  A former ambassador to Germany complained that his repeated requests to be allowed to adopt the French practice of wide distribution to encourage loyalty among those who already had rendered services or promoted culture and interests, were simply refused without explanation.  A third, who for a period administered the Order in the Department of Foreign Affairs, said that if "… we give the Order to one we would have to give it to everybody".

Among those who did recommend awards, apart from official visitors and their entourages, the tendency was for people who were admitted to have already rendered substantial services rather than to look to the future potential support.  The recommendations that were submitted were for very senior politicians, officials, officers and businessmen who had substantially participated in developing industry and trade, to help the South African government endure sanctions, and some who had served as honorary consuls.  The consequence was that admissions were chiefly to the three higher classes.  The SA Defence Force was only slightly less frugal with recommendations for the admission of foreigners to the Order of the Star of South Africa. Even relations with countries pushed close to South Africa by their own isolation, did not appear to justify awards.  South African diplomats often regarded supporters of a pariah state as suspect and questioned the motives of leaders of certain ‘friendship societies’ in the dark days of isolation.  Right-wing politicians and people well-known as racist were usually carefully avoided.  Conversely, when one French attaché was admitted to the OSSA, one of his colleagues in Paris said caustically that it was probably because he was “too South African”.

The absence of sophistication about honours, appear to have stemmed from a variety of reasons.  It may be a consequence of the resolution adopted by Parliament in 1925 (as in Canada in 1919), asking King George V and his successors not to bestow on South Africans honours to which titles were attached.  In the following years, under General JBM Hertzog's Nationalist Party-Labour Party coalition government, recommendations for civilian honours ceased entirely.  The proposer of the 1925 resolution, Arthur Barlow, MP, wrote in his memoirs that two senior Nationalist Party leaders protested to him that the resolution was a "foolish step".  It would cost party funds a hundred thousand Pounds sterling annually that could be obtained from "non-Nationalists dying to get titles".[xi]  Without titles the system of honours lost its savour for local politicians and businessmen.  Barlow wrote that "… the great majority of men of all parties born in South Africa had always disliked titles. They have felt that they came into conflict with the spirit of a new country".  Although honours were routinely made available annually by the Crown, not until the Second World War were recommendations again submitted for British honours for South Africans.[xii]  At the end of the war the Smuts government submitted recommendations for members of the armed forces and a few civilians involved in the development of war industries to be considered for admission to the military Order of the Bath and the Order of the British Empire but in the classes that bore no titles.  In 1945 two prominent politicians asked Barlow whether he would agree to titles being offered to people with distinguished war records, including civilians. He refused curtly.[xiii]  Following the advent to power of the second Nationalist Party Government in 1948, the government again refrained from recommending the award of British honours, although pilots of the South African Air Force's 2nd Fighter Squadron in Korea were allowed to accept and wear American decorations.  By the time the Order of Good Hope was instituted in 1973, it was really only military officers who were familiar with the significance of awarding honours.  After some forty years without a system of civilian honours and with the armed forces' approach ignored, if not scorned, by civil servants, it was really quite difficult for South African diplomats really to comprehend their value.  In contrast, Australia, New Zealand and Canada British honours were regularly used and the institution and use in the twentieth century of the Order of Australia, the Order of Canada and the New Zealand Order of Merit followed quite easily.

Circumstances, politics and changes in values often influence the approach to honours quite radically.  After the change of government in 1994 there were some notable admissions to the Order of Good Hope following the numerous state visits exchanged by heads of state.  They ranged from Queen Elizabeth II, King Juan Carlos I of Spain and President François Mitterand of France, through to Fidel Castro of Cuba and Colonel Mu'ammar Gadhafi of Libya.[xiv]  Although membership of the OGH appeared to be conferred more freely following the change of government in 1994, this did not mark a fundamental change of policy.  The many foreigners admitted to the Order when state visits were exchanged, had rendered help to the African National Congress and its allies during the years they were engaged in the struggle against white rule.  The admissions were thus still attached to merit or recognition for past services.   President Nelson Mandela was particularly concerned that those who had supported the liberation struggle should be recognised during the term of his presidency. With other priorities uppermost in his mind to demonstrate change, he did not rush into having new honours instituted.  In the case of Mu'ammar Gadhafi, his admission virtually coincided with President Nelson Mandela’s negotiations for the surrender of the Lockerbie bombers.  Or could it be argued that his role in the release of the Jolo Hostages was ensured because he had become a member of the Order of Good Hope?[xv]

CONCLUSION     
In sum, Roy Coaton’s recommendation against decorating diplomats as a mere routine appears to have been carefully observed.  Indeed, South African missions and protocol officers at home still continue to be asked to explain the lack of reciprocity since some foreign services seem to regard honours as a right, not as significant recognition.

Reactions to honours are rather subjective.  This always makes it very difficult to determine their real value.   When it comes to awards to foreigners, the question may be even more difficult to answer.  In a country where honours are not considered to be special recognition by the head of state and the nation, they may be of little significance.  When they are conferred by the head of state rarely and only for actions of particular significance, they confer a degree of valued exclusiveness.  South African custom, much like that in Britain, tended to fall in with Roy Coaton’s view that merit should play the most significant role in the bestowal of honours.  There seems to have been was no expectation of honours as rewards from South Africa.  They were so sparingly awarded that they were barely known abroad.  No promises of honours seem to have been made.  To judge from the files they were very seldom solicited.  Rather than playing a role in stimulating support or serving as a bribe or as bait, admissions to the Order were always more of a gesture of recognition for meritorious service already rendered.

            President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki frequently demonstrates his credentials as a nationalist by using the instrument of culture, including state symbols.  In December 2002 he discontinued the use of the existing orders and instituted the first of a new series.  One, the Order of the Companions of O.R.. Tambo, was for foreigners "for friendship shown to South Africa".[xvi]  It was intended particularly for foreigners who had helped in the struggle to achieve democracy in South Africa, not as a diplomatic instrument, and has been very frugally used.  The Order of Good Hope has yet to be replaced.  In an address to the Advisory Committee of Orders early in 2006, President Mbeki emphasised that honours were not for 'doing one's job' but for extraordinary achievement and performance beyond the call of duty.  Perhaps from the other side, Ambassador Roy Coaton, might be heard grunting his approval.

End Notes






[i] Circular P21/77 dated 17 November, 1977.

[ii] In Minute MB 4/1/1/1 dated 30 October, 1979, the Minister suggested opening the Order to Adeserving South Africans in making particular contributions in advancing South Africa=s interests in relation to foreign countries@. Minute 66 dated 31 January, 1980 and Regulation 25 of 1980 in Government Gazette No.2956 of 15 February, 1980.  However, as this writer found, recommending deserving South Africans was not bureaucratically well received and at least two had to wait for Neil van Heerden to become Director-General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, by which time a different order was available and awarded.  See recommendations and subsequent correspondence on vol.13 (a) of File 113/35/4 (32).

[iii] Cabinet Minute 221 of 5 March and Minute 222 of 6 March, 1980. This is not an unusual practice – the French Prime Minister is admitted to the highest class of the Légion d'Honneur after a year in office. 

[iv] Ministerial minute M.B.4/1/1/1 dated 17 March, 1980.

[v] Cabinet Minute 257 of 2 March, 1981.

[vi] The contemporary German Bundesverdienstorden and the Austrian Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich both are confusions of orders and decorations. Under the Third Reich the Eiserne Kreuz (Iron Cross) became effectively a decoration in spite of its origin and structure as an order.  

[vii] Minute HSP (4) 104/13(B) dated 10 November 1977 from the Chief of the SA Defence Force.


[viii] @Memorandum on Criteria for Award to Foreigners and Reciprocity@, 113/35/4 dated 22 December, 1970.  The rules which forbade diplomatic and consular reciprocity at that time were contained in Government Notice No.2004 of 27 December, 1963.  Few awards had yet been made to South African politicians and officials.  Five diplomats and some military attachés had been decorated without prior approval=s being sought.  Coaton was once decorated with prior approval (by Argentina) and once without (by Spain).  Since 1990, governments have been very liberal in awarding honours to South African diplomats.  In 1992 the departing South African ambassador in Vienna, Cécile Schmidt, was awarded the Grosse Goldene Ehrenzeichen am Bande für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich - probably the first South African woman diplomat to be decorated.  Heritage, University of Natal, 7:1, First Quarter 2000, pp.1-2.

[ix] Geldenhuys, Deon Isolated States – A Comparative Analysis, Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 1990, pp. 227-230.

[x] These responses surprised this writer.  Over a number of years he recommended seven soldiers and one civilian in his Reserve Force regiment for honours for meritorious conduct, as well as one prolific military historian, one retired officer well-known for voluntary public service, and four deserving academics for admission to orders.  Only two of the latter recommendations failed.
   
[xi] Barlow, AG Almost in Confidence, Juta, Cape Town, 1952, p.110. Barlow's response to the party leaders was "That makes it all the more necessary that such a state of affairs should be put an end to at once".  In the First World War and after, David Lloyd George's Liberal Party government secretly peddled honours for party funds and the sale of honours in Britain was made illegal by the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.  In 2006 the same abuse returned to haunt the Labour Party government of Tony Blair.  A number of people were arrested, including Blair's personal fund raiser, and 90 were questioned by police in connection with alleged offences under the 1925 Act. 

[xii]. Barlow, op. cit., p.200. 

[xiii] Barlow, op.cit. p.202. At the end of the First World War some generals were admitted to the second class of orders, entitling them to the title of 'Sir', but no South African, irrespective of rank, was admitted at a higher level than Commander or Companion (third class) after the Second World War.

[xiv] Minute S16.6.94 113/35/4 contains a request from Deputy-Minister Aziz Pahad to the Chancery of Orders in the President’s Office, for the Grand Cross to be awarded to President François Mitterand during his visit in July, 1994.
[xv] Speech by Director General, Department of Foreign Affairs to the Johannesburg Press Club Newsmakers Banquet, 30 November 2000, on the release of South Africans by the Abu Sayyaf Filipino separatist movement, after negotiations by Gadhafi .

[xvi] The Order of the Companions of OR Tambo is awarded to foreign nationals for "friendship shown to South Africa" in three classes - Supreme Companions of OR Tambo (Gold), Grand Companions of OR Tambo (Silver), and Companions of OR Tambo (Bronze). For the new orders (the Orders of Mapungubwe, Baobab and Companions of OR Tambo, and the Orders of Luthuli, Ikamanga and Mendi) see Government Gazettes No.24155 of 6 December 2002, No.25799 of 2 December 2003, and No.26929 of 25 October 2004.   

CV

Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of South Africa until 1998, Deon Fourie is now a Professor Extraordinarius.  During the 1993 constitutional negotiations, he was advisor to the Joint Military Command Council and a member of the joint delegation to European armed forces to study Innere Führung, defence policy-making, and defence ministries. He serves on the Defence Minister's Civic Education Board, and the National Heraldry Council. Drafted Presidential Warrants for new decorations adopted for the SA National Defence Force in 2003, and was a member of the team that published The History of the Department of Foreign Affairs, 2006.  He is a Reserve Force Brigadier General at SA Army Headquarters

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