Redi Thlabi: the black woman weaponized against South Africa

South Africa is under attack by Western countries led by the US due to its BRICS membership and non-aligned geopolitical policy. This isn’t surprising, given the West’s frustration with the country’s refusal to support its war against Russia using Ukraine. But what’s notable in this endeavor is the West’s resorting to a familiar imperial tactic of fronting black-faced diplomatic and media vassals to validate and amplify their anti-South African talking points on behalf of the Washington bourgeoisie. It is in this spirit that the US House of Representatives on Thursday invited one, Redi Thlabi, to slavishly demonize not only South Africa, her country of birth but also other African states and people.

Redi Thlabi before the US House of Representatives

In the full glare of cameras, Redi’s slavish role was immediately obvious when, instead of self-respectfully frowning at the mispronunciation of her name by Rep. James, the Chairman, she sheepishly giggled and thanked him. From there onwards, Redi was either dramatically nodding even to the most inconsequential phrases of her script, mispronouncing Madagascar as ‘Madagal,’ or berating Sudan and the Central African Republic as ‘weaker states’ with flimsy democracies, summing up a treacherous evening when, once again, a black woman had been weaponized not only against her own country but against continental Africa.

Its worth noting that despite years in the media as a radio presenter and television anchor, and despite being credited with numerous publications, Redi Thlabi, the so-called author and media personality could only manage to read her presentation verbatim from a cell phone. Was she instrumentalized to deliver a message hastily ghostwritten for her? That can be the only conclusion if one examines both the message she presented and her delivery. The message was distinctly aimed at condemning the Russia-South African relationship and could have been mistaken for a campaign pitch of an American politician. Indeed, Redi’s disingenuous emotion, awkward gestures, and fidgeting with her handset immediately made it evident that this walkie-talkie puppet was merely transmitting someone else’s talking points in real time.

When, during the questioning, Mr. Jackson, one of the members, correctly pointed out the good and unique historical relationship between Russia and South Africa, and asked why Redi and others were singling out South Africa to blame over a position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict that was no different from that of other US allies like India and Saudi Arabia, Redi, caught off guard with an impromptu question her handlers clearly hadn’t prepped her on, instinctively grabbed her phone, seemingly expecting a feed-in of the answer from her remote source.

The awkward moment was saved by her cucumber-shaped headed colleague, Mr. Chris Maroleng whose clueless answer was the only thing less embarrassing than the sight of a pale-bleached Redi fidgeting with her phone.

Redi Thlabi’s stage-managed Rise as an Author

But how did Redi Thlabi plummet to these depths of treachery? How did she end up before the US House of Representatives, masquerading as the spokesperson for the noble people of South Africa, all the while betraying them with every word? Was she paid to spew these falsehoods against her homeland, her continent, and her country’s steadfast ally, Russia? Was she promised a job in an American media corporation? What led to her treachery and blatant blackmail of her own country and other countries in Africa? One cannot arrive at the answer to this question without delving into the sordid history of such blacks whom the West turns against their own people by stage managing their rise to fame, prior to eventual instrumentalization for imperial interests.

It is a familiar script, as old as colonialism itself, where blacks, hungry for recognition and wealth, are coopted to betray their own for the promise of a comfortable life in the West, for the trappings of success and fame. As the script has it, the Whites identify a young person from an African country, mentor them in a chosen area of public discourse such as Media Commentary, Public Speaking, Journalism, or Human rights, then manipulate the competition in that chosen field to promote that young person as exceptional, eventually providing them with media coverage and summit attendances to enhance their popularity and credibility. Meanwhile, they take them on foreign trips to Western capitals, secure academic fellowships for them through manipulation in Western institutions, and once they have gained a certain profile, they assign handlers and send them back to Africa armed with ‘talking points,’

Redi Thlabi’s case, like many other promising young Africans, is no different. She was mentored in the media industry starting in her mid-20s, and given platforms to raise her profile, including a stint at BBC Radio. Eventually, as they prepared to weaponize her, some white man ghostwrote her first major publications around 2013, which despite their average literary rating, were promoted internationally to catapult her into the media spotlight as an author.

With her credibility as an author established, the time came to weaponize her in 2017 when she became part of a Western syndicate to character assassinate Jacob Zuma, former South African president as a rapist. In that endeavor, Redi’s first major act as a conduit of her Western patrons was to accept authorship of a ghost-written book about Zuma’s accuser to paint Zuma as a rapist. Zuma of course had been acquitted of that allegation, but that didn’t matter to Redi. Her blackmail paid off, earning her a visa to relocate to the US two years later, where, in order to sustain the luxurious life she is now accustomed to, she is having to continue with her puppet duties, including another attempt to complete her obliteration of Zuma’s reputation with a film in 2019 about the same sex scandal.

The White Husband Syndrome

A crucial phase in the culmination of the neocolonial script for manipulating African women often involves assigning them old white men as husbands. We remember last month warning a certain Namatai Kwekweza, a promising young Zimbabwean woman who, after several donor-sponsored trips to Western capitals, returned parroting Western talking points. We warned that she was being manipulated either knowingly or unknowingly down the same path and that she would end up with a white husband, forever condemned by conjugal subjugation, into a lifetime of Western puppetry.

If there were ever any doubts about this, Redi and her colleagues have proven us right. Redi’s entire inner circle of the Clever Blacks, a cabal of blacks who aspire to whiteness and who together colluded to bring down President Zuma, were rewarded with white husbands and quickly relocated to the West. Palesa Morudu, who was frequently in the company of the racist Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance (DA), a political party for the white minority of South Africa, ended up being matched with a white man and soon moved to the West. The same with others like Nomboniso Gasa who fortunately divorced in 2021, and Thuli Madonsela a renowned agent of White Monopoly capital who recently hooked up with a white man 20 years older than her. Redi, for her part ended up with a Black man, which might have been commendable if not for the fact that she wreaked another woman’s family to snatch him from his happy first marriage of two children.

For some reason, Redi seems obsessed with sexual escapades, which may have made her the perfect choice for Zuma’s white enemies to weaponize. For instance, in 2015, just as she accelerated her endeavor of tarnishing Zuma’s name using a sex scandal, Redi, then working as a radio presenter, ran stories about sexual escapades. She even interviewed a Malawian witch doctor who claimed that he could enlarge men’s penises and provide a quick marriage. Ironically, this interview happened after Redi herself had wreaked her current husband’s previous marriage, raising the possibility that, going by her witch doctor guest’s claims, she had indeed utilized his services. This is especially noteworthy considering her subsequent struggle to conceive for several years.

Clever Blacks parroting US Talking Points

Today, Redi Thlabi, who now resides in the US is effectively, another of those black faces whose careers were stage-managed, propped up, and eventually weaponized to serve imperial interests against their African countries. Her stage-managed show at the US House of Representatives on Thursday is just one in a series of such acts in which she has participated and will predictably participate in more, as she seeks to maintain the lavish lifestyle to which they have now accustomed her. The current target the West has given Redi, and others like her spread across Africa’s academic and media platforms, is obviously to demonize and try to drive a wedge between Russia and Africa.

It’s all too obvious in their messaging. Actually, in this endeavor, Redi and her colleagues of clever blacks, have been given the main talking point: ‘Russia bad, America good.’ Everything else they say revolves around that central theme. Their task is to regurgitate, tweet, write, and amplify these messages to African audiences, with the hope of obscuring Africans’ understanding of Russia’s loyal friendship. They aim to convince Africans that the Europeans who colonized us are our friends, while the Russians, who armed us to resist European colonialism, are our enemies. They want us to believe that those who killed Steve Biko, murdered Lumumba and dissolved his body in acid, retaining only his tooth as a trophy, murdered Thomas Sankara, poisoned Kwame Nkrumah, and more recently killed and defiled Libya’s Ghadaffi, are our friends, while Russia, which has consistently supported our struggle, is the enemy.

The Puppet Expose continues

Redi’s story is a sad but true and heartbreaking tale of an African woman who, in her own right, was a promising prospect but sadly lost her way. She now serves as a poignant lesson for Africans, especially our ambitious young women. Trips to Western capitals, visas for Western residency, and like Nomboniso and Palesa, the gift of old white husbands should not mislead them to betray their countries and continent. As for us, we must not only remain vigilant but must confront this vile syndicate of the West to weaponize our own against us.

Redi Thlabi, like her other colleagues, has so far relocated to the US and might be too far gone to be saved from becoming a full-time puppet and spy for Westerners who seek to perpetuate their dominance over African nations and peoples. If South Africans can redeem her, well and good. Either way, native true sons and defenders of Africa must continue unmasking puppets, making sure that the likes of Redi Thlabi have no hiding place, but instead find themselves adrift, severed from their roots, and despised by Africans in whose name they go prostituting in Western political brothels.