Rebekah Kendal reckons that there's nothing ambiguous about human rights and that South Africa has failed dismally as a moral heavyweight.

There is nothing new about South Africa siding with tyrants against Nobel-winning peace activists. In fact, during its short tenure on the UN Security Council, South Africa sided with the Myanmar junta over UN efforts to cast some light on the plight of jailed opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The public on the Dalai Lama saga

The irony is not, of course, that South Africa is kowtowing to one of its biggest investors (numerous countries have shunned the Dalai Lama to appease China), but rather that it is doing so at a peace initiative.

Yes, somehow our deluded government thought that it would be morally acceptable to refuse a world-renowned Nobel laureate entrance to the country so that he would not be able to attend a conference aimed at using football to fight racism and xenophobia. A conference to which he was invited by South Africa's very own three Nobel laureates and which would also be attended by the body which dictates who does and doesn't receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

While South Africa's only remaining moral clout may rest with these three frail old men, the government was a little naïve to think that (a) no one would notice (b) those actually dedicated to the pursuit of peace (Tutu, De Klerk, Mandela and the Nobel organizing body) would find their stance acceptable and (c) that anybody would believe that the decision had nothing to do with China.

South Africa has squandered its moral high-ground. For a nation invested with so much goodwill and promise we have failed dismally to promote human rights globally. Not only has our government been marred by one morally-tainted scandal after the next, we have shamed ourselves internationally by failing to protect those in need of help and condemn those abusing power.

Human rights as they are enshrined in our constitution are absolutes. There is no 'sort-of-maybe' approach that changes depending on political allies, old allegiances and investment. If we do not apply the same values about human rights to other countries and if we do not do so consistently, then we can't pretend to wield moral clout. In fact, we have no right to criticise the human rights abuses of any other country. Including Israel.

Incidentally, Israel was the only country which South Africa thought deserving of international scrutiny during its stint on the UN Security Council. Somewhat ironically, the situation in Gaza is not so entirely different to that in Tibet. But this isn't about Tibet. It's about the Football World Cup. And peace, of course.

You can't eat morals, reckons Ebrahim Moolla, and in a time of economic recession South Africa needs to choose its friends carefully...

We see through your hollow truths. You care as much for the Dalai Lama as they do for that furry South American mammal. All that sententious moralising can't hide the fact this is instead another opportunity for the legions of embittered Nat sympathisers and doomsayers to take a stab at the ANC government for BEE, changing street names and being the primary agents of liberation.

As with any party in the pound seat, there are many legitimate reasons to berate our government but currying the favour of an emerging superpower is not one of them. The headwinds of global recession are buffeting SA's borders, with thousands of breadwinners being put to the sword and families suffering the slow death that is poverty.

You can't eat morals. Morals don't offer shelter from the biting cold of a Cape winter. So before going around trumpeting the hallowed anti-neo-imperialist ideals from behind manicured, suburban hedges, try to empathise with the father who has to explain to his kids that there won't be three meals a day anymore on account of his retrenchment.

These hypocrites speak out the sides of their mouths with forked tongues about not bowing to external pressure but vilify Robert Mugabe's idealistic land reform programme in the same breath. Chinese investment billions will develop infrastructure and create job opportunities, the red nourishing African soil in our most pressing hour of need. This has a precedent lest we forget: our brothers in Beijing did not neglect the freedom effort. Africa is China, and China is Africa. This is revolutionary ground.

Tibet has become a cause célèbre, the Dalai Lama fussed over by the middle-aged kugels at book club teas; the flesh and blood equivalent of a 'Save the Whales' t-shirt. He's been called the 'most peaceful man on earth' as if there were a Richter scale for letting doves go free and owning more saffron robes.

Peace doesn't stem from a hereditary title or reams of self-help and psychobabble and it is not a substitute for justice. Is it an ideal one should be willing to die for, taking the Long March, or rather cower in exile? Perhaps Deepak Chopra or Dr Phil would be an apt replacement. At least that illustrious pair doesn't stand accused of stirring up ethnic hatred towards the Han Chinese and trying to breach the unity of the Middle Kingdom.

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