AOPA Briefing

February 2024

As aviators, we never evolved basic insncts useful

for ight, such as those which are natural for birds

and insects. We have to rely on learned responses

to circumstances, and that learning relies largely

on humans’ rather unique ability to employ logic

and reason.

AOPA - CHRIS MARTINUS

PICKING

SIDES

South Africa is playing the victim.

PRESIDENT: AIRCRAFT OWNERS AND PILOTS ASSOCIATION – SOUTH AFRICA

AOPA BRIEFING

February 2024

IN OUR CIVILISED WORLD, we have

developed procedures and regulations through

logic and reason to make flight comfortable and

safe, thus satisfying our primal need for comfort

and safety.

It’s a natural human tendency to identify with a

particular group. We are herd animals who seek

the comfort and safety of our own tribe, culture,

religion, race or other identity.

It is a fundamental instinct that has served us

well in becoming the most dominant species on

our planet. However, while instinct is useful, as

cognitive beings it is necessary to explore where

instinctive behaviour should end and where we

should be guided by logic and

reason.

There is no place in aviation

for group identity. Regardless

of what religion you may follow,

what race group you belong

to, what gender you identify

as, you hit the ground just as

hard if those procedures and

regulations are not adhered to.

History has shown that civilisations rise, become

sophisticated – and then suddenly collapse.

The ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks

achieved sophisticated laws, philosophies and

cultures and reached astonishing levels of

comfort and sophistication, but then reverted

back to primal instinct and ultimate collapse.

They are no more.

Our current civilisation nevertheless draws from

the wisdom of the ancients and we have built

superior social, political and legal systems that

have been working fairly well. The bastion of

modern society’s dispute resolution through

reason and logic, the courts, have been

the anchor that holds society together. We

have even higher bodies which administer

agreements and disputes among nations

themselves, such as the United Nations and

its affiliated bodies, such as the International

Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the

International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The purpose of these bodies is to provide

consistency in laws between nations and

resolution of international disputes.

But something has gone very wrong. And it has

been going wrong for decades.

Domestic and international courts and bodies

have been weaponised,

primarily by politicians who

have abused those functions,

functions which were intended

to promote peaceful cooperation

and peaceful resolution of

disputes. They have largely

achieved this abuse by tapping

into that innate human instinct

to pick sides and blindly fight

for their side, regardless of the factual or moral

issues which may be wrong.

Proceedings in courts and progressive

organisations have become akin to a soccer

match, where the supporters of opposing sides

mindlessly cheer on their sides irrespective of

their competence or rightness or wrongness.

Winning the game has become the sole

objective, at any cost, regardless of the damage

that this ultimately brings to these peace-

oriented forums themselves.

The upper courts in South Africa have been

inundated for decades as a battleground for

political ends. Dispute resolution has taken a

back seat to political expediency as the justice

something

has gone

very

wrong

February 2024

system has been co-opted as bludgeon against

political opponents and perceived threats to

political hegemony. With the courts being used

as a political playground, they are threatened

with becoming less relevant and less accessible

to ordinary people who need these structures

as a rational and peaceful organ of a successful

society.

The problem is global. Courts in the United

States are being horribly abused as a primary

instrument in fighting the presidential elections

that take place later this year. The winner/

loser appeal of the court system is due to our

primitive instincts to fight and kill our perceived

opponents, rather than making use of the much

more civilised democratic

process where peaceful

compromise between

parties and candidates

achieves a fair and functional

government through

elections.

The Middle East Conflict

On an international level, the conflict in the

Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians

is an apposite example. The conflict, which is

fundamentally between Islam and Judaism, has

been ongoing for millennia. Frequent attempts

at peaceful resolution have failed again and

again.

However, the ANC, also facing an election

year, saw fit to bring an application to the

ICJ in South Africa’s name to declare Israel’s

retaliation against Hamas’ as genocidal, despite

the intentionally provocative massacre of Israeli

civilians on October 7, 2023.

Let’s look at some components which form

the background for both Hamas’ attack and

the ANC’s urge to involve South Africa in the

conflict. The first component is the trend of

aspiring to characterise oneself as a victim,

rather than pursuing achievement and

excellence. This trend is one that is indicative

of a declining civilisation, as happened to the

moribund ancient empires of the past.

“Victim-blaming”, “playing the race card”,

“projecting” one’s own wrongdoing or failures

onto the “other side” are typical strategies

for the aspirant victim. In today’s peculiar

environment, victimhood is regarded as a virtue,

while success and achievement is seen as

oppressive. The ANC’s

rhetoric and policies

have relied on portraying

themselves as victims for

the last 112 years.

Hamas and the

Palestinians also place

great reliance on the victimhood strategy.

Hamas prepared for and attacked peaceful

Israeli civilians knowing full well that Israel has

long had a policy of powerful retaliation against

attacks on its sovereignty. The ideal formula for

playing the victim when Israel began to pound

much of Gaza into rubble, while screaming

loudly that civilians were being killed, injured and

displaced. Of course, all wars result in collateral

civilian deaths, including women and children,

which are now portrayed as deliberately targeted

innocent victims.

The second component is the “picking sides”

strategy, where it is hoped by Hamas that

international humanitarian sentiment can be

rallied against the militarily far more powerful

and now deliberately provoked and angered foe,

Israel.

courts

have been

weaponised

February 2024

The third component is to weaponise the

international dispute resolution body, the ICJ,

through abuse of its procedures as a bludgeon

against Israel. In an amazingly cynical display of

virtue signalling, the ANC co-opted South Africa

into being one of the teams playing a dangerous

game in the fields of the ICJ. It is also false

virtue signalling. South Africa has no dog in

this hunt. It is not our war. 2022 census figures

show that a mere 1.6% of South Africans are

Moslem, and a minute 0.1% are Jewish. The

ANC’s virtue signalling is all the more laughable

when one takes into account that, under ANC

rule, we are the most unequal society in the

world and that our official statistics show that the

number of murders annually in South Africa are

nearly the same as the casualties in a hot war in

Gaza.

Of course, the more weak-minded among us

South Africans yield to our primitive instinct

to pick sides and see the conflict as being

South Africa versus the “genocidal” Israelis.

Harnessing that sentiment has terrible

consequences. Overnight, by picking sides in

a conflict that has little or nothing to do with us,

we have turned our friends, the most powerful

nations on Earth, into enemies. And to what

purpose? The ANC’s purpose is to get us to

keep picking sides by identifying with their now

very tired strategy of portraying themselves and

their diminishing followers as eternal victims.

South Africa is a nation with huge natural

and human resources, and great goodwill

and cooperation between its diverse people.

We have massive potential to be a great

and powerful nation, both domestically and

The media - ENCA in this case - get it wrong.

February 2024

internationally, but our future is blighted by

corruption and the divisive political strategies of

victimhood. Our politicians are obsessed with

finding others to blame for their own faults and

failures.

We would do much better to follow the Swiss

example of neutrality. We have no international

enemies. However, political strategies of falsely

identifying as victims creates enemies – for

absolutely no good reason.

To wrap up the South Africa/Israel/ICJ example,

South Africa did manage to obtain a “nothing”

interim order from the ICJ which merely

admonishes Israel to abide by the provisions of

the Genocide Convention, which as a signatory

thereto, Israel has already acceded to. The ICJ

certainly has no jurisdiction

to order a cessation of

hostilities in Gaza, nor

did the 17 judges hearing

the matter bother to even

consider such an order.

Judges of this calibre are

certainly not fools, and

they are certainly not going to allow themselves

to be used as political puppets in a war that is

spreading rapidly.

The judges nevertheless inserted a little order

of their own, a “get out of jail free card”, if you

will. Ordering Israel to report back to the ICJ

in one month and preserve evidence indicates

that the court intends to review their order if and

when Israel furnishes its report-back. It seems

highly likely that in the next few weeks, the

ICJs order that merely embarrasses Israel will

be lifted. Providing, of course, that Israel plays

by the rules and restrains their own politicians

from making hateful speeches that could incite

genocidal actions.

In the meantime, the ANC and its dubious

victim-allies will continue to put lipstick on their

pig, the current order having been obtained

through a technical interim procedure. What is

shocking is that the interim order is touted as

a “victory”, that Israel has committed genocide

and the false assertion by some media that a

“ceasefire” has been ordered in Gaza. Sadly,

with all the suffering of innocents in Gaza,

there is no doubt that the conflict will continue

unabated.

Back to Aviation

So what has all this got to do with aviation?

As I have discussed before, ICAO is the UN

body that is the custodian

of the Convention on

International Civil Aviation.

The purpose is to facilitate

civil aviation internationally

through agreed-upon

standards which are then

implemented by basically

every country in the world.

AOPA South Africa through IAOPA has

representation at ICAO, and I personally

have been for quite some time the Regional

Vice President of IAOPA for the Africa/Middle

East Region. This region is substantially the

weakest of the regions and is continually riven

by conflicts, wars and despotic states that make

general aviation impossible, or at least very

difficult.

General aviation in South Africa is represented

by AOPA locally – and SA has long been the

strongest country for private aviation in the entire

region.

make general

aviation

impossible

February 2024

IAOPA and its members in 83 states have a

great diplomatic record of fostering general

aviation worldwide, without allowing national

politics to intrude, even if some of those states

are at war with each other. Unlike the UN itself,

ICAO does not and certainly should not be

influenced in any way by corrosive international

disputes.

Civil aviation in SA has nevertheless seen a

great deal of decline in recent years, primarily as

a consequence of politics and corruption.

In the hilarious 1980s British TV sitcom “Yes,

Prime Minister”, while discussing their vote

in the UN over the Arab/Israel conflict, the

British Cabinet Secretary explains to the Prime

Minister: “The UN is the accepted forum for the

expression of international hatred.”

The recent allegations that several United

Nations Relief and Works Agency employees

personally engaged in the October 7 atrocities

has seriously further damaged the UN’s

reputation and resulted in most of UNWRA’s

biggest donor countries withdrawing their

contributions for humanitarian aid in Gaza.

ICAO does not suffer that reputation. However,

some concerns in ICAO circles have been

raised that South Africa is jockeying to use its

influence to effectively act as a proxy for some

pariah nations whose own influence is seriously

tarnished.

We certainly hope that that does not happen.

South Africa has recently and unnecessarily

created enough new enemies already.

Chris Martinus

President

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association –

South Africa

Other media report the opposite result.