SALUTING BLACK POWER LEADER - STEVE BIKO, MARTYRED TODAY IN 1977 FIGHTING APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

NEW 'CULTURES OF RESISTANCE' MAGAZINE OUT NOW

Conflicts Forum's third edition of Cultures of Resistance out now

entitled: The Building of a Docile Islam:
How not to prevent Violent Extremism

download PDF here

CONFLICT FORUM'S EXCELLENT SECOND 'CULTURES OF RESISTANCE' MAGAZINE

Cultures of Resistance

Volume One | Issue Two [PDF]

Cultures of Resistance Activism Forum is a project that aims to address the Western hostile use of language intended to restrict debate related to mainstream Islamist movements and currents. The project will explore more effective means to respond to hostile use of language - as well as explore how better to insist on extending public debate beyond its standard focus on ‘Islamist violence’ - by launching a ‘positive’ (non-defensive) discourse on Islamism. In partnership with a wide number of social activist and public campaign groups, we aim to advocate for a shift in language from the defensive to the positive; to learn how others, in different struggles, have achieved this transition; and by this means, and by gaining greater critical mass, to open space in which a discourse of rebuttal and ‘resistance’ can be developed through visual and other means to imposed narratives and stereotyping. The aim is the change the terms of debate and to move to a more directly challenging, but more widely accessible, advocacy of understanding of Islamist ideology.

Cultures of Resistance magazine is published twice a year by Conflicts Forum.

Volume One | Issue Two [PDF]

Volume One | Issue One [PDF]

Articles featured:

An Irish Republican Narrative of Resistance - Raymond McCartney

A Discourse of Demonisation - Seyed Mohammad Marandi

Introducing a New Political Discourse - Alastair Crooke

Moving Forward in South Africa - Ambassador Mohamed Dangor

Hearing the Call - Adli Jacobs

Anti-Apartheid Islam - Na’eem Jeenah

Mscnceptns of Islm - Sheikh Chafiq Jaredah

Resistance & Freedom - Raafat Murra

FORMER ANTI-APARTHEID REVOLUTIONARY LEADER - RONNIE KASRILS - SPEAKS OF THE JUST PALESTINIAN CAUSE

Who Said Nearly 50 Years Ago that
Israel was an Apartheid State?

Ronnie Kasrils is South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence.
This article was based on Mr. Kasrils’ address at “Israel
Apartheid Week”, South Africa, delivered on Feb. 28, 2009

Palestine Chronicle

Mandela: 'We South Africans cannot feel free until the
Palestinians are free.'

At the onset of international 'Israel Apartheid Week' in
solidarity with the embattled Palestinian people, I want to
start by quoting a South African who emphatically stated as
far back as 1963 that "Israel is an apartheid state." Those
were not the words of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu or
Joe Slovo, but were uttered by none other than the
architect of apartheid itself, racist Prime Minister, Dr.
Hendrik Verwoerd.

He was irked by the criticism of apartheid policy and
Harold Macmillan’s “Winds of Change” speech , in contrast
to the West’s unconditional support for Zionist Israel.

To be sure Verwoerd was correct. Both states preached and
implemented a policy based on racial ethnicity; the sole
claim of Jews in Israel and whites in South Africa to
exclusive citizenship; monopolized rights in law regarding
the ownership of land, property, business; superior access
to education, health, social, sporting and cultural
amenities, pensions and municipal services at the expense
of the original indigenous population; the virtual monopoly
membership of military and security forces, and privileged
development along their own racial supremacist lines - even
both countries marriage laws designed to safeguard racial
“purity”.

The so-called “non-whites” in apartheid South Africa,
indigenous Africans, others of mixed race or of Indian
origin - like second or third class non-Jews in Israel -
were consigned to a non-citizenship status of Kafkaesque
existence, subject to bureaucratic whims and the laws
prohibiting their free movement, access to work and trade,
dictating where they could reside and so forth.

Verwoerd would have been well aware of Israel’s
dispossession of indigenous Palestinian in 1948 - the year
his apartheid party similarly came to power - of the
unfolding destruction of their villages, the premeditated
massacres and the systematic ethnic cleansing.

Within a few short years the apartheid regime was
ruthlessly clearing South Africa’s cities and towns of
so-called “black spots” - where the “non-whites” lived,
socialized, studied and traded - bulldozing homes, loading
families onto military trucks, and forcibly relocating them
to distant settlements. Unlike the “native reserves” - soon
to be reconstituted as Bantustans - not too far away from
industrial areas because the economy thrived on a quota of
cheap black labor.

Whilst he did not live to see the division of Palestinian
territory after the Six Day War, and the subsequent
creation of miniscule Bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza,
he would have greatly admired and approved of the
machinations that enclosed the Palestinians in their own
ghettoized prisons. This after all was the Verwoerdian
grand plan, and the reason why Jimmy Carter could so
readily identify the Occupied Palestinian Territories as
being akin to apartheid. In fact the Bantustans consisted
of 13% of apartheid South Africa, uncannily comparable to
the derisory, ever shrinking pieces of ground Israel is
consigning to the Palestinians.

A further comment about the Bantustans. When I visited
Yasser Arafat in his virtually demolished headquarters in
Ramallah as part of a South African delegation in 2004, he
pointed around him and said “See this is nothing but a
Bantustan!” No, we responded, pointing out that no
Bantustan, in fact not even our townships, had been bombed
by warplanes, pulverized by tanks. To a wide-eyed Arafat we
pointed out that Pretoria pumped in funds, constructed
impressive administration buildings, even allowed for
Bantustan airlines to service the Mickey Mouse capitals in
order to impress the world that they were serious about
so-called “separate development.”

What Verwoerd admired too was the impunity with which
Israel exercised state violence and terror to get its way,
without hindrance from its Western allies, increasingly key
among them the USA. What Verwoerd and his ilk came to
admire in Israel, and seek to emulate in the southern
African region, was the way the Western powers permitted an
imperialist Israel to use its unbridled military with
impunity in expanding its territory and holding back the
rising tide of Arab nationalism in its neighborhood.

After the Six Day War, Verwoerd’s successor John Vorster,
infamously stated: “The Israelis have beaten the Arabs
before lunchtime. We will eat the African states for
breakfast.”

But it was not only the racial doctrine of Israel that
excited apartheid’s leaders, it was the use of the biblical
narrative as the ideological rationale to justify its
vision, aims and methods.

The early Dutch pioneers, the Afrikaners, had used Bible
and gun as colonizers elsewhere, to carve out their
exclusive fortress bastion in South Africa’s hinterland.
Like the biblical Israelites they claimed to be “God’s
chosen people” with a mission to tame and civilize the
wilderness; disregarding the productivity and
industriousness of people who had tilled the soil and
traded for centuries - claiming it was only they who would
make the land flow with milk and honey. They invoked a
covenant with God to deliver their enemies into their hands
and to bless their deeds. Until the advent of South
Africa’s democracy, the racial history books generally
taught that the white man arrived in South Africa more or
less as the so-called “Bantu tribes” from the north were
wandering across the Limpopo - South Africa’s border with
Zimbabwe - and that they the were pioneer settlers in a
land without people.

Such a colonial racist mentality which rationalized the
genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and
Australasia, in Africa from Namibia to the Congo and
elsewhere, most clearly has its parallels in Palestine.

What is so shameless about this anachronistic colonial
barbarism is that Zionist Israel has been permitted by the
West to aspire to such a goal even into the 21st Century.

It is by no means difficult to recognize from afar, as
Verwoerd had been able to do, that Israel is indeed an
apartheid state. Verwoerd’s successor, Balthazar John
Vorster visited Israel after the 1973 October War, when
Egypt in a rare victory regained the Suez Canal and Sinai
from Israel. After that Israel and South Africa were
virtually twinned as military allies for Pretoria helped
supply Israel militarily in the immediacy of its 1973
setback and Israel came to support apartheid South Africa
at the height of sanctions with weaponry and technology -
from naval ships and the conversion of supersonic fighter
planes to assistance in building six nuclear bombs and the
creation of an arms industry.

For the liberation movements of southern Africa, Israel and
apartheid South Africa represented a racist, colonial axis.
It was noted that people like Vorster had been Nazi
sympathizers, interned during World War II - yet feted as
heroes in Israel and incidentally never again referred to
by South African Zionists as an anti-Semite!. This did not
surprise those that came to understand the true racist
nature and character of Zionist Israel.

Time and space does not allow further elaboration, but it
is instructive to add that in its conduct and methods of
repression, Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid
South Africa at its zenith - even surpassing its brutality,
house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted
assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its
opponents, collective punishment and the aggression against
neighboring states.

Certainly we South Africans can identify the pathological
cause, fuelling the hate, of Israel’s political-military
elite and public in general. Neither is this difficult for
anyone acquainted with colonial history to understand the
way in which deliberately cultivated race hate inculcates a
justification for the most atrocious and inhumane actions
against even defenseless civilians - women, children, the
elderly amongst them. In fact was this not the pathological
racist ideology that fuelled Hitler’s war lust and
implementation of the Holocaust?

I will state clearly, without exaggeration, that any South
African, whether involved in the freedom struggle, or
motivated by basic human decency, who visits the Occupied
Palestinian Territories are shocked to the core at the
situation they encounter and agree with Archbishop Tutu’s
comment that what the Palestinians are experiencing is far
worse than what happened in South Africa, where the
Sharpeville massacre of 69 civilians in 1960 became
international symbol of apartheid cruelty.

I want to recall here the words of an Israeli Cabinet
Minister, Aharon Cizling in 1948, after the savagery of the
Deir Yassin massacre of 240 villagers became known. He
said: “Now we too have behaved like the Nazis and my whole
being is shaken.”

Recently the veteran British MP, Gerald Kaufman, long time
friend of Israel, was reported as remarking that a
spokeswoman of the Israeli Defence Force, talked like a
Nazi, when she coldly dismissed the deaths of defenseless
civilians in Gaza - many women and children amongst them.

It needs to be frankly raised that if the crimes of the
Holocaust are at the top end of the scale of human
barbarity in modern times, where do we place the human cost
of what has so recently occurred in Gaza and against the
Palestinians since 1948 in the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe) they
have endured?

How do we evaluate the inhumanity of dropping bombs and
blazing white phosphorous on civilian populations, burning
people alive, gassing them in a Gaza ghetto under
relentless siege with no place to run or hide. For 22 days
relentless bombardment whole families vaporized before the
horrified eyes of a surviving parent or child.

Guernica, Lidice, the Warsaw Ghetto, Deir Yassin, Mai Lei,
Sabra and Shatilla, Sharpeville are high on that scale -
and the perpetrators of the slaughter in Gaza are the
off-spring of holocaust victims yet again, in Cizling’s
words, behaving like Nazis. This must not be allowed to go
unpunished and the international community must demand they
be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. For
the lesson is that if apartheid Israel is not stopped in
its tracks these crimes will get greater and spread not
only to engulf the entire Middle East and Iran, but indeed
anywhere that Israel is challenged . Like the apartheid
security forces the hand of Mossad stretches very far
indeed. And of course with Israel a key ally in the USA’s
“War on Terror” and all the motives for that onslaught, oil
resources included, there will be no end to this bloody
saga - with the Palestinians targeted to go the way of the
extinct peoples of the former colonial era.

But such a fate must not and will not happen, if together
with the unconquerable Palestinian people we share the
resolve and determination to halt this insidious Zionist
project, and its Great Power backing and encouragement.

Once more, let me turn to our South African experience.

There, as with other struggles such as Vietnam, Algeria,
the former Portuguese colonies, the just nature of the
struggle was the assurance for success.

With that moral advantage, on the basis of a just
liberation struggle, we learnt the secret of Vietnam’s
victory and strategies according to what we termed our Four
Pillars of Struggle:

Political mass struggle; reinforced by armed struggle;
clandestine underground struggle; and international
solidarity.

At times any one of these can become predominant and it is
not for outsiders to direct those at the frontline of
struggle what and how to choose but to modestly provide the
lessons of our experience pointing out that the unity of
the struggling people is as indispensable as the moral
high-ground they occupy. For the Vietnamese the military
element was generally primary but always resting on popular
mass support.

In South Africa the mass struggle became the primary way,
with sabotage actions and limited guerrilla operations
inspiring our people. It all depends on the conditions and
the situation.

But unquestioningly, what helped tip the balance, in
Vietnam and South Africa, was the force and power of
international solidarity action. It took some 30 years but
the worldwide Anti-Apartheid Movements campaigns - launched
in London in 1959 - for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -
not only provided international activists with a practical
role, but became an incalculable factor in (a) isolating
and weakening the apartheid regime (b) inspiring the
struggling people (c) undermining the resolve of those
states that supported and benefited from relations with
apartheid South Africa, (d) generated a change of attitude
amongst the South African white public generally, and
political, business, professional, academic, religious and
sporting associations in particular. Boycott made them feel
the pinch in their pocket and their polecat status
everywhere - whether on the sporting fields, at academic or
business conventions, in the world of theatre and the arts
they were totally shunned like biblical lepers. There was
literally no place to hide from universal condemnation
backed by decisive and relentless action which in time
became more and more creative.

To conclude: we must spare no effort in building a
world-wide solidarity movement to emulate the success of
the Anti-Apartheid Movement which played such a crucial
role in toppling the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Nelson Mandela stated after South Africa attained
democratic rule that “we South Africans cannot feel free
until the Palestinians are free.” A slogan of South
Africa’s liberation struggle and our trade union movement
is “An injury to one is an injury to all!“ That goes for
the whole of humanity. Every act of solidarity demonstrates
to the Palestinians and those courageous Jews who stand by
them in Israel - that they are not alone.

Israel has lost in Gaza. Whilst many Palestinians have lost
their lives the Palestinians have not been conquered or
cowed. Repression generates resistance and that will grow.
Israeli aggression stands exposed. A turning point has been
reached in humanity‘s perception of this issue. The time is
ripe for us to drive home the advantage. When 150,000
Palestinians within Israel itself demonstrated against the
carnage in Gaza; when Jewish women staged a sit-in in at
the Israeli Consulate in Toronto; when Norwegian tram
drivers stopped their transport in sympathy; when
municipalities and colleges decide to divest like Hampshire
college in the USA (the first that took this step against
apartheid South Africa), when Durban dockworkers refused to
unload a ship with Israeli cargo; joining with the
countless thousands around the world, from Australia to
Britain to Belgium to Canada to Cairo, Jordan, Indonesia
and the USA we know the times are changing and Zionist
hegemony is fast losing control. BDS represents three words
that will help bring about the defeat of Zionist Israel and
victory for Palestine. Like South Africa this can mean,
must mean: freedom, peace, security, equality and justice
for all - Muslim, Christian and Jew. That is well worth
struggling for!

STAND TALL AND SALUTE MIRIAM MAKEBA

Miriam Makeba, 76, Singer and Activist, Dies

NY Times
By ALAN COWELL

LONDON — Miriam Makeba, a South African singer whose voice stirred hopes of freedom among millions in her own country though her music was formally banned by the apartheid authorities she struggled against, died early Monday after performing at a concert in Italy. She was 76.

The Associated Press quoted hospital authorities as saying she died following a heart attack after being brought to a hospital in Castel Volturno near Naples in southern Italy. She had been singing at a concert in support of Roberto Saviano, an author who has received death threats after writing about organized crime. Ms. Makeba collapsed as she was leaving the stage, the South African authorities said. She died at the private Pineta Grande clinic in Castel Volturno, where she was brought by ambulance, according to a physcian on duty there. Efforts to resuscitate her failed, the doctor said, speaking in return for anonymity under hospital rules.

Although Ms. Makeba had been weakened by osteoarthritis, her death stunned many in South Africa, where she stood as an enduring emblem of the travails of black people under the apartheid system of racial segregation that ended with the release from prison of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the country’s first fully democratic elections in 1994.

In a statement on Monday, Mr. Mandela said the death “of our beloved Miriam has saddened us and our nation.”

He continued: “Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.”

“She was South Africa’s first lady of song and so richly deserved the title of Mama Afrika. She was a mother to our struggle and to the young nation of ours,” Mr. Mandela is one of many tributes from South African leaders.

“One of the greatest songstresses of our time has ceased to sing,” Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a statement. “Throughout her life, Mama Makeba communicated a positive message to the world about the struggle of the people of South Africa and the certainty of victory over the dark forces of apartheid and colonialism through the art of song.”

Widely known as “Mama Africa”, she had been a prominent exiled opponent of apartheid since the South African authorities revoked her passport in 1960 and refused to allow her to return after she traveled abroad. She was prevented from attending her mother’s funeral after touring in the United States.

For 31 years, Ms. Makeba lived in exile, variously in the United States, France, Guinea and Belgium. South Africa’s state broadcasters banned her music after she spoke out against apartheid at the United Nations in 1976 — the year of the Soweto uprising that accelerated the demands of the black majority for democratic change.

“I never understood why I couldn’t come home,” Ms. Makeba said upon her return at an emotional homecoming in Johannesburg in 1990 as the apartheid system began to crumble, according to The Associated Press. “I never committed any crime.”

Music was a central part of the struggle against apartheid. The South African authorities of the era exercised strict censorship of many forms of expression, while many foreign entertainers discouraged performances in South Africa in an attempt to isolate the white authorities and show their opposition to apartheid.

From exile she acted as a constant reminder of the events in her homeland as the white authorities struggled to contain or pre-empt unrest among the black majority.

Ms. Makeba wrote in 1987: “I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa, and the people, without even realizing.”

She was married several times and her husbands included the American black activist Stokely Carmichael, with whom she lived in Guinea, and the jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, who also spent many years in exile.

In the United States she became a star, touring with Harry Belafonte in the 1960s and winning a Grammy award with him in 1965. Such was her following and fame that she sang in 1962 at the birthday party of President John F. Kennedy. She also performed with Paul Simon on his Graceland concert in Zimbabwe in 1987.

But she fell afoul of the U.S. music industry because of her marriage to Mr. Carmichael and her decision to live in Guinea.

In one of her last interviews, in May 2008 with the British music critic Robin Denselow, she said she found her concerts in the United States . being cancelled. “It was not a ban from the government. It was a cancellation by people who felt I should not be with Stokely because he was a rebel to them. I didn’t care about that. He was somebody I loved, who loved me, and it was my life,” she said.

Ms. Makeba was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932, the daughter of a Swazi mother and a father from the Xhosa people who live mainly in the eastern Cape region of South Africa. She became known to South Africans in the Sophiatown district of Johannesburg in the 1950s.

According to Agence France-Presse, she was often short of money and could not afford to buy a coffin when her only daughter, Bondi, died aged 36 in 1985. She buried her alone, barring a handful of journalists from covering the funeral.

She was particularly renowned for her performances of songs such as what was known as the Click Song — named for a clicking sound in her native tongue — or “Qongoqothwane,” and Pata Pata, meaning Touch Touch in Xhosa. Her style of singing was widely interpreted as a blend of black township rhythms, jazz and folk music.

In her interview in 2008, Ms. Makeba said: “I’m not a political singer. I don’t know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us _ especially the things that hurt us.”

LONG STANDING SOLIDARITY BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND CUBA CONTINUES

Cuba's Castro wins S African humanitarian award

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — South Africa Thursday said it has
given its 2008 humanitarian award to former Cuban president
Fidel Castro for his contributions to "humankind beyond
boundaries."

Castro, who turned 82 Wednesday, becomes the first
non-African and the third ex-head of state to win the
"Ubuntu" award, the National Heritage Council of South
Africa said in a statement.

"The Ubuntu award is honouring persons who have
consistently lived the humanitarian values of the African
philosophy of Ubuntu," which defines the individual in
terms of their relationships with others.

Castro won the award "for the role he played in the Cuban
revolution and worldwide contribution to the struggle for
an alternative, just and humane society," the statement
said.

It said that Cuban patriots, under Castro, had "shared
their blood..fighting colonialism for the liberation of the
countries of Africa."

Castro, who ruled Cuba unopposed for nearly half a century,
has not been seen in public since July 2006 when he had
stomach surgery. His younger brother Raul took over
permanently as president in February.

The award is to be presented on September 24, the country's
National Heritage Day.

Nelson Mandela was its first recipient in 2006. Last year's
winner was former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda.

UNITY AMONG COUNTRIES OF THE SOUTH - SOUTH AFRICA & VENEZUELA

South Africa-Venezuela Establish Strategic Relations Ven GlobalNews Venezuela and South Africa pave the way for increasing their bilateral relations by signing last Tuesday, September 2, several cooperation agreements to strengthen South-South cooperation. President Hugo Chávez signed in Pretoria, capital of South Africa, a framework agreement with his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki, after a meeting where both leaders talked about several current international issues. This State Visit to South Africa was the first official trip ever delivered by a Venezuelan president since both countries started diplomatic relations in 1995. It also paved the way for the second summit of African and South American heads of sate, to be held by late November in Caracas. Both leaders shook hands and said the agreements signed are quite strategic because they have enormous sense and interest for the full development of both nations, integration and establishment of a new world order aimed at the construction of a new multi-polar world. The agriculture, energy, culture, economy, social, mining and telecommunications agreements were signed by top officials of both countries such as Nicolás Maduro, Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs; Rafael Ramírez, Minister of People’s Power for Energy and Oil and some other Venezuelan and South African officials. The agreements are based on the framework cooperation agreement which paved the way for deepening actions and cooperation in diverse aspects. The document states that both nations “agreed to promote and intensify cooperation between both countries, under the base of the principles of equality and self-respect for sovereignty and reciprocity of advantages, and in accordance with current internal legislations of each country in the planned issues of this Accord.” President Mbeki said that before the end of the year new agreements can be signed under the base of the cooperation framework agreement, with more extended issues in each field to be discussed by both nations. “We’ll work on it in a way that seeks to achieve practical results,” he added. He concluded by ratifying the intention to strengthen the South-South relation and expressing the satisfaction of his people for the visit of the Bolivarian leader and even more for the results. “We have agreed with President Chavez that the relationship between South Africa and Venezuela should indeed assume a strategic character,” the South African leader said. The Venezuelan president “has requested that those agreements we just signed must be enforced and not only signed,” President Mbeki said. “So as you can see, this is a relationship that is built so that it relates to all elements of humanity,” he pointed out. “Let me say that we are indeed pleased that the President could come. We are very pleased with the outcomes of the discussions which indeed confirm that we have this possibility as these two countries to build a relationship that will be mutually beneficial,” the African president said. Unity among Southern countries During his speech President Chávez said “we cannot waste a single second more to get united, the peoples of the third world, of the South”. He also remarked the importance of unity among Southern nations and the necessity to be near and carry out a new strategic agenda. “Here we are with our hands to convey our willingness to strengthen the relations and further cooperation between the two countries, he said. He considered the agenda must imply a truly strategic change in foreign relations, considering the new liberation projects already started in Latin America, especially in the South. Development of alternative energies and training of human resources are some of the issues to be included in the future work agenda which is already been developed between both governments. Just after concluding his visit to South Africa, President Chávez met with former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. “I feel African, a have Africa inside,” President Chávez said just before leaving. A few minutes before boarding his plane, he remarked the importance of getting close to that continent and giving support to their struggles. He considers that “saving Africa we’re saving humanity.”

SOUTH AFRICAN PROGRESSIVES DENOUNCE ISRAELI APARTHEID

Powerful statement from South Africa against Zionist Apartheid

We fought apartheid; we see no reason to celebrate it in Israel now! 17 May 2008 We, South Africans who faced the might of unjust and brutal apartheid machinery in South Africa and fought against it with all our strength, with the objective to live in a just, democratic society, refuse today to celebrate the existence of an Apartheid state in the Middle East. While Israel and its apologists around the world will, with pomp and ceremony, loudly proclaim the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel this month, we who have lived with and struggled against oppression and colonialism will, instead, remember 6 decades of catastrophe for the Palestinian people. 60 years ago, 750,000 Palestinians were brutally expelled from their homeland, suffering persecution, massacres, and torture. They and their descendants remain refugees. This is no reason to celebrate. When we think of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, we also remember the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948. When we think of South Africa’s Bantustan policy, we remember the bantustanisation of Palestine by the Israelis. When we think of our heroes who languished on Robben Island and elsewhere, we remember the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. When we think of the massive land theft perpetrated against the people of South Africa, we remember that the theft of Palestinian land continues with the building of illegal Israeli settlements and the Apartheid Wall. When we think of the Group Areas Act and other such apartheid legislation, we remember that 93% of the land in Israel is reserved for Jewish use only. When we think of Black people being systematically dispossessed in South Africa, we remember that Israel uses ethnic and racial dispossession to strike at the heart of Palestinian life. When we think of how the SADF troops persecuted our people in the townships, we remember that attacks from tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships are the daily experience of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory. When we think of the SADF attacks against our neighbouring states, we remember that Israel deliberately destabilises the Middle East region and threatens international peace and security, including with its 100s of nuclear warheads. We who have fought against Apartheid and vowed not to allow it to happen again can not allow Israel to continue perpetrating apartheid, colonialism and occupation against the indigenous people of Palestine. We dare not allow Israel to continue violating international law with impunity. We will not stand by while Israel continues to starve and bomb the people of Gaza. We who fought all our lives for South Africa to be a state for all its people demand that millions of Palestinian refugees must be accorded the right to return to the homes from where they were expelled. Apartheid was a gross violation of human rights. It was so in South Africa and it is so with regard to Israel’s persecution of the Palestinians! - Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Intelligence / End Occupation Campaign - Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, South African Communist Party - Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions - Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela Foundation - Eddie Makue, General Secretary, South African Council of Churches - Makoma Lekalakala, Social Movements Indaba - Dale McKinley, Anti-Privatisation Forum - Lybon Mabasa, President, Socialist Party of Azania - Costa Gazi, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania - Jeremy Cronin, South African Communist Party - Sydney Mufamadi, Minister of Provincial and Local Government - Mosioua Terror Lekota, Minister of Safety and Security - Mosibudi Mangena, President, Azanian Peoples Organisation / Minister of Science and Technology - Alec Erwin, Minister of Public Enterprises - Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency - Enver Surty, Deputy Minister of Education - Roy Padayache, Deputy Minister of Communications - Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology - Rob Davies, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry - Lorretta Jacobus, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services - Sam Ramsamy, International Olympic Committee - Yasmin Sooka, Executive Director, Foundation for Human Rights - Pregs Govender, Feminist Activist and Author: Love and Courage, A Story of Insubordination - Adam Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg - Frene Ginwala, African National Congress - Salim Vally, Palestine Solidarity Committee - Na’eem Jeenah, Palestine Solidarity Committee - Brian Ashley, Amandla Publications - Mercia Andrews, Palestine Solidarity Group - Andile Mngxitama, land rights activist - Farid Esack, Professor of Contemporary Islam, Harvard University - Elinor Sisulu, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition - Andre Zaaiman - Virginia Setshedi, Coalition Against Water Privatisation - Max Ozinsky, Not in my Name - Revd Basil Manning, Minister, United Congregational Church of Southern Africa - Firoz Osman, Media Review Network - Zapiro, cartoonist - Mphutlane wa Bofelo, General Secretary, Muslim Youth Movement - Steven Friedman, academic - Ighsaan Hendricks, President, Muslim Judicial Council - Iqbal Jassat, Media Review Network - Stiaan van der Merwe, Palestine Solidarity Committee - Naaziem Adam, Palestine Solidarity Alliance - Asha Moodley, Board member of Agenda feminist journal - Suraya Bibi Khan, Palestine Solidarity Alliance - Nazir Osman, Palestine Solidarity Alliance - Allan Horwitz, Jewish Voices - Jackie Dugard, legal and human rights activist - Professor Alan and Beata Lipman - Caroline O’Reilly, researcher - Jane Lipman - Shereen Mills, Human rights lawyer, Centre for Applied Legal Studies - Noor Nieftagodien, University of the Witwatersrand - Bobby Peek, Groundworks - Arnold Tsunga, Chair, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition - Mcebisi Skwatsha, Provincial Secretary, ANC Western Cape - Owen Manda, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg - Claire Cerruti, Keep Left NB: Organisational affiliations above are for identification purposes only and do not necessarily reflect organisational endorsement Organisational endorsements: - African National Congress - Al Quds Foundation - Anti-Privatisation Forum and its 28 affiliates - Azanian Peoples Organisation - Congress of South African Trade Unions - Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition - End Occupation Campaign - Groundworks - Media Review Network - Muslim Judicial Council - Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa - Not In My Name - Palestine Solidarity Alliance - Palestine Solidarity Committee - Palestine Solidarity Group - Social Movements Indaba - Socialist Party of Azania - South African Communist Party - South African Council of Churches source: palestinemonitor.org