Tag Archives: apartheid in south africa

| #BDS #Israel – worse than #apartheid!

Posted on by
1

Israel – worse than apartheid ~ Gilad Atzmon,  Redress Information & Analysis. 

Gilad Atzmon writes:

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported today that the Israeli army admitted earlier this week using live-fire zones in order to expel Palestinians from areas in the West Bank.

Military training in live-fire zones in the West Bank is used as a way of reducing the number of Palestinians living nearby, and serves as an important part of the campaign against Palestinian illegal construction, an army officer revealed at a recent Knesset committee meeting.

 

Colonel Einav Shalev, operations officer of Central Command, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that the goal of preventing “illegal” construction is one of the main reasons the Israeli army has recently increased its training in the Jordan Valley.

A Palestinian man inspecting the remains of his tent

The Jewish state is not an apartheid apparatus! it is actually far worse. Israel doesn’t attempt to exploit the Palestinians, it wants them gone. Israel puts into action Nazi-like (lebensraum) ethnic cleaning tactics because Jewish nationalism is an expansionist ideology driven by judeo-centric racist supremacy.

The truth is simple and devastating. However, the diaspora Jewish left’s attempts to conceal it all is actually embarrassing, yet symptomatic.

GEN1

| The Hijacking of Mandela’s Legacy!

Posted on by
2

The hijacking of Mandela’s legacy ~ Pepe Escobar, RT.

Beware of strangers bearing gifts. The “gift” is the ongoing, frantic canonization of Nelson Mandela. The “strangers” are the 0.0001 percent, that fraction of the global elite that’s really in control (media naturally included).

It’s a Tower of Babel of tributes piled up in layer upon layer of hypocrisy – from the US to Israel and from France to Britain.

What must absolutely be buried under the tower is that the apartheid regime in South Africa was sponsored and avidly defended by the West until, literally, it was about to crumble under the weight of its own contradictions. The only thing that had really mattered was South Africa’s capitalist economy and immense resources, and the role of Pretoria in fighting “communism.”Apartheid was, at best, a nuisance.

Mandela is being allowed sainthood by the 0.0001% because he extended a hand to the white oppressor who kept him in jail for 27 years. And because he accepted – in the name of “national reconciliation” – that no apartheid killers would be tried, unlike the Nazis.

Among the cataracts of emotional tributes and the crass marketization of the icon, there’s barely a peep in Western corporate media about Mandela’s firm refusal to ditch armed struggle against apartheid (if he had done so, he would not have been jailed for 27 years); his gratitude towards Fidel Castro’s Cuba – which always supported the people of Angola, Namibia and South Africa fighting apartheid; and his perennial support for the liberation struggle in Palestine.

Young generations, especially, must be made aware that during the Cold War, any organization fighting for the freedom of the oppressed in the developing world was dubbed “terrorist”; that was the Cold War version of the “war on terror”. Only at the end of the 20th century was the fight against apartheid accepted as a supreme moral cause; and Mandela, of course, rightfully became the universal face of the cause.

It’s easy to forget that conservative messiah Ronald Reagan – who enthusiastically hailed the precursors of al-Qaeda as “freedom fighters” – fiercely opposed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act because, what else, the African National Congress (ANC) was considered a “terrorist organization” (on top of Washington branding the ANC as “communists”).

 

The same applied to a then-Republican Congressman from Wyoming who later would turn into a Darth Vader replicant, Dick Cheney. As for Israel, it even offered one of its nuclear weapons to the Afrikaners in Pretoria – presumably to wipe assorted African commies off the map.

In his notorious 1990 visit to the US, now as a free man, Mandela duly praised Fidel, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Col. Gaddafi as his “comrades in arms”: “There is no reason whatsoever why we should have any hesitation about hailing their commitment to human rights.” Washington/Wall Street was livid.

And this was Mandela’s take, in early 2003, on the by then inevitable invasion of Iraq and the wider war on terror; “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.” No wonder he was kept on the US government terrorist list until as late as 2008.

From terrorism to sainthood

In the early 1960s – when, by the way, the US itself was practicing apartheid in the South – it would be hard to predict to what extent “Madiba” (his clan name), the dandy lawyer and lover of boxing with an authoritarian character streak, would adopt Gandhi’s non-violence strategy to end up forging an exceptional destiny graphically embodying the political will to transform society. Yet the seeds of “Invictus” were already there.

The fascinating complexity of Mandela is that he was essentially a democratic socialist. Certainly not a capitalist. And not a pacifist either; on the contrary, he would accept violence as a means to an end. In his books and countless speeches, he always admitted his flaws. His soul must be smirking now at all the adulation.

Arguably, without Mandela, Barack Obama would never have reached the White House; he admitted on the record that his first political act was at an anti-apartheid demonstration. But let’s make it clear: Mr. Obama, you’re no Nelson Mandela.

To summarize an extremely complex process, in the “death throes” of apartheid, the regime was mired in massive corruption, hardcore military spending and with the townships about to explode. Mix Fidel’s Cuban fighters kicking the butt of South Africans (supported by the US) in Angola and Namibia with the inability to even repay Western loans, and you have a recipe for bankruptcy.

The best and the brightest in the revolutionary struggle – like Mandela – were either in jail, in exile, assassinated (like Steve Biko) or “disappeared”, Latin American death squad-style. The actual freedom struggle was mostly outside South Africa – in Angola, Namibia and the newly liberated Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Once again, make no mistake; without Cuba – as Mandela amply stressed writing from jail in March 1988 – there would be “no liberation of our continent, and my people, from the scourge of apartheid”. Now get one of those 0.0001% to admit it.

In spite of the debacle the regime – supported by the West – sensed an opening. Why not negotiate with a man who had been isolated from the outside world since 1962? No more waves and waves of Third World liberation struggles; Africa was now mired in war, and all sorts of socialist revolutions had been smashed, from Che Guevara killed in Bolivia in 1967 to Allende killed in the 1973 coup in Chile.

Mandela had to catch up with all this and also come to grips with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of what European intellectuals called “real socialism.” And then he would need to try to prevent a civil war and the total economic collapse of South Africa.

The apartheid regime was wily enough to secure control of the Central Bank – with crucial IMF help – and South Africa’s trade policy. Mandela secured only a (very significant) political victory. The ANC only found out it had been conned when it took power. Forget about its socialist idea of nationalizing the mining and banking industries – owned by Western capital, and distribute the benefits to the indigenous population. The West would never allow it. And to make matters worse, the ANC was literally hijacked by a sorry, greedy bunch.

Follow the roadmap

John Pilger is spot on pointing to economic apartheid in South Africa now with a new face.

Patrick Bond has written arguably the best expose anywhere of the Mandela years – and their legacy.

And Ronnie Kasrils does a courageous mea culpa dissecting how Mandela and the ANC accepted a devil’s pact with the usual suspects.

The bottom line: Mandela defeated apartheid but was defeated by neoliberalism. And that’s the dirty secret of him being allowed sainthood.

Now for the future. Cameroonian Achille Mbembe, historian and political science professor, is one of Africa’s foremost intellectuals. In his book Critique of Black Reason, recently published in France (not yet in English), Mbembe praises Mandela and stresses that Africans must imperatively invent new forms of leadership, the essential precondition to lift themselves in the world. All-too-human“Madiba” has provided the roadmap. May Africa unleash one, two, a thousand Mandelas.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

________________________________________________________________________

Good_Vs_Evil1

 

Related articles

| Dissent: Mandela eulogies reinvent his disturbing legacy!

Posted on by
8

Mandela Eulogies – Reinventing His Disturbing Legacy ~ Stephen Lendman. 

Mainstream praise is virtually unanimous. It ignores reality. It got short shrift. It reinvents Mandela’s disturbing legacy. It turned a Thatcherite into a saint. A previous article discussed it.

Editorials, commentaries, and feature articles read like bad fiction. Tributes are overwhelming. They reflect coverup and denial.

The true measure of Mandela is hidden from sight. It’s willfully ignored. Illusion replaced it.

Obama issued a disingenuous statement. He called Mandela “a man who took history in his hand, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice.”

“We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.”

They infest world governments. They run America. They inflict enormous harm. Mandela exceeded the worst of South African apartheid injustice. He deserves condemnation, not praise.

White supremacy remains entrenched. Extreme poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, malnutrition, and lack of basic services for black South Africans are at shockingly high levels. They’re much worse than under apartheid.

Mandela embraced the worst of neoliberal harshness. His successors followed the same model. They still do.

They’re stooges for predatory capitalist injustice. They’re figureheads. They enforce white supremacist dominance. They betray their own people in the process.

Black South Africans are some of the world’s most long-suffering deprived people anywhere. They suffer out of sight and mind.

Mandela could have changed things. He never tried. He didn’t care. He sold out to wealth, power and privileged interests. He did so shamelessly. His life ended unapologetically.

South African conditions today remain deplorable. Neoliberal harshness works this way. Business as usual is policy. Disadvantaged millions are ruthlessly exploited.

Privileged interests alone are served. Doing so reflects financial, economic and political terrorism. It’s commonplace globally. It infects Western societies. It plagues South Africa.

Injustice is deep-seated. It’s nightmarish in South Africa. Mandela’s legacy reflects the worst of all possible worlds short of war, mass slaughter and destruction.

Free market mumbo jumbo inflicts enormous pain and suffering. It empowers corporate interests. It benefits privileged elites. It does so at the expense of deprived millions.

Ordinary people don’t matter. They suffer out of sight and mind. They do so horrifically in South Africa. Major media ignore it. Mandela praise continues.

Former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller headlined “Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s Liberator as Prisoner and President, Dies at 95.”

Mandela was more enslaver than liberator. Not according to Keller. He called him “an international emblem of dignity and forbearance.”

He symbolized injustice. Keller called him “a capable statesman, comfortable with compromise and impatient with the doctrinaire.” He ignored the enormous harm he caused. He turned truth on its head doing so.

Washington Post editors headlined “Nelson Mandela brought the world toward a racial reconciliation.”

They called Gandhi, King and Mandela transformative figures. They “helped create a new ethic through the power of their ideas and the example of their lives,” they said.

Gandhi and King deserve praise. Mandela deserves condemnation. Not according to WaPo editors.

“Mandela,” they said, “dismantl(ed) the strong web of racist ideas, with which certain Western thinkers had sought for more than a century to rationalize the subjugation of others through colonialism, segregation and disenfranchisement.”

Mandela continued the worst of these practices. Black South African suffering deepened on his watch. He did nothing to relieve it.

He’s gone, said WaPo editors. It’s “more important than ever – in a century marked so far by frightening eruptions of terror and religious intolerance – to keep before the world the name and example of Nelson Mandela.”

Doing so requires explaining facts, not fiction. It involves stripping away false illusions. It demands telling it like it is fully, accurately, impartially and dispassionately.

Wall Street Journal editors headlined “Nelson Mandela.” They called him a “would-be Lenin who became Africa’s Vaclav Havel.”

He was no Lenin. He defended capital’s divine right. He did it at the expense of social justice. He’s no candidate for sainthood.

Journal editors perhaps think otherwise. They called him an “all too rare example of a wise revolutionary leader.”

“Age mellowed him…He walked out of jail an African Havel…He opened up (South Africa’s) economy to the world, and a black middle class came to life,” they said.

Fact check

He sold out to powerful white interests. Apartheid didn’t die. It flourishes. Mandela deepened the scourge of injustice.

No black middle class exists. A select few share wealth, power and privilege. The vast majority of black society is much worse off than under apartheid.

Don’t expect Journal editors to explain. They called the “continent and world fortunate to have” Mandela. Neoliberal ideologues think this way.

Chicago Tribune editors headlined “Nelson Mandela, conscience of the world,” saying:

He “was more than just a symbol. His name was a clarion call for people across the globe in their struggles against oppression.”

“He personified the triumph of nearly unimaginable perseverance over nearly unimaginable tribulation.”

“His top priority was to oversee the creation of a new constitution, guaranteeing equality for all.”

“He also brought together disparate elements of the country, black and white, to address the grinding poverty and homelessness that afflicted his country.”

If one person could be called the conscience of the world, it would be Nelson Mandela.”

“The best way for us to truly honor his life, his suffering, and his memory is to uphold the values he embodied and fight the injustices he forced the world to confront. His inspiration is universal, his legacy timeless.”

Fundamental journalistic ethics require truth, full disclosure, integrity, fairness, impartiality, independence and accountability.

Tribune editors ignore these fundamental principles. So do their mainstream counterparts.

Los Angeles Times editors headlined “South Africa after Mandela.” They called him “one of the towering figures of the 20th century.”

“(H)e was revered around the globe for his vision and courage, and for the enormous personal sacrifices he made to right the wrongs that plagued his country,” they said.

LA Times editors reinvented history like their counterparts. It didn’t surprise.

Boston Globe editors headlined “Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013: A rare vision of magnanimity,” saying:

His “remarkable vision of leadership (helped) overturn South Africa’s vicious apartheid regime.”

He “was a pillar of grace, magnanimity, and restraint in victory.”

“His stable hand helped maintain (South Africa’s) status as a top economic engine on the African continent.”

He “proved that progress was possible.”

Privileged whites during his tenure benefitted hugely. Black society suffered horrifically. It still does. Mandela’s no hero. Don’t expect Globe editors to explain.

Major media editors turn truth on its head. They do it consistently. They do it repeatedly. Countless editorials and commentaries praised Mandela. They proliferate like crab grass. They’re still coming.

Headlines below reflect common sentiment:

“Nelson Mandela: a leader above all others”

“Nelson Mandela’s place in history.”

“Nelson Mandela, rest in peace”

“Nelson Mandela: Farewell to a visionary leader”

“Freedom is Nelson Mandela’s legacy”

“Nelson Mandela, historic icon of peaceful equality”

“Mandela, a moral force for the ages”

“Mandela, the transcendent ‘South African Moses’ “

It’s hard choosing which one is worst. Mandela was more pied piper of Hamelin than Moses. He was no patron saint of impoverished, oppressed and deprived South African blacks.

He sold out to power and privilege. His legacy reflects the worst of neoliberal harshness. Conditions during his tenure exceeded apartheid’s dark side.

They’re worse today. Inequality is institutionalized. So is apartheid. Democracy is more illusion than reality.

Black stooges serve white supremacist interests. Fundamental human and civil rights don’t matter. Corporate interests count most.

Government of, by, and for everyone equitably is nowhere in sight. Don’t expect scoundrel media editors to explain.

________________________________________________________________________

MandelaInpPrison1think duhh2

Related articles

Good_Vs_Evil1

| 6 things about Mandela the mainstream media whitewashes!

Posted on by
5

Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won’t Talk About ~ AVIVA SHEN and  JUDD LEGUM, ThinkProgress.

In the desire to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s life — an iconic figure who triumphed over South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime — it’s tempting to homogenize his views into something everyone can support. This is not, however, an accurate representation of the man.

Mandela was a political activist and agitator. He did not shy away from controversy and he did not seek — or obtain — universal approval. Before and after his release from prison, he embraced an unabashedly progressive and provocative platform. As one commentator put itshortly after the announcement of the freedom fighter’s death, “Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view.”

As the world remembers Mandela, here are some of the things he believed that many will gloss over.

1. Mandela blasted the Iraq War and American imperialism. Mandela called Bush “a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly,” and accused him of “wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust” by going to war in Iraq. “All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil,” he said. Mandela even speculated that then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan was being undermined in the process because he was black. “They never did that when secretary-generals were white,” he said. He saw the Iraq War as a greater problem of American imperialism around the world. “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care,” he said.

2. Mandela called freedom from poverty a “fundamental human right.” Mandela considered poverty one of the greatest evils in the world, and spoke out against inequality everywhere. “Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation — that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils,” he said. He considered ending poverty a basic human duty: “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life,” he said. “While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”

3. Mandela criticized the “War on Terror” and the labeling of individuals as terrorists without due process. On the U.S. terrorist watch list until 2008 himself, Mandela was an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush’s war on terror. He warned against rushing to label terrorists without due process. While forcefully calling for Osama bin Laden to be brought to justice, Mandela remarked, “The labeling of Osama bin Laden as the terrorist responsible for those acts before he had been tried and convicted could also be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law.”

4. Mandela called out racism in America. On a trip to New York City in 1990, Mandela made a point of visiting Harlem and praising African Americans’ struggles against “the injustices of racist discrimination and economic equality.” He reminded a larger crowd at Yankee Stadium that racism was not exclusively a South African phenomenon. “As we enter the last decade of the 20th century, it is intolerable, unacceptable, that the cancer of racism is still eating away at the fabric of societies in different parts of our planet,” he said. “All of us, black and white, should spare no effort in our struggle against all forms and manifestations of racism, wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.”

5. Mandela embraced some of America’s biggest political enemies. Mandela incited shock and anger in many American communities for refusing to denounce Cuban dictator Fidel Castro or Libyan Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had lent their support to Mandela against South African apartheid. “One of the mistakes the Western world makes is to think that their enemies should be our enemies,” he explained to an American TV audience. “We have our own struggle.” He added that those leaders “are placing resources at our disposal to win the struggle.” He also called the controversial Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat “a comrade in arms.”

6. Mandela was a die-hard supporter of labor unions. Mandela visited the Detroit auto workers union when touring the U.S., immediately claiming kinship with them. “Sisters and brothers, friends and comrades, the man who is speaking is not a stranger here,” he said. “The man who is speaking is a member of the UAW. I am your flesh and blood.”

Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela

CREDIT: AP

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Related articles

| Dissent: Mandela’s Disturbing Legacy!

Posted on by
4

Mandela’s Disturbing Legacy ~ Stephen Lendman.

On December 5, Mandela died peacefully at home in Johannesburg. Cause of death was respiratory failure. He was 95.

Supporters called him a dreamer of big dreams. His legacy fell woefully short. More on that below.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and Mandela Rhodes Foundation issued the following statement:

“It is with the deepest regret that we have learned of the passing of our founder, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela – Madiba.”

“The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa will shortly make further official announcements.”

“We want to express our sadness at this time. No words can adequately describe this enormous loss to our nation and to the world.”

“We give thanks for his life, his leadership, his devotion to humanity and humanitarian causes.”

“We salute our friend, colleague and comrade and thank him for his sacrifices for our freedom.”

“The three charitable organisations that he created dedicate ourselves to continue promoting his extraordinary legacy.”

He’ll be buried according to his wishes in Qunu village. It’s where he grew up. In 1943, he joined the African National Congress (ANC). He co-founded its Youth League.

He defended what he later called Thatcherism. On trial for alleged Sabotage Act violations, he said in court:

“The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.”

In 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison. He was mostly incarcerated on Robben Island. It’s in Table Bay. It’s around 7km offshore from Cape Town.

In February 1990, he was released. In 1993, he received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with South African President FW de Klerk.

Nobel Committee members said it was “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”

De Klerk enforced the worst of apartheid ruthlessness. In 1994, Mandela was elected president. He served from May 1994 – June 1999.

He exacerbated longstanding economic unfairness. He deserves condemnation, not praise.

John Pilger’s work exposed South African apartheid harshness. Doing so got him banned. Thirty years later he returned.

He wanted to see firsthand what changed. He interviewed Mandela in retirement. His “Apartheid Did Not Die” documentary followed.

“Behind the modern face of democracy, the scourges of inequality, unemployment and homelessness persist,” he said.

White supremacy remained unchanged. It’s no different today. A few blacks share wealth, power and privilege. The vast majority of black society is worse off than under apartheid.

Mandela embraced the worst of neoliberal harshness. His successors follow the same model.

Pilger posed tough questions. He asked Mandela how ANC freedom fighting ended up embracing Thatcherism.

Mandela responded saying:

“You can put any label on it you like. You can call it Thatcherite but, for this country, privatization is the fundamental policy.”

Pilger discovered that 80% of South African children suffered poor health. One-fourth under age six were ill nourished.

During Mandela’s tenure, more South Africans died from malnutrition and preventable diseases than under apartheid.

Concentrated wealth is more extreme than ever. White farmers control over 80% of agricultural land. They dominate choicest areas.

Pilger said about one-fourth of South Africa’s budget goes for interest on odious debt.

He explained how five major corporations control over three-fourths of business interests. They dominate South African life.

Concentrated wealth and power are extreme. Whites control about 90% of national wealth. A select few black businessmen, politicians and trade union leaders benefit with them.

The dominant Anglo-American Corporation is hugely exploitive. Gold mining exacts an enormous human cost.

Pilger said one death and 12 serious injuries accompany each ton of gold mined. One-third of workers contract deadly lung disease. They’re left on their own to suffer and die.

Post-apartheid democracy reflects the worst of free market capitalism. It’s bereft of freedom. Reform denies it.

Mandela’s “unbreakable promise” was forgotten. In 1990, two weeks before freed from prison, he said:

“The nationalization of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC (and changing) our views…is inconceivable.”

“Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable.”

In 1955, ANC’s Freedom Charter declared “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people.”

“The people shall govern! All national groups shall have equal rights!”

“The people shall share in the country’s wealth!”

“The land shall be shared among those who work it!”

“All shall be equal before the law!”

“All shall enjoy equal human rights!”

“There shall be work and security!”

“The doors of learning and culture shall be opened!”

“There shall be houses, security and comfort!”

“There shall be peace and friendship!”

“Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:

THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY”

Liberation was supposed to be economic, social and political. White worker wages were manyfold more than black ones. White mine workers earned 10 times more than blacks.

Post-apartheid promised change never materialized. Mandela embraced the worst of free market orthodoxy.

Before his election, journalist Anthony Sampson said he agreed “to reduce the deficit, to high interest rates and to an open economy, in return for access to an IMF loan of $850 million, if required.”

It comes with strings. Structural adjustments mandate harshness. They require privatization of state enterprises, mass layoffs, deregulation, deep social spending cuts, unrestricted market access for Western corporations, corporate tax cuts, marginalizing trade unionism, and harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers.

Mandela told South African workers to “tighten (their) belts.”

“(A)ccept low wages so that investment would flow.”

“We must rid ourselves of the culture of entitlement that leads to the expectation that the government must promptly deliver whatever it is that we demand.”

“Apartheid never died in South Africa,” said Pilger. “It inspired a world order upheld by force and illusion.”

Mandela stood at the crossroads. He seemed poised to lead a new direction. His popularity and bigger than life persona empowered him.

He had a unique chance to reject neoliberal orthodoxy. ANC candidates swept 1994 elections.

Mandela became president. A peaceful transition was achieved. Privileged white interests maintained real power.

Mandela’s agenda could have been different. He could followed what Chavez successfully instituted in Venezuela.

He chose not to. Black South Africans paid dearly. Mandela’s legacy remains tainted. He relegated his people to horrific post-apartheid conditions.

“Just call me a Thatcherite,” he said. He adopted free market fundamentalist harshness. Neoliberal shock therapy followed. It works the same way wherever it’s introduced.

The toll on black South Africans was devastating. He and other ANC leaders bear full responsibility. People living on less than $1 a day doubled.

From 1991 – 2002, unemployment soared to 48%. It remains disturbingly high. Officially it’s around 26%. It’s much higher.

Youth unemployment exceeds 50%. About 80% of unemployed young people never worked or had jobs longer than a year.

During the first decade of ANC rule, around two million South Africans lost homes. Another one million lost farms. Shack dwelling increased 50%.

One-fourth or more of South Africans have no running water or electricity. Around 40% of schools have no electricity.

About 50% of South Africans have inadequate sanitation. Around 40% have no telephones.

HIV/AIDS remains a major problem. South Africa has the world’s largest number of affected people. Officially it’s over five million. Unofficially it’s higher.

It’s more than in North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia combined.

Post-apartheid, life expectancy declined by 13 years. In 2011, it was 58, according to the World Health Organization. It ranks below Afghanistan at 60 years.

Overall South African conditions remain deplorable. They exceed the worst of apartheid harshness. Neoliberal exploitation exacted a horrific toll.

Mandela could have made a difference. He chose Thatcherism over economic fairness. Betrayal defines his legacy.

He relegated millions of black South Africans to permanent destitution, unemployment, hunger, malnutrition, homelessness, lost futures and early deaths.

His bigger than life persona is undeserved. So are eulogies praising his accomplishments. They reflect figments of historical revisionism.

_________________________________________________________________________

MandelaInpPrison1

Related articles

MandFace1 Good_Vs_Evil1

| Perspective: Why imperialism mourns Mandela!

Posted on by
3

Why imperialism mourns Mandela ~ Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site.

The death of Nelson Mandela at the age of 95 has touched off a worldwide exercise in official mourning that is virtually without precedent.

No doubt working people in South Africa and internationally pay tribute to the courage and sacrifice demonstrated by the African National Congress leader—as well as thousands of others who lost their lives and freedom—during his long years of illegality, persecution and imprisonment under the hated Apartheid regime.

Capitalist governments and the corporate-controlled media the world over, however, have rushed to offer condolences for their own reasons. These include heads of states that supported South Africa’s apartheid rule and aided in the capture and imprisonment of Mandela as a “terrorist” half a century ago.

Barack Obama, who presides over the horrors of Guantanamo and a US prison system that holds over 1.5 million behind bars, issued a statement in which he declared himself “one of the countless millions who drew inspiration” from the man who spent 27 years on Robben Island.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, the standard-bearer of the right-wing Tory Party, ordered the flag flown at half-mast outside 10 Downing Street and proclaimed Mandela “a towering figure in our time, a legend in life and now in death—a true global hero.”

Billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, who ordered flags in New York City lowered, and Bill Gates felt compelled to issue their own statements.

What is noteworthy in the sanctimonious blather served up by the media on the occasion of Mandela’s death is the way in which a man whose life is inextricably bound up with the history and politics of South Africa is turned into an entirely apolitical icon, a plaster saint embodying, in the words of Obama, “being guided not by hate, but by love.”

What is it that the capitalist oligarchs in country after country really mourn in the death of Mandela? It is clearly not his will to resist an oppressive system—that is something they are all prepared to punish with imprisonment or drone missile assassination.

Rather, the answer is to be found in the present social and political crisis gripping South Africa, as well as the historic role played by Mandela in preserving capitalist interests in the country under the most explosive conditions.

It is significant that on the day before Mandela’s death, South Africa’s Institute for Justice and Reconciliation issued an annual report showing that those surveyed felt overwhelmingly that class inequality represented the paramount issue in South African society, with twice as many (27.9 percent) citing class as opposed to race (14.6 percent) as the “greatest impediment to national reconciliation.”

Two decades after the ending of the legal racial oppression of Apartheid, the class question has come to the fore in South Africa, embodied in the heroic mass struggles of the miners and other sections of the working class that have come into direct conflict with the African National Congress.

These eruptions found their sharpest expression in the August 16, 2012 massacre of 34 striking miners at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, a mass killing whose bloody images recalled the worst episodes of Apartheid repression at Sharpeville and Soweto. This time, however, the bloodletting was orchestrated by the ANC government and its allies in the official trade union federation, COSATU.

South Africa today ranks as the most socially unequal country on the face of the planet. The gap between wealth and poverty and the number of poor South Africans are both greater than they were when Mandela walked out of prison in 1990. Fully 60 percent of the country’s income goes to the top 10 percent, while the bottom 50 percent lives below the poverty line, collectively receiving less than 8 percent of total earnings. At least 20 million are jobless, including over half of the younger workers.

Meanwhile, under the mantle of programs like “Black Economic Empowerment,” a thin layer of black ex-ANC leaders, trade union officials and small businessmen has become very rich from incorporation onto boards of directors, acquisitions of stock, and contracts with the government. It is under these conditions that ANC governments that have followed Mandela’s, first under Thabo Mbeki and now Jacob Zuma, have come to be seen as the corrupt representatives of a wealthy ruling establishment.

Mandela, who played a less and less active role in the country’s political life, nevertheless served as a facade for the ANC, which traded on his history of sacrifice and his image of humble dignity to hide its own corrupt self-dealing. Behind the facade, of course, Mandela and his family raked in millions, with his children and grandchildren active in some 200 private companies.

The New York Times published an article Friday under the worried headline, “Mandela’s Death Leaves South Africa Without Its Moral Center.” Clearly, there are fears that the passing of Mandela will serve to strip the ANC of what little credibility it has left, opening the way to intensified class struggle.

Concern among capitalist governments and corporate oligarchs over the implications of Mandela’s passing for the current crisis in South Africa is bound up with gratitude for services rendered by the ex-president and ANC leader. In the mid-1980s, when the South African ruling class began its negotiations with Mandela and the ANC on ending Apartheid, the country was in deep economic crisis and teetering on the brink of civil war. The government felt compelled to impose a state of emergency, having lost control of the black working class townships.

The international and South African mining corporations, banks and other firms, together with the most conscious elements within the Apartheid regime, recognized that the ANC—and Mandela in particular—were the only ones capable of quelling a revolutionary upheaval. It was for that purpose he was released from prison 23 years ago.

Utilizing the prestige it had acquired through its association with armed struggle and its socialistic rhetoric, the ANC worked to contain the mass uprising that it neither controlled nor desired and subordinate it to a negotiated settlement that preserved the wealth and property of the international corporations and the country’s white capitalist rulers.

Before taking office, Mandela and the ANC ditched large parts of the movement’s program, particularly those planks relating to public ownership of the banks, mines and major industries. They signed a secret letter of intent with the International Monetary Fund pledging to implement free market policies, including drastic budget cuts, high interest rates and the scrapping of all barriers to the penetration of international capital.

In doing so, Mandela realized a vision he had enunciated nearly four decades earlier, when he wrote that enacting the ANC’s program would mean: “For the first time in the history of this country, the non-European bourgeoisie will have the opportunity to own in their own name and right mills and factories, and trade and private enterprise will boom and flourish as never before.”

However, this “flourishing,” which boosted the profits of the transnational mining firms and banks while creating a layer of black multi-millionaires, has been paid for through the intensified exploitation of South African workers.

The ignominious path trod by the ANC was not unique. During the same period, virtually every one of the so-called national liberation movements, from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the Sandinistas, pursued similar policies, making their peace with imperialism and pursuing wealth and privilege for a narrow layer.

In this context, the death of Mandela underscores the fact that there exists no way forward for the working class in South Africa—and for that matter, worldwide—outside of the class struggle and socialist revolution.

A new party must be built, founded on the Theory of Permanent Revolution elaborated by Leon Trotsky, which established that in countries like South Africa, the national bourgeoisie, dependent upon imperialism and fearful of revolution from below, is incapable of resolving the fundamental democratic and social tasks facing the masses. This can be achieved only by the working class taking power into its own hands and overthrowing capitalism, as part of the international struggle to put an end to imperialism and establish world socialism.

_______________________________________________________________________

MandelaInpPrison1

Related articles

| Analysis: A dissenting opinion on Nelson Mandela!

Posted on by
3

A dissenting opinion on Nelson Mandela ~ Jonathan Cook.

6 DECEMBER 2013

What I am going to write here will doubtless make me unpopular with some readers, even if only because they will assume that what follows about Nelson Mandela is disrespectful. It is not.

So let me start by recognising Mandela’s huge achievement in helping to bring down South African apartheid, and make clear my enormous respect for the great personal sacrifices he made, including spending so many years caged up for his part in the struggle to liberate his people. These are things impossible to forget or ignore when assessing someone’s life.

Nonetheless it is important to pause during the general acclamation of his legacy, mostly by people who have never demonstrated a fraction of his integrity, to consider a lesson that most observers want to overlook.

Perhaps the best way to make my point is to highlight a mock memo written in 2001 by Arjan el-Fassed, from Nelson Mandela to the NYT’s columnist Thomas Friedman. It is a wonderful, humane denunciation of Friedman’s hypocrisy and a demand for justice for the Palestinians that Mandela should have written.

Soon afterwards, the memo spread online, stripped of el-Fassed’s closing byline. Many people, including a few senior journalists, assumed it was written by Mandela and published it as such. It seemed they wanted to believe that Mandela had written something as morally clear-sighted as this about another apartheid system, one at least the equal of that imposed for decades on black South Africans.

However, the reality is that it was not written by Mandela, and his staff even went so far as to threaten legal action against the author.

Mandela spent most his adult life treated as a “terrorist”. There was a price to be paid for his long walk to freedom, and the end of South Africa’s system of racial apartheid. Mandela was rehabilitated into an “elder statesman” in return for South Africa being rapidly transformed into an outpost of neoliberalism, prioritising the kind of economic apartheid most of us in the west are getting a strong dose of now.

In my view, Mandela suffered a double tragedy in his post-prison years.

First, he was reinvented as a bloodless icon, one that other leaders could appropriate to legitimise their own claims, as the figureheads of the “democratic west”, to integrity and moral superiority. After finally being allowed to join the western “club”, he could be regularly paraded as proof of the club’s democratic credentials and its ethical sensibility.

Cameron meets Nelson Mandela

Second, and even more tragically, this very status as icon became a trap in which he was forced to act the “responsible” elder statesman, careful in what he said and which causes he was seen to espouse. He was forced to become a kind of Princess Diana, someone we could be allowed to love because he rarely said anything too threatening to the interests of the corporate elite who run the planet.

It is an indication of what Mandela was up against that the man who fought so hard and long against a brutal apartheid regime was so completely defeated when he took power in South Africa. That was because he was no longer struggling against a rogue regime but against the existing order, a global corporate system of power that he had no hope of challenging alone.

It is for that reason, rather than simply to be contrarian, that I raise these failings. Or rather, they were not Mandela’s failings, but ours. Because, as I suspect Mandela realised only too well, one cannot lead a revolution when there are no followers.

For too long we have slumbered through the theft and pillage of our planet and the erosion of our democratic rights, preferring to wake only for the release of the next iPad or smart phone.

The very outpouring of grief from our leaders for Mandela’s loss helps to feed our slumber. Our willingness to suspend our anger this week, to listen respectfully to those leaders who forced Mandela to reform from a fighter into a notable, keeps us in our slumber. Next week there will be another reason not to struggle for our rights and our grandchildren’s rights to a decent life and a sustainable planet. There will always be a reason to worship at the feet of those who have no real power but are there to distract us from what truly matters.

No one, not even a Mandela, can change things by him or herself. There are no Messiahs on their way, but there are many false gods designed to keep us pacified, divided and weak.

________________________________________________________________________

 

Related articles

| Nelson Mandela: Obama, Clinton, Cameron, Blair – Tributes of Shameful Hypocrisy!

Posted on by
4

Nelson Mandela: Obama, Clinton, Cameron, Blair – Tributes of Shameful Hypocrisy ~ Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research.

Accusing politicians or former politicians of “breathtaking hypocrisy” is not just over used, it is inadequacy of spectacular proportions. Sadly, searches in various thesaurus’ fail in meaningful improvement.

The death of Nelson Mandela, however, provides tributes resembling duplicity on a mind altering substance.

President Obama, whose litany of global assassinations by Drone, from infants to octogenarians – a personal weekly decree we are told, summary executions without Judge, Jury or trial – stated of the former South African’s President’s passing:

“We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again … His acts of reconciliation … set an example that all humanity should aspire to, whether in the lives of nations or our own personal lives.

“I studied his words and his writings … like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set, (as) long as I live I will do what I can to learn from him … it falls to us … to forward the example that he set: to make decisions guided not by hate, but by love …”

Mandela, said the Presidential High Executioner, had: “… bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice.”(i)

Mandela, after nearly thirty years in jail (1964-1990) forgave his jailors and those who would have preferred to see him hung. Obama committed to closing Guantanamo, an election pledge, the prisoners still self starve in desperation as their lives rot away, without hope.

The decimation of Libya had no congressional approval, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan’s dismembered. Drone victims are a Presidential roll call of shame and horror and the Nobel Peace Laureate’s trigger finger still hovers over Syria and Iran, for all the talk of otherwise. When his troops finally limped out of Iraq, he left the biggest Embassy in the world and a proxy armed force, with no chance of them leaving being on even the most distant horizon.

Clearly learning, justice and being “guided by love” is proving bit of an uphill struggle. Ironically, Obama was born in 1964, the year Mandela was sentenced to jail and his “long walk to freedom.”

Bill Clinton, who (illegally, with the UK) ordered the near continual bombing of Iraq throughout his Presidency (1993-2001) and the siege conditions of the embargo, with an average of six thousand a month dying of “embargo related causes”, paid tribute to Mandela as: “a champion for human dignity and freedom, for peace and reconciliation … a man of uncommon grace and compassion, for whom abandoning bitterness and embracing adversaries was … a way of life. All of us are living in a better world because of the life that Madiba lived.” Tell that to America’s victims.

In the hypocrisy stakes, Prime Minister David Cameron can compete with the best. He said:

“A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time; a legend in life and now in death – a true global hero.

… Meeting him was one of the great honours of my life.

On Twitter he reiterated: “A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time.” The flag on Downing Street was to hang at half mast, to which a follower replied: “Preferably by no-one who was in the Young Conservatives at a time they wanted him hanged, or those who broke sanctions, eh?”

Another responded: “The Tories wanted to hang Mandela.You utter hypocrite.”

The two tweeters clearly knew their history. In 2009, when Cameron was pitching to become Prime Minister, it came to light that in 1989, when Mandela was still in prison, David Cameron, then a: “rising star of the Conservative Research Department … accepted an all expenses paid trip to apartheid South Africa … funded by a firm that lobbied against the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime.”

Asked if Cameron: “wrote a memo or had to report back to the office about his trip, Alistair Cooke (his then boss at Conservative Central Office) said it was ‘simply a jolly’, adding: ‘It was all terribly relaxed, just a little treat, a perk of the job … ‘ “

Former Cabinet Minister Peter Hain commented of the trip:

“This just exposes his hypocrisy because he has tried to present himself as a progressive Conservative, but just on the eve of the apartheid downfall, and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, when negotiations were taking place about a transfer of power, here he was being wined and dined on a sanctions-busting visit.

“This is the real Conservative Party … his colleagues who used to wear ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ badges at university are now sitting on the benches around him. Their leader at the time Margaret Thatcher described Mandela as a terrorist.” (ii)

In the book of condolences opened at South Africa House, five minutes walk from his Downing Street residence, Cameron, who has voted for, or enjoined all the onslaughts or threatened ones referred to above, wrote:

“ … your generosity, compassion and profound sense of forgiveness have given us all lessons to learn and live by.

He ended his message with: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” Hopefully your lower jaw is still attached to your face, dear reader. If so, hang on to it, worse is to come.

The farcically titled Middle East Peace Envoy, former Prime Minister Tony Blair (think “dodgy dossiers” “forty five minutes” to destruction, illegal invasion, Iraq’s ruins and ongoing carnage, heartbreak, after over a decade) stated:

“Through his leadership, he guided the world into a new era of politics in which black and white, developing and developed, north and south … stood for the first time together on equal terms.

“Through his dignity, grace and the quality of his forgiveness, he made racism everywhere not just immoral but stupid; something not only to be disagreed with, but to be despised. In its place he put the inalienable right of all humankind to be free and to be equal.

“I worked with him closely …“ (iii) said the man whose desire for “humankind to be free and equal” (tell that to the Iraqis) now includes demolishing Syria and possibly Iran.

As ever, it seems with Blair, the memories of others are a little different:

“Nelson Mandela felt so betrayed by Blair’s decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq that he launched a fiery tirade against him in a phone call to a cabinet minister, it emerged.

“Peter Hain who (knew) the ex-South African President well, said Mandela was ‘breathing fire’ down the line in protest at the 2003 military action.

“The trenchant criticisms were made in a formal call to the Minister’s office, not in a private capacity, and Blair was informed of what had been said, Hain added.

‘I had never heard Nelson Mandela so angry and frustrated.” (iv)

On the BBC’s flagship morning news programme “Today” former Prime Minister “Iraq is a better place, I’d do it again” Blair, said of Nelson Mandela:

“ … he came to represent something quite inspirational for the future of the world and for peace and reconciliation in the 21st century.”

Comment is left to former BBC employee, Elizabeth Morley, with peerless knowledge of Middle East politics, who takes no prisoners:

“Dear Today Complaints,

“How could you? Your almost ten minute long interview with the war criminal Tony Blair was the antithesis to all the tributes to the great man. I cannot even bring myself to put the two names in the same sentence. How could you?

“Blair has the blood of millions of Iraqis on his hands. Blair has declared himself willing to do the same to Iranians. How many countries did Mandela bomb? Blair condones apartheid in Israel. Blair turns a blind eye to white supremacists massacring Palestinians. And you insult us by making us listen to him while our hearts and minds are focussed on Mandela.

How could you?” (Reproduced with permission.)

As the avalanche of hypocrisy cascades across the globe from shameless Western politicians, Archbishop Desmond Tutu reflected in two lines the thoughts in the hearts of the true mourners:

“We are relieved that his suffering is over, but our relief is drowned by our grief. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.”

Notes

i. http://www.businessinsider.com/nelson-mandela-dead-obama-statement-2013-12#ixzz2mg2vrGbd

ii. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/camerons-freebie-to-apartheid-south-africa-1674367.html

iii. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/nelson-mandela-dead-live-updates-2895110#ixzz2mhBKAdVA

iv. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/12/nelson-mandela-tony-blair-peter-hain-iraq-invasion

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Related articles

| Palpable hypocrisy: Vultures feed off Mandela’s memory!

Posted on by
6

The vultures feeding off Mandela’s memory ~ Nureddin Sabir, Editor, Redress Information & Analysis. 

The death of Nelson Mandela, the world’s most revered fighter for freedom, justice and dignity, has been met with genuine, spontaneous sadness all over the world.

Whether it is because of Mandela’s selfless sacrifice for his people, his 27 years of perseverance in the face of adversity or his willingness to forgive his wicked incarcerators, millions of people in all corners of the world are genuinely grief stricken at the passing of this giant of giants. They mourn not only the huge gap he leaves behind, but also the fact that the standards of decency he had set are unlikely to be met by any living politician. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says,

…he will go down in history as South Africa’s George Washington, a person who within a single five-year presidency became the principal icon of both liberation and reconciliation, loved by those of all political persuasions as the founder of modern, democratic South Africa…

[T]he crucible of excruciating suffering which he had endured purged the dross, the anger, the temptation to any desire for revenge, honing his spirit and transforming him into an icon of magnanimity. He used his enormous moral stature to good effect in persuading his party and many in the black community, especially young people, that accommodation and compromise were the way to achieve our goal of democracy and justice for all.

The hypocrites and vultures

But there are also the hypocrites and vultures seeking to feed off the outpouring of emotion unleashed by Mandela’s death. At the top of the list of these scoundrels are, as one would expect, Israeli, US and British politicians. As Ami Kaufman says in +972 Magazine, “Israeli politicians have begun updating their Facebook pages with eulogies for the late Nelson Mandela,” and, he asks: “What do statesmen of the Jewish state – one of the last Western countries to support the South African apartheid state and which today practises apartheid-like policies between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea – have to say about the man who brought racism to its knees? (You can read what these despicable bigots have to say in Kaufman’s article here.)

Indeed, as Juan Cole points out,

The attempt to make Nelson Mandela respectable is an ongoing effort of Western government spokesmen and the Western media.

He wasn’t respectable in the business circles of 20th-century New York or Atlanta, or inside the Beltway of Washington, DC. He wasn’t respectable for many of the allies of the United States in the Cold War, including Britain and Israel.

Cole reminds us of the facts which the forked-tongued hypocrites in the US and among its Israeli and European allies would rather we forget:

The US considered the African National Congress to be a form of communism, and sided with the racist prime ministers Hendrik Verwoerd and P.W. Botha against Mandela.

Decades later, in the 1980s, the United States was still supporting the white apartheid government of South Africa, where a tiny minority of Afrikaners dominated the economy and refused to allow black Africans to shop in their shops or fraternize with them, though they were happy to employ them in the mines. Ronald Reagan declared Nelson Mandela, then still in jail, a terrorist, and the US did not get around to removing him from the list until 2008! Reagan, while delivering pro forma denunciations of apartheid or enforced black separation and subjugation, nevertheless opposed sanctions with teeth on Pretoria. Reagan let the racist authoritarian P.W. Botha come to Washington and met with him.

Likewise British PM Margaret Thatcher befriended Botha and castigated Mandela’s ANC [African National Congress] as terrorists. As if the Afrikaners weren’t terrorizing the black majority!…

The Israeli government had extremely warm relations with apartheid South Africa, to the point where Tel Aviv offered the Afrikaners a nuclear weapon(presumably for brandishing at the leftist states of black Africa). That the Israelis accuse Iran of being a nuclear proliferator is actually hilarious if you know the history. Iran doesn’t appear ever to have attempted to construct a nuclear weapon, whereas Israel has hundreds and seems entirely willing to share.

In the US, the vehemently anti-Palestinian Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco spied on American anti-apartheid activists on behalf of the apartheid state. If the ADL ever calls you a racist, you can revel in the irony.

Ronald Reagan imagined that there were “moderates” in the Botha government. There weren’t. He wanted “constructive engagement” with them. It failed.

Principles vs unscrupulousness

Mandela subscribed to a value system a world apart from that of the Western and Israeli vultures now seeking to make political capital by heaping praise on him,postmortem. He, as Cole says, “was a socialist who believed in the ideal of economic equality or at least of a decent life for everyone in society. He was also a believer in parliamentary government. So, he was a democratic socialist.” They, on the other hard, are out and out capitalists, the spokesmen and slaves of global corporations and, in the case of the Israelis quoted by Kaufman, racists, bigots, land thieves and squatters.

Mandela, to quote Cole,

is a pioneer to be emulated. We honour him by standing up for justice even in the face of enormous opposition from the rich and powerful, by taking risks for high ideals. We won’t meet his standards. But if all of us tried, we’d make the world better. As he did.

MandelaInpPrison1

Related articles

MandFace1 MarwanBarghouti1

| Israel is an apartheid state. Period.

Posted on by
1

Israel is an apartheid state. Period. ~ Jonathan Cook in Nazareth, Redress Information & Analysis.

How come Uri Avnery knows so little about Israel?

Talking nonsense about apartheid.

 

Yes, I know. Uri Avnery has achieved many great things as a journalist and a peace activist. He has probably done more to educate people around the world about the terrible situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and for longer, than any other single human being. And, to boot, he’s celebrating his 90th birthday this week. So best wishes.

Nonetheless, it is important to challenge the many fallacious claims Avnery makes to bolster the arguments in his latest article, dismissing the growing comparisons being made between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

There is much to criticize in his weakly-argued piece, based on a recent conversation with an unnamed “expert”. Avnery, like many before him, makes the mistake of thinking that, by pointing out the differences between Israel and apartheid South Africa, he proves that Israel is not an apartheid state. But this is the ultimate straw-man argument. No one claims Israel is identical to South Africa. You don’t need an expert to realize that.

…apartheid comprises inhumane acts “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”. (Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2002)

When people call Israel an apartheid state, they are referring to the crime of apartheid as defined in international law. According to the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, apartheid comprises inhumane acts “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.

So what colour the victims of apartheid are, what proportion of the population they constitute, whether the economy depends on their productive labour, whether the early Zionists were socialists, whether the Palestinians have a Nelson Mandela, and so on have precisely zero relevance to determining whether Israel is an apartheid state.

A key distinction for Avnery is between “Israel proper” and the occupied territories. In the territories, Avnery admits, there are some parallels with apartheid South Africa. But inside Israel, he thinks the comparison is outrageously unfair. Let’s set aside the not-insignificant matter that Israel refuses to recognize its internationally defined borders; or that one of its major strategies is a colonial-style divide-and-rule policy that depends on establishing differences in rights for Palestinians under its rule as a way to better oppress them.

Avnery’s motives in highlighting this territorial distinction should be fairly clear. He believes the occupation is a crime and that it must end. But he also believes that Israel as a Jewish state should continue after the occupation ends. In fact, he sees the two matters as inextricably tied. In his view, Israel’s long-term survival as a Jewish state depends on severing it from the occupied territories.

This concurs with fairly standard liberal Zionist ideology: segregation is seen as offering protection from demographic threats posed by non-Jews to the future success of the Jewish state, and has reached its apotheosis in the building of the West Bank wall and the disengagement from Gaza. Avnery is simply one of the most humane proponents of this line of thinking.

But for this reason, as I have argued before, Avnery should be treated as an unreliable mentor and guide on matters relating to Palestinians inside Israel – the group that is hardest to deal with under a strictly segregationist approach.

 

Admitting that Israel is an apartheid state inside its internationally recognized borders would undermine the legitimacy of his [Uri Avnery’s] prized Jewish state. It would indicate that his life’s work of campaigning for the creation of a Palestinian state to preserve his Jewish state was misguided, and probably harmful.

Avnery is unlikely to treat criticism of “Israel proper”, such as the apartheid comparison, based on the merits of the case. He will react defensively. Admitting that Israel is an apartheid state inside its internationally recognized borders would undermine the legitimacy of his prized Jewish state. It would indicate that his life’s work of campaigning for the creation of a Palestinian state to preserve his Jewish state was misguided, and probably harmful.

The most outrageous claim Avnery makes in the article, precisely to deflect attention from the problem of a self-defined Jewish state and its relations with a large Palestinian minority, is the following:

On the whole, the situation of the Arab minority inside Israel proper is much like that of many national minorities in Europe and elsewhere. They enjoy equality under the law, vote for parliament, are represented by very lively parties of their own, but in practice suffer discrimination in many areas. To call this apartheid would be grossly misleading.

One does not need to concede that the comparison with apartheid is right, both in the occupied territories and inside “Israel proper” – though I do – to understand that it is, in fact, Avnery who is being grossly misleading here.

There is no sense in which Israel’s treatment of its 1.5 million Palestinian citizens is comparable, as Avnery argues, to the situation of national minorities in European states. Palestinian citizens do not simply face unofficial, informal or spontaneous discrimination. It is structural, institutionalized and systematic.

Here are a few questions Avnery or those who agree with him need to answer:

  • Which European states have, like Israel, nationalized 93 per cent of their land so that one ethnic group (in Israel’s case, Jewish citizens) can exclude another ethnic group (Palestinian Arab citizens)?
  • Which European states have separate citizenship laws – in Israel’s case, the Law of Return (1950) and the Citizenship Law (1952) – based on ethnic belonging?
  • Which European states have designed their citizenship laws, as Israel has done, to confer rights on members of an ethnic group (in Israel’s case, Jews) who are not actually yet citizens or present in the state, privileging them over a group (Palestinian Arabs) who do have citizenship and are present in the state?
  • Which European states have more than 55 laws that explicitly discriminatebased on which ethnic group a citizen belongs to?
  • Which European states, like Israel, defer some of what should be their sovereign powers to extra-territorial bodies – in Israel’s case, to the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund – whose charters obligate them to discriminate based on ethnic belonging?

Maybe Avnery can find the odd European state with one such perverse practise, or something similar. But I have no doubt he cannot find a European state that has more than one such characteristic. Israel has all of these and more; in fact, too many for me to enumerate them all.

So if Israel inside its recognized borders is nothing like European states or the United States, or any other state we usually classify as democratic, maybe Avnery or his supporters can explain exactly what kind of state Israel is like.

______________________________________________________________________

PAL EQUALITY 4

Related articles

MapOutposts1