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.
[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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