Monday, December 27, 2004
Lying About Israel And Apartheid by Joh Domingo
The term "apartheid" is very often used by Israel's critics to describe the social and political system of Israel. Seeing as though it is a term coined in a specific historical and geographical setting, it is important to understand what is involved in the analogies between South African apartheid and that which we call Israeli apartheid. Part of the task of comprehending what our paragons entail is to look into specific elements of the South African liberation struggle. Unless we lived in South Africa, it isn't easy to know specifically what that environment was about and the roles that the various players had.
In this article, long, but definitely worth the read in order to glean some new insights, Joh Domingo tells us about the roles that journalists and activists played. Many claimed that they were against Apartheid all along, but there is much documentation that demonstrates the contrary. And, worse, many will not recognise that the oppression of the Palestinian people is different and much more heinous in nature, notwithstanding the evidence.
Joh Domingo is a South African born Muslim with roots in the full spectrum of the varied racial mix that makes up the South African milieu. His background traverses the divide between his traditional African tribal kin and the rich cultural influences of colonial East Asia. His maternal grandfather was the sibling of a Methodist Scottish priest, and was a Methodist priest himself. His paternal grandfather was an indentured Indian sugar cane worker from Madras, India who provides him his religious background. He married a South African born Chinese/African Christian and has two adult daughters and a teenaged son.
Joh cut his political teeth during the upheaval of 1970's South African revolution. He was the inaugural President of the Black Students Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, in 1974 and held that post until 1977. During this period he also served as editor in chief of the society's magazine "By Ministerial Consent" (a reference to the Government permission required for a Black Person to attend a White University in Apartheid South Africa.). He was a member of both the South African Students Organisation and the Black Peoples Convention. His studies were cut short in 1977 after his consent to attend university and his Scholarship were withdrawn. In 1980 he married his childhood sweetheart and in 1985 they left South Africa after being granted permission to migrate to Australia. Joh is a Building Contractor in Brisbane, Australia. He still believes that the "Black Consciousness" Soweto Uprising of 1976 was the defining moment in the demise of the Apartheid System, paving the way for the broader based African National Congress, which had been rendered moribund by ideological battles, to re-energize itself and exert its more experienced political leadership. There is little doubt in his mind that political change begins at the grassroots level.
Benjamin Pogrund, Director of the Israeli Yakar Center for Social Concern, is invariably introduced as a former journalist of the 'Anti-Apartheid' Morning Newspaper 'The Rand Daily Mail', Johannesburg that closed its doors in the Mid 1980's. (It must be after 1985, because it was still going strong in 1985, when I left South Africa). He is also the author of How Can Man die Better: Sobukwe and Apartheid. He has recently published War Of Words, a History of Journalism in Apartheid South Africa. Pogrund makes much of the fact that he was 'anti-Apartheid' whenever he presents his advocacy for Israel's 'Right to Exist', and has consistently campaigned against equating Zionism and Racism. At the Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001, he lobbied extensively against the Zionism=Racism resolution, and today provides much of the rhetorical subject matter for Zionist lobby groups to utilize in their campaign to 'debunk' the Zionism=Racism argument. On October 24th 2004, he published a piece in the Guardian entitled "Israel and the Apartheid Lie" which is not online. However, a reprint in the sister Newspaper The Taipei Times is, and is available here.
A little background about the liberal press in Apartheid South Africa is in order, because it seems that the title 'anti-Apartheid' is being bandied about as if all liberal Newspapers in Apartheid South Africa were equal; indeed, that all 'anti-Apartheid' reporters and Editors were the same. If 'Apartheid' is used as a 'swear word' according to Pogrund, then the word 'anti-Apartheid' is being used to veil what was entirely a pro-White discourse; except that 'White' in this case really meant liberal 'White' people. They were decidedly anti-White Nationalists - 'Good' Whites as opposed to 'Bad' Whites. They were opposed to the 'Bad White' man's Apartheid, but never supported 'One Man, One vote'. Not even liberal icon, Helen Suzman, despite the perception, supported 'One Man, One Vote'. [1] The kindest interpretation that could be placed on it is that they were against the worst manifestations of Apartheid. Benjamin Pogrund is today in the same camp he has always been in; he is for a kinder, gentler version of Apartheid; just don't call it 'Apartheid', it is a swear word.
The White liberal Press, with one notable exception, were entirely Eurocentric in their opinions. The exception being the 'Daily Dispatch' in the Eastern Cape under the Editorship of Donald Woods, who published the opinion of Steve Biko under a pseudonym, after he was 'banned' and political activity became unlawful for him.[2] There also existed several 'Black' Newspapers, owned by Whites, who published severely censored Daily Editions that mainly dealt with Sport, and 'Township' news. Around 1978, The Rand Daily Mail produced a 'township edition', which in 1981 lead to the sacking of its editor, Allister Sparks, after the White Board decided that they wanted to focus exclusively on a White readership.[3]
Pogrund, whose bio incessantly repeats that 'he brought the words of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe to the Rand Daily Mail', is a FRAUD. I grew up in South Africa and lived the struggle from 1969 to 1985, and NEVER came across the words of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe in any newspaper whatsoever. It was prohibited since 1961 and before. The only publications in South Africa that carried quotes from the Rivonia Trails were underground publications of the ANC, and more frequently, by the pamphlets that were mass-produced by the Black Consciousness Movement. Hundreds of BC activists served jail terms for possession of these pamphlets; it was grounds for extended detentions without trail, and de facto evidence that you were ANC. No Jewish Journalist published a word of it in their White Newspapers. No picture of Nelson Mandela was ever published in a newspaper during and after the Rivonia Trails. Until he was released in 1991. Black people in South Africa did not know what he looked like. There was no such a thing as an 'Anti-Apartheid' White newspaper in Apartheid South Africa.[4]
Pogrund copyrights all his work, and maintains an archive of information that relates to his work in South Africa. But he also maintains an online collection of mainly public domain information; mainly about the Jewish 'Black Sash' anti-apartheid group, and information about the ANC and the Rivonia Trails.[5] There seems to be no online record of his daily Journalistic work, and I cannot remember any of it. While I can still recall his byline in the Rand Daily Mail after all these years, it did not at the time strike me as being particularly 'anti-Apartheid', and reading him today, one can still decipher his 'political opposition' tone. It was 'progressive', only in the loosest interpretation of the term. From a Black point of View, it was firmly in the 'establishment' camp. 'Establishment' in Apartheid South Africa was for White privilege, and if it sought the dismantling of the 'system', it was for doing it in a way that did not threaten white privilege. Pogrund, today, is more focussed; he wants to preserve Jewish privilege. White privilege in South Africa is a lost cause, and it explains his residence in Israel, where he can lobby for compassionate Zionist Racism.
It is also important to recognize the role of South African Jewish liberalism in the dismantling of the Apartheid System; it is worse than negligible. While they have an impressive and carefully documented record of opposition to Apartheid, they have no record of actual achievements.[6] The South African Regime, while Racist, had a clearly defined policy of compassionate Apartheid. They sincerely believed in it, and were perplexed that Black people did not see that they had their best interests at heart. They were often dismayed at the practical effects of Apartheid. If there were some way to avoid its practical effects, and its worst effects, they would not have hesitated to make it policy. If they were a majority, as Jews are within the green line in Israel, the system would probably not have mirrored Zionism. A fundamental difference between liberal and White Nationalist opinion was that the former saw their subjects as human, while the latter saw them as sub-human, incapable of rational thought. Both saw them as being incapable of civilized behavior.
This mirrors the major difference between the Likud/Labor wing on the one hand, and the Tikkun factions on the other. Black rioters threw rocks through the windscreens of the Nationalist 'bakkies' and liberal BMW's (Break My Windows) without distinction. The symbolic target defended by the South African Defense forces was not the working class Afrikaner neighborhoods, but the mansions of Houghton, Helen Suzman's Jewish neighborhood (and, I would hazard a guess, Benjamin Pogrund's).
South African Zionists furtively use the revolutionary credentials of people like Ronnie Kasrils as cover for their extensive revisionism when it comes to the anti-Apartheid struggle, while obliquely denouncing him in the Jewish press for his consistent views about Israel.[7] They also play on the sentimentality of the old-guard of the ANC, who eschew anti-Semitism precisely because of the involvement of Jewish people like Kasrils, Ruth First and Joe Slovo, and who formed the backbone of the Communist wing of the ANC, in the liberation movement. But, the younger generation ANC leaders, in the main, cut their teeth in the Black Conscious Movement within South Africa, and are not inclined to view South African Jewish liberal revisionism so tolerantly. They know the sacrifice made by their colleagues, and know that internal liberalism played a negligible role in the dismantling of Apartheid. [8]
Zionism within Israel follows the predictable path of any Apartheid system, and Pogrund dissimulates excessively when he attempts to use his anti-Apartheid 'credentials' as apologia for it. Iqbal Jassat, in an article in Mediamonitors about Pogrun, makes the observation:
"he (Pogrund) goes even further by claiming that anyone who says that Israel is apartheid does not appreciate what apartheid was. Well, was there anyone better qualified than the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd to recognize similar socio-political constructs in other countries? He observed that the Zionists "... took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them, Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state." [Rand Daily Mail, 23 November 1961]". [9]
The Rand Daily Mail is Pogrunds main claim to fame; surely he could not have missed the article?
Pogrund makes a play at suggesting that the Zionism=Apartheid rhetoric posits Israel as an 'emerging Apartheid', when clearly, as suggested by the architect of Apartheid in 1961, it was already an Apartheid system, and emerged simultaneously with Apartheid in South Africa. Both emerged directly from a British Colonial situation: Israel in 1947, Apartheid in 1948. They both emerged as a response to Native reaction to colonial conquest. In the case of South Africa, it was the inexorable migration of Africans to the cities, which threatened to 'overwhelm' White society. In Israel, it was to establish a regime that protected the right of Jews to rule themselves in the face of a democratic threat from the non-Jewish population. Jews may be a majority within Israel today, but there is demographic parity within the area of the British Mandate. In 1947, Jews were a distinct minority in Israel, even within the Jewish partition area. The parallels are uncanny.
'Revisionism' has become a dirty word, yet, if the record is being distorted, it should be put right. Falsifying the record, however, is dirty, especially when you proclaim yourself to be at the center of a major historical event. The Jewish community in South Africa has shown itself to be partial to arranging the historical record so as to present themselves as being front and center of the liberation movement in South Africa.[10] There is no denying that many Jews, often representing the Jewish Community, did their level best to alleviate the suffering of Black People during the Apartheid era. Some even went so far as to treat their domestic servants humanely. The Black Sash and Parliamentarians like Helen Suzman made careers out of criticizing Apartheid. But an examination of the record reveals a sordid particularism, and their apologia for Zionism exposes the hypocrisy of their opposition to White Afrikaner Nationalism (aka Apartheid).[11] Benjamin Pogrund's revisionism is particularly dirty, because he uses his documented opposition to White Afrikaner Nationalism, in order to defend Jewish Social Nationalism in Israel. In doing so he exposes the extent of his opposition to Apartheid; one should merely reflect on what effect Afrikaner Nationalists angry denunciations of the comparisons of Apartheid to Nazism had. Did he also denounce the linkage? He constantly uses the technique of comparing the vilest manifestations of Apartheid, with Israel's supposed saving graces. He compares Israel's anomalous Democracy with South Africa's anomalous Democracy, seemingly impervious to their parallel development. Through it all, we detect a desperate muddying of the waters. Is parliamentary accountability democracy? Is democracy the only system that holds parliamentarians and members of the government accountable? Pogrund seems to believe so, and uses the wand of democracy to provide a kosher sticker for one of the vilest social systems the west has ever produced.
Apartheid was a 'democracy', every bit as 'democratic' as Israel was. Apartheid was merely the natural democratic progression of the colonial regime that went before. In 1948, the ruling United Party (from which the Jewish dominated 'Progressive Liberal Party' emerged as a breakaway faction in 1959) went to the election with a platform based on the report of the Native Laws Commission chaired by Judge Henry Fagan. This Commission argued that because of the mass migration of Africans to the cities, and the impoverishment of the Native reserves (the building block of the Apartheid Bantustan policy), total segregation was impossible. But they never called for social and political integration. The National party, led by Daniel Malan won the elections on a platform of total segregation.[12]
If we are do a direct comparison between the development of Apartheid, and the development of Zionism, we can compare, in the first instance, the unity of representative political parties in each. The political parties in each country shared a unity of policy regarding the non-represented people. In both countries, non-represented people were to remain disenfranchised: a policy of both government and opposition representative parties. In Israel, as well as in South Africa, native people were excluded from the political process. Africans did not vote in parliamentary elections until 1994, after Apartheid voted to dismantle the system. Vast majority of Palestinians does not vote in parliamentary elections - only children of 1948' survivors have the right, while the refugees, and the native population of the West Bank and Gaza have no right to vote in Israeli elections.
Benjamin Pogrund makes much of this supposed distinction between Zionism (as represented in Israel) and Apartheid.
"A crucial indicator of the status of Israel's minority is that Arabs have the vote black South Africans did not."
Pogrund is utilising the legal sham of 'occupied territories' versus 'real Israel'; but all these territories are ruled by the Jews and majority of non-Jews has no right of vote. And in the South Africa, Blacks voted in 2002, as they did in 1994 and 1998. Timing is crucial. Jewish parliamentarians, amongst others, became the de facto representatives of Africans in the Apartheid parliament. In 1972, Mixed Race and Indian Parties were allowed to contest elections for representation in separate 'parliaments' - 'Tri-Cameral parliament'. In 1994, the ANC became the governing party in Apartheid South Africa, thereby abolishing Apartheid; Israel is still an Apartheid Zionist State. But, give the dog a bone, at least some Israeli Arabs can now vote.
It is quite possible to compare Israel with South Africa, in 1972 say, and find minute differences in Israel's favor. But compare Israel and South Africa during the period 1948-2004, and there is significant weighting in favor of Apartheid South Africa. In fact, on balance, South African Apartheid comes out significantly better on a number of indicators: freedom of movement, housing, education, medical benefits, employment, transport, property ownership and freedom of religion. South Africa's Apartheid Civil Rights record is abysmal, with wide disparity between the upholding of the civil rights of Blacks as opposed to Whites; but, there are many South Africans who count their blessings when they finally understand exactly what the Palestinians had been going through.[13]
Pogrund uses deceptive and misleading statistics to bolster his case when doing his comparison on a number of these indicators, and I will deal with them in order.
BANTUSTANS: "The situations inside and outside the Green Line, the borders determined by the 1967 war, are intertwined but separate. First, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is the occupier and no occupation is benign. Everyone is suffering -- Palestinians as victims and Israelis as perpetrators. Everyone suffers deaths and maimings."
Here Pogrund attempts to gloss over the most glaring example of the politicide exposed by Israel's Apartheid system. The West Bank and Gaza, are not 'occupied territories' but an extension of Israel's colonization of the entire British mandated area. They are only 'occupied' in the sense that Israel wants the land, without the people. It varies from Apartheid's bantustans only by virtue of the fact that Israel is geographically small, while South Africa is large. If Israel was larger, it would have its bantustans, and there would not be an Arab in Israel. As it is, the clamor in Israel is to make Jordan its bantustan.
He goes on to detail the differences between the 'occupied territories' and the Bantustans. Apartheid invented the bantustans to pen the Africans into 'defined reservoirs of labor'. Israel uses the 'occupied territories' to 'keep Palestinians out’.
But is that really the reason Apartheid invented the bantustans? A shortage of Labor was never, and is not now, a problem in South Africa. South Africa, and Israel, maintained a regime of separation for precisely the same reason: demographics. South Africa created the bantustan concept in order to deprive Black South Africans of South African citizenship. Israel maintains it is to prevent Palestinians in Palestine, from a common citizenship with Jews in Palestine; thereby nullifying the idea of Israel as a 'Jewish State'. [14] South Africans were deluded, but yet they still held out hope that it would somehow work. Israel is quite convinced they can pull it off, although I wonder how? I can't suppose they will use a bogus 'anti-Apartheid' journalist from a white South African newspaper to pull the wool over our eyes, can I?
SOCIAL SEPARATION: " ... Israel inside the Green Line. In South Africa pre-1994, skin color determined every single person's life: Where you were born, where you lived, which school you went to, which bus, train, beach, hospital, library, park bench and public toilet you used, with whom you could have sex, what you could study, which jobs you had and hence how much you could earn and ultimately, where you were buried."
Apartheid was renowned for the regulations forbidding social interaction between the races. In many ways elements of this social separation persist today. But, Apartheid did not work … because Apartheid does not work. You could not separate the races; you could only separate racists. Most South Africans were not racists to the extent that they required minute regulation to enforce the pettier aspects of it. Pogrund should be aware that by the 1970's, South Africa began abandoning many of its 'Petty Apartheid' regulations.[15] The Immorality Act, forbidding miscegenation, was abandoned in the late 1970's. The Group Areas Act was repealed in 1988. Blacks and Whites continued to freely intermingle in the streets, at parties, at work and in educational institutions. Far from being an integrated nirvana, South Africa was nevertheless an interracial society. It was not unusual to find Black people in numbers on the streets of the most exclusive White suburbs; even during the worst violence of the nationwide uprising; ongoing since 1976. Africans were never prevented from leaving Soweto, and formerly exclusive White inner suburbs saw an influx of Black residents by 1980. This, even though planted bombs was a way of life and regularly killed White people.
This tortured list of distinctive differences provided by Pogrund, becomes even more so when one is forced to compare Israeli society against it. Surely he is not suggesting that they are inapplicable in Israel? Surely he is not suggesting that it matters not, whether one is born Palestinian, or Jewish, in the Jewish State?
DEMOGRAPHICS: Apologists for Israel often refer to the differences between the demographics of Israel and South Africa to suggest that one is worse than the other. Palestinians in Israel are a minority: "In Israel, Arabs are approximately 20 percent of the population. In theory they have full citizenship rights but in practice they suffer extensive discrimination".
South Africa's then Prime Minister, John Voster, in 1966, also claimed that 'Apartheid' was merely 'Separate Development’. "Separate but equal." The whole world laughed to his face. Zionists claim that it is 'unequal' but 'not separate.' It is a distinction without a difference, and equally laughable. It would not be 'unequal', if it were not 'separate'. Setting aside this consequential argument, is it really better, when a majority oppresses a minority, or worse? Is it a recommendation that you oppress, when there is no requirement for it? It is still an open challenge for purported Israeli Jewish Human Rights Champions, to champion the Right of Return for those Israeli Arabs, 'legally equal citizens', to their former homes within Israel. It is the least they can do to salve their conscience.
"Anyone who says that Israel is apartheid does not appreciate what apartheid was." Iqbal Jassat puts it well: ". Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a commentary published by the Guardian, observed that Israelis were 'treating Palestinians in the same way the apartheid South African government treated blacks.' Testimonies from both the oppressor as well as the victim, provided separately over a time span of four decades, cannot be dismissed by suggesting that they knew nothing about apartheid!"[9] Pogrund continues along similar lines with: "Israel has a Jewish majority and they have the right to decide how to order the society, including defining citizenship."
Because Jews are a majority in Israel, they have the right to exclude the minority. It is a demand to leave the geopolitical order of things in Israel as it is, and an argument to preserve the racist characteristics of the Jewish State, which Pogrund, while admitting to it, insists is not like Apartheid's racism. According to him, Israel is a democracy, and democracies vote on things like abandoning State Racism. He conveniently ignores that by this yardstick, the Apartheid regime was infinitely more democratic than Israeli Zionism, despite the ability of the minority Arabs to vote, because they actually voted to abandon the Apartheid regime. There seems to be absolutely no possibility that Israel will vote to abandon Zionism.
To further bolster his argument, he uses the example of Saudi Arabia, which restricts citizenship. Presumably, we are to assume that Saudi Arabia restricts citizenship to Muslims, which is patently not the case. Saudi Arabia has thousands of non-Muslim workers, who have recently been granted the right to Saudi citizenship, if they have resided in the country for more than 10 years.[16] The exceptions, of course, are Palestinians, and Jews. This does not make Saudi Arabia a beacon of tolerance and democracy; but it must hurt when canards are shown to be just that, and you are fond of utilizing them. His equivalence falls short even when he utilizes such a poor example: Israel just does not stack up, even against the worse examples.
He does not run out of bad examples: "as Burundi and Rwanda, or India in 1947, erupt into terrible violence. Greece has an estimated 200,000 Roma who enjoy almost none of the benefits that other Greeks take for granted. Christians are targeted for attack in Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia and China" But, "A crucial indicator of the status of Israel's minority is that Arabs have the vote black South Africans did not."
And a crucial difference is that South Africa did not practice genocide on their Black people.
"One (bad) example: Mosawa (The Center for Equal Rights for the Arab Population in Israel), acting on a recent law banning discrimination, has launched court action against a Web site offering jobs to Jews only."
Benji, my man, South Africa abolished job reservation in 1979.[17] Surely you know that! It makes little difference, if an employer really wants to employ a member of a particular race. All this 'democracy' only matters if the voters vote to abolish inequality and in the case of Israel, if they vote to dismantle the 'Jewish State'. Blacks in South Africa were winning anti-discrimination lawsuits in the 1970's. They had the right to unionize by 1979. It made little difference, as it was the balance of power and the monopoly of resources that determined who was in charge. There was class, as well as racial politics at work.
His life expectancy comparison is a monumental fraud. Manipulating such figures is a national pastime in Israel. Here, he posits that the difference between the life expectancy between Arabs and people in European countries is a negative 4.8 years (74.4 years as opposed to 69.6). The evidence suggests that it is despite Israel, rather than because of Israel. Life expectancy in the West Bank is now 71 years from a 1967 low of 44 years, despite a concerted campaign by the IDF to lower it. Jordan's is 75 years. Arab mortality in Israel 7 per thousand, and 33 per thousand in the West Bank. These figures would be significant if there were a wide discrepancy, absent that they signify nothing. South Africa used similar comparisons to veil the widespread Kwashiorkor and malnutrition in African communities. They always compared them to the most impoverished African States. A striking similarity between the apologist for Apartheid, and the apologist for Israel.
SEPARATION (APARTHEID) BARRIER: Here Pogrund is more or less on the mark, the barrier has no comparison to anything found in the Apartheid regime. It is nevertheless an Apartheid wall. The worst that can be said is that is something that the Apartheid regime would have invented, if they had thought of it, or had a use for it; which, is hardly a recommendation for Zionism. Israel justifies it on the grounds that it 'saves Jewish lives'. But, the White population of Apartheid South Africa stood at approximately 6 million people; roughly equivalent to Israel's Jewish population (more or less) and suffered casualties which are as significant, if not worse, than those suffered by Israel. Yet, penning Black people into vast open-air prisons was never contemplated as a possible policy.
It has become fashionable for people to proclaim themselves to be 'anti-Apartheid' and one would be hard-pressed to find anybody today, who was not 'anti-Apartheid' in the South African Apartheid era. One merely had to exist, to have an opinion of it, one way, or another. But Apartheid had its champions, and could not have survived for so long without significant support. Not least of all was the support it received from Israel.
The true test is the test of time, and time has exposed many of the 'anti-Apartheid' activists for what they are. 'Anti Apartheid' campaigner Peter Hain is now a champion of colonial exploitation and intervention in Iraq, and a vital cog in Tony Blair's neo-colonial regime. Helen Suzman believes in confronting racism, except when it means confronting Israeli racism. Alana Mercer decries racism in her former homeland, and she does not mean Israel. Pogrund revises history, to portray himself as the champion that liberated Black people in South Africa. He pretended to do so then, and he pretends to be a humanitarian champion in Israel now. But, he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/16/wsuz16.xml.. Suzman made her name criticizing the Apartheid regime, but were never heard her detailing precisely what her 'liberal' beliefs entailed. She never directly champions 'equal' political representation. This is one of the few instances where she reveals what she had in mind: "I used to be a fan of proportional representation, but I am not at all now I have seen it in action." Proportional representation is another form of 'group rights', on which Apartheid was based. For decades she basked in the limelight as the de facto 'proportional' representative' of Black rights in a White Parliament.
[2] http://journ.ru.ac.za/rjr/Berger_story2.html First alluded to in the Movie 'Cry Freedom', this detail is often left out of biographies of Donald Woods. It was revolutionary in the 1970's South Africa to present black opinion in White Newspapers. But Biko was nothing, if he was not a revolutionary. Donald rapidly evolved from a 'bleeding heart liberal' and became that most dangerous of individuals: a White Revolutionary Sympathizer. Pogrund was nothing of the sort; he gave his White liberal views, on Black opinion.
[3] http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/AuthorBiography.aspx?AuthorId=436 Rand Daily Mail Editors seem to all fall under the spell. On the June 2001, another former Rand Daily Mail Editor, Raymond Louw commented on the Racism in Israel being worse that the most extreme excesses of Apartheid. Allister Sparks caused a uproar when he similarly compared the situation in Israel to South Africa. http://www.indcatholicnews.com/haretz.html He also wrote an article proposing a Single State Solution on 24th May 2004 based on the South African experience.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001936701_allister24.html
[4] http://africanhistory.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-banned.htm
[5] http://www.crl.edu/areastudies/CAMP/collections/Pogrund.doc
[6] http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/38771/index.php The link is tongue in cheek. Liberals claim nothing less than being the linchpin that underpinned liberation of Black South Africa. They did not actually do anything, except annoy the Conservative National party with their incessant nagging. No prisoners were released, no laws were changed; not one liberal reform was implemented until the total surrender of the Apartheid regime to the historical imperative. It is always argued that 'International opinion' caused the capitulation, but sometimes, some things are just not worth the bother. The country was becoming ungovernable.
[7] http://www.shmuley.com/index.php?section=article&id=62Jews as the personification of perpetual, pre-eminent victims: "Want to see Apartheid? I'll show you Apartheid"
[8] http://www.news24.com/News24/Columnists/Jon_Qwelane/0,,2-1630-1633_1603086,00.html
[9] http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/10832/
[10] http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/jewish/biblio.php3?srcid=2
[11] http://www.google.com
[12] http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/specialprojects/Luli/Place-in-the-city/Unit4/unit4.htm
[13] http://www.juancole.com/2002_12_01_juancole_archive.html#85322725
"At a conference in South Africa, State Minister Ronny Kasrils, himself a Jew, condemned Israel's treatment of Palestinians and said it was actually worse than the Apartheid government's treatment of blacks in South Africa had been."
[14] http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart/political/27.5.94_TheEraOfYellowTerritories.html ... The obvious similarities do not escape the observant. Tanya Reinhart has an irritating habit on insisting on her perceptiveness. "All blacks were considered citizens of Bantustans, making them "foreigners" in South Africa and deprived of their electoral and social rights. The situation created by the Gaza and Jericho agreement, signed this May (1994) in Cairo, is almost identical."
[15 http://au.encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArtTextonly.aspx?refid=761561373&find=1
[16] http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/23-10-2004/main/main9.htm
[17] http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa081.html "With the Industrial Conciliation Acts of 1979 and 1981, South African labor law was largely deracialized."
In this article, long, but definitely worth the read in order to glean some new insights, Joh Domingo tells us about the roles that journalists and activists played. Many claimed that they were against Apartheid all along, but there is much documentation that demonstrates the contrary. And, worse, many will not recognise that the oppression of the Palestinian people is different and much more heinous in nature, notwithstanding the evidence.
Joh Domingo is a South African born Muslim with roots in the full spectrum of the varied racial mix that makes up the South African milieu. His background traverses the divide between his traditional African tribal kin and the rich cultural influences of colonial East Asia. His maternal grandfather was the sibling of a Methodist Scottish priest, and was a Methodist priest himself. His paternal grandfather was an indentured Indian sugar cane worker from Madras, India who provides him his religious background. He married a South African born Chinese/African Christian and has two adult daughters and a teenaged son.
Joh cut his political teeth during the upheaval of 1970's South African revolution. He was the inaugural President of the Black Students Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, in 1974 and held that post until 1977. During this period he also served as editor in chief of the society's magazine "By Ministerial Consent" (a reference to the Government permission required for a Black Person to attend a White University in Apartheid South Africa.). He was a member of both the South African Students Organisation and the Black Peoples Convention. His studies were cut short in 1977 after his consent to attend university and his Scholarship were withdrawn. In 1980 he married his childhood sweetheart and in 1985 they left South Africa after being granted permission to migrate to Australia. Joh is a Building Contractor in Brisbane, Australia. He still believes that the "Black Consciousness" Soweto Uprising of 1976 was the defining moment in the demise of the Apartheid System, paving the way for the broader based African National Congress, which had been rendered moribund by ideological battles, to re-energize itself and exert its more experienced political leadership. There is little doubt in his mind that political change begins at the grassroots level.
Benjamin Pogrund, Director of the Israeli Yakar Center for Social Concern, is invariably introduced as a former journalist of the 'Anti-Apartheid' Morning Newspaper 'The Rand Daily Mail', Johannesburg that closed its doors in the Mid 1980's. (It must be after 1985, because it was still going strong in 1985, when I left South Africa). He is also the author of How Can Man die Better: Sobukwe and Apartheid. He has recently published War Of Words, a History of Journalism in Apartheid South Africa. Pogrund makes much of the fact that he was 'anti-Apartheid' whenever he presents his advocacy for Israel's 'Right to Exist', and has consistently campaigned against equating Zionism and Racism. At the Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001, he lobbied extensively against the Zionism=Racism resolution, and today provides much of the rhetorical subject matter for Zionist lobby groups to utilize in their campaign to 'debunk' the Zionism=Racism argument. On October 24th 2004, he published a piece in the Guardian entitled "Israel and the Apartheid Lie" which is not online. However, a reprint in the sister Newspaper The Taipei Times is, and is available here.
A little background about the liberal press in Apartheid South Africa is in order, because it seems that the title 'anti-Apartheid' is being bandied about as if all liberal Newspapers in Apartheid South Africa were equal; indeed, that all 'anti-Apartheid' reporters and Editors were the same. If 'Apartheid' is used as a 'swear word' according to Pogrund, then the word 'anti-Apartheid' is being used to veil what was entirely a pro-White discourse; except that 'White' in this case really meant liberal 'White' people. They were decidedly anti-White Nationalists - 'Good' Whites as opposed to 'Bad' Whites. They were opposed to the 'Bad White' man's Apartheid, but never supported 'One Man, One vote'. Not even liberal icon, Helen Suzman, despite the perception, supported 'One Man, One Vote'. [1] The kindest interpretation that could be placed on it is that they were against the worst manifestations of Apartheid. Benjamin Pogrund is today in the same camp he has always been in; he is for a kinder, gentler version of Apartheid; just don't call it 'Apartheid', it is a swear word.
The White liberal Press, with one notable exception, were entirely Eurocentric in their opinions. The exception being the 'Daily Dispatch' in the Eastern Cape under the Editorship of Donald Woods, who published the opinion of Steve Biko under a pseudonym, after he was 'banned' and political activity became unlawful for him.[2] There also existed several 'Black' Newspapers, owned by Whites, who published severely censored Daily Editions that mainly dealt with Sport, and 'Township' news. Around 1978, The Rand Daily Mail produced a 'township edition', which in 1981 lead to the sacking of its editor, Allister Sparks, after the White Board decided that they wanted to focus exclusively on a White readership.[3]
Pogrund, whose bio incessantly repeats that 'he brought the words of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe to the Rand Daily Mail', is a FRAUD. I grew up in South Africa and lived the struggle from 1969 to 1985, and NEVER came across the words of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe in any newspaper whatsoever. It was prohibited since 1961 and before. The only publications in South Africa that carried quotes from the Rivonia Trails were underground publications of the ANC, and more frequently, by the pamphlets that were mass-produced by the Black Consciousness Movement. Hundreds of BC activists served jail terms for possession of these pamphlets; it was grounds for extended detentions without trail, and de facto evidence that you were ANC. No Jewish Journalist published a word of it in their White Newspapers. No picture of Nelson Mandela was ever published in a newspaper during and after the Rivonia Trails. Until he was released in 1991. Black people in South Africa did not know what he looked like. There was no such a thing as an 'Anti-Apartheid' White newspaper in Apartheid South Africa.[4]
Pogrund copyrights all his work, and maintains an archive of information that relates to his work in South Africa. But he also maintains an online collection of mainly public domain information; mainly about the Jewish 'Black Sash' anti-apartheid group, and information about the ANC and the Rivonia Trails.[5] There seems to be no online record of his daily Journalistic work, and I cannot remember any of it. While I can still recall his byline in the Rand Daily Mail after all these years, it did not at the time strike me as being particularly 'anti-Apartheid', and reading him today, one can still decipher his 'political opposition' tone. It was 'progressive', only in the loosest interpretation of the term. From a Black point of View, it was firmly in the 'establishment' camp. 'Establishment' in Apartheid South Africa was for White privilege, and if it sought the dismantling of the 'system', it was for doing it in a way that did not threaten white privilege. Pogrund, today, is more focussed; he wants to preserve Jewish privilege. White privilege in South Africa is a lost cause, and it explains his residence in Israel, where he can lobby for compassionate Zionist Racism.
It is also important to recognize the role of South African Jewish liberalism in the dismantling of the Apartheid System; it is worse than negligible. While they have an impressive and carefully documented record of opposition to Apartheid, they have no record of actual achievements.[6] The South African Regime, while Racist, had a clearly defined policy of compassionate Apartheid. They sincerely believed in it, and were perplexed that Black people did not see that they had their best interests at heart. They were often dismayed at the practical effects of Apartheid. If there were some way to avoid its practical effects, and its worst effects, they would not have hesitated to make it policy. If they were a majority, as Jews are within the green line in Israel, the system would probably not have mirrored Zionism. A fundamental difference between liberal and White Nationalist opinion was that the former saw their subjects as human, while the latter saw them as sub-human, incapable of rational thought. Both saw them as being incapable of civilized behavior.
This mirrors the major difference between the Likud/Labor wing on the one hand, and the Tikkun factions on the other. Black rioters threw rocks through the windscreens of the Nationalist 'bakkies' and liberal BMW's (Break My Windows) without distinction. The symbolic target defended by the South African Defense forces was not the working class Afrikaner neighborhoods, but the mansions of Houghton, Helen Suzman's Jewish neighborhood (and, I would hazard a guess, Benjamin Pogrund's).
South African Zionists furtively use the revolutionary credentials of people like Ronnie Kasrils as cover for their extensive revisionism when it comes to the anti-Apartheid struggle, while obliquely denouncing him in the Jewish press for his consistent views about Israel.[7] They also play on the sentimentality of the old-guard of the ANC, who eschew anti-Semitism precisely because of the involvement of Jewish people like Kasrils, Ruth First and Joe Slovo, and who formed the backbone of the Communist wing of the ANC, in the liberation movement. But, the younger generation ANC leaders, in the main, cut their teeth in the Black Conscious Movement within South Africa, and are not inclined to view South African Jewish liberal revisionism so tolerantly. They know the sacrifice made by their colleagues, and know that internal liberalism played a negligible role in the dismantling of Apartheid. [8]
Zionism within Israel follows the predictable path of any Apartheid system, and Pogrund dissimulates excessively when he attempts to use his anti-Apartheid 'credentials' as apologia for it. Iqbal Jassat, in an article in Mediamonitors about Pogrun, makes the observation:
"he (Pogrund) goes even further by claiming that anyone who says that Israel is apartheid does not appreciate what apartheid was. Well, was there anyone better qualified than the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd to recognize similar socio-political constructs in other countries? He observed that the Zionists "... took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them, Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state." [Rand Daily Mail, 23 November 1961]". [9]
The Rand Daily Mail is Pogrunds main claim to fame; surely he could not have missed the article?
Pogrund makes a play at suggesting that the Zionism=Apartheid rhetoric posits Israel as an 'emerging Apartheid', when clearly, as suggested by the architect of Apartheid in 1961, it was already an Apartheid system, and emerged simultaneously with Apartheid in South Africa. Both emerged directly from a British Colonial situation: Israel in 1947, Apartheid in 1948. They both emerged as a response to Native reaction to colonial conquest. In the case of South Africa, it was the inexorable migration of Africans to the cities, which threatened to 'overwhelm' White society. In Israel, it was to establish a regime that protected the right of Jews to rule themselves in the face of a democratic threat from the non-Jewish population. Jews may be a majority within Israel today, but there is demographic parity within the area of the British Mandate. In 1947, Jews were a distinct minority in Israel, even within the Jewish partition area. The parallels are uncanny.
'Revisionism' has become a dirty word, yet, if the record is being distorted, it should be put right. Falsifying the record, however, is dirty, especially when you proclaim yourself to be at the center of a major historical event. The Jewish community in South Africa has shown itself to be partial to arranging the historical record so as to present themselves as being front and center of the liberation movement in South Africa.[10] There is no denying that many Jews, often representing the Jewish Community, did their level best to alleviate the suffering of Black People during the Apartheid era. Some even went so far as to treat their domestic servants humanely. The Black Sash and Parliamentarians like Helen Suzman made careers out of criticizing Apartheid. But an examination of the record reveals a sordid particularism, and their apologia for Zionism exposes the hypocrisy of their opposition to White Afrikaner Nationalism (aka Apartheid).[11] Benjamin Pogrund's revisionism is particularly dirty, because he uses his documented opposition to White Afrikaner Nationalism, in order to defend Jewish Social Nationalism in Israel. In doing so he exposes the extent of his opposition to Apartheid; one should merely reflect on what effect Afrikaner Nationalists angry denunciations of the comparisons of Apartheid to Nazism had. Did he also denounce the linkage? He constantly uses the technique of comparing the vilest manifestations of Apartheid, with Israel's supposed saving graces. He compares Israel's anomalous Democracy with South Africa's anomalous Democracy, seemingly impervious to their parallel development. Through it all, we detect a desperate muddying of the waters. Is parliamentary accountability democracy? Is democracy the only system that holds parliamentarians and members of the government accountable? Pogrund seems to believe so, and uses the wand of democracy to provide a kosher sticker for one of the vilest social systems the west has ever produced.
Apartheid was a 'democracy', every bit as 'democratic' as Israel was. Apartheid was merely the natural democratic progression of the colonial regime that went before. In 1948, the ruling United Party (from which the Jewish dominated 'Progressive Liberal Party' emerged as a breakaway faction in 1959) went to the election with a platform based on the report of the Native Laws Commission chaired by Judge Henry Fagan. This Commission argued that because of the mass migration of Africans to the cities, and the impoverishment of the Native reserves (the building block of the Apartheid Bantustan policy), total segregation was impossible. But they never called for social and political integration. The National party, led by Daniel Malan won the elections on a platform of total segregation.[12]
If we are do a direct comparison between the development of Apartheid, and the development of Zionism, we can compare, in the first instance, the unity of representative political parties in each. The political parties in each country shared a unity of policy regarding the non-represented people. In both countries, non-represented people were to remain disenfranchised: a policy of both government and opposition representative parties. In Israel, as well as in South Africa, native people were excluded from the political process. Africans did not vote in parliamentary elections until 1994, after Apartheid voted to dismantle the system. Vast majority of Palestinians does not vote in parliamentary elections - only children of 1948' survivors have the right, while the refugees, and the native population of the West Bank and Gaza have no right to vote in Israeli elections.
Benjamin Pogrund makes much of this supposed distinction between Zionism (as represented in Israel) and Apartheid.
"A crucial indicator of the status of Israel's minority is that Arabs have the vote black South Africans did not."
Pogrund is utilising the legal sham of 'occupied territories' versus 'real Israel'; but all these territories are ruled by the Jews and majority of non-Jews has no right of vote. And in the South Africa, Blacks voted in 2002, as they did in 1994 and 1998. Timing is crucial. Jewish parliamentarians, amongst others, became the de facto representatives of Africans in the Apartheid parliament. In 1972, Mixed Race and Indian Parties were allowed to contest elections for representation in separate 'parliaments' - 'Tri-Cameral parliament'. In 1994, the ANC became the governing party in Apartheid South Africa, thereby abolishing Apartheid; Israel is still an Apartheid Zionist State. But, give the dog a bone, at least some Israeli Arabs can now vote.
It is quite possible to compare Israel with South Africa, in 1972 say, and find minute differences in Israel's favor. But compare Israel and South Africa during the period 1948-2004, and there is significant weighting in favor of Apartheid South Africa. In fact, on balance, South African Apartheid comes out significantly better on a number of indicators: freedom of movement, housing, education, medical benefits, employment, transport, property ownership and freedom of religion. South Africa's Apartheid Civil Rights record is abysmal, with wide disparity between the upholding of the civil rights of Blacks as opposed to Whites; but, there are many South Africans who count their blessings when they finally understand exactly what the Palestinians had been going through.[13]
Pogrund uses deceptive and misleading statistics to bolster his case when doing his comparison on a number of these indicators, and I will deal with them in order.
BANTUSTANS: "The situations inside and outside the Green Line, the borders determined by the 1967 war, are intertwined but separate. First, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is the occupier and no occupation is benign. Everyone is suffering -- Palestinians as victims and Israelis as perpetrators. Everyone suffers deaths and maimings."
Here Pogrund attempts to gloss over the most glaring example of the politicide exposed by Israel's Apartheid system. The West Bank and Gaza, are not 'occupied territories' but an extension of Israel's colonization of the entire British mandated area. They are only 'occupied' in the sense that Israel wants the land, without the people. It varies from Apartheid's bantustans only by virtue of the fact that Israel is geographically small, while South Africa is large. If Israel was larger, it would have its bantustans, and there would not be an Arab in Israel. As it is, the clamor in Israel is to make Jordan its bantustan.
He goes on to detail the differences between the 'occupied territories' and the Bantustans. Apartheid invented the bantustans to pen the Africans into 'defined reservoirs of labor'. Israel uses the 'occupied territories' to 'keep Palestinians out’.
But is that really the reason Apartheid invented the bantustans? A shortage of Labor was never, and is not now, a problem in South Africa. South Africa, and Israel, maintained a regime of separation for precisely the same reason: demographics. South Africa created the bantustan concept in order to deprive Black South Africans of South African citizenship. Israel maintains it is to prevent Palestinians in Palestine, from a common citizenship with Jews in Palestine; thereby nullifying the idea of Israel as a 'Jewish State'. [14] South Africans were deluded, but yet they still held out hope that it would somehow work. Israel is quite convinced they can pull it off, although I wonder how? I can't suppose they will use a bogus 'anti-Apartheid' journalist from a white South African newspaper to pull the wool over our eyes, can I?
SOCIAL SEPARATION: " ... Israel inside the Green Line. In South Africa pre-1994, skin color determined every single person's life: Where you were born, where you lived, which school you went to, which bus, train, beach, hospital, library, park bench and public toilet you used, with whom you could have sex, what you could study, which jobs you had and hence how much you could earn and ultimately, where you were buried."
Apartheid was renowned for the regulations forbidding social interaction between the races. In many ways elements of this social separation persist today. But, Apartheid did not work … because Apartheid does not work. You could not separate the races; you could only separate racists. Most South Africans were not racists to the extent that they required minute regulation to enforce the pettier aspects of it. Pogrund should be aware that by the 1970's, South Africa began abandoning many of its 'Petty Apartheid' regulations.[15] The Immorality Act, forbidding miscegenation, was abandoned in the late 1970's. The Group Areas Act was repealed in 1988. Blacks and Whites continued to freely intermingle in the streets, at parties, at work and in educational institutions. Far from being an integrated nirvana, South Africa was nevertheless an interracial society. It was not unusual to find Black people in numbers on the streets of the most exclusive White suburbs; even during the worst violence of the nationwide uprising; ongoing since 1976. Africans were never prevented from leaving Soweto, and formerly exclusive White inner suburbs saw an influx of Black residents by 1980. This, even though planted bombs was a way of life and regularly killed White people.
This tortured list of distinctive differences provided by Pogrund, becomes even more so when one is forced to compare Israeli society against it. Surely he is not suggesting that they are inapplicable in Israel? Surely he is not suggesting that it matters not, whether one is born Palestinian, or Jewish, in the Jewish State?
DEMOGRAPHICS: Apologists for Israel often refer to the differences between the demographics of Israel and South Africa to suggest that one is worse than the other. Palestinians in Israel are a minority: "In Israel, Arabs are approximately 20 percent of the population. In theory they have full citizenship rights but in practice they suffer extensive discrimination".
South Africa's then Prime Minister, John Voster, in 1966, also claimed that 'Apartheid' was merely 'Separate Development’. "Separate but equal." The whole world laughed to his face. Zionists claim that it is 'unequal' but 'not separate.' It is a distinction without a difference, and equally laughable. It would not be 'unequal', if it were not 'separate'. Setting aside this consequential argument, is it really better, when a majority oppresses a minority, or worse? Is it a recommendation that you oppress, when there is no requirement for it? It is still an open challenge for purported Israeli Jewish Human Rights Champions, to champion the Right of Return for those Israeli Arabs, 'legally equal citizens', to their former homes within Israel. It is the least they can do to salve their conscience.
"Anyone who says that Israel is apartheid does not appreciate what apartheid was." Iqbal Jassat puts it well: ". Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a commentary published by the Guardian, observed that Israelis were 'treating Palestinians in the same way the apartheid South African government treated blacks.' Testimonies from both the oppressor as well as the victim, provided separately over a time span of four decades, cannot be dismissed by suggesting that they knew nothing about apartheid!"[9] Pogrund continues along similar lines with: "Israel has a Jewish majority and they have the right to decide how to order the society, including defining citizenship."
Because Jews are a majority in Israel, they have the right to exclude the minority. It is a demand to leave the geopolitical order of things in Israel as it is, and an argument to preserve the racist characteristics of the Jewish State, which Pogrund, while admitting to it, insists is not like Apartheid's racism. According to him, Israel is a democracy, and democracies vote on things like abandoning State Racism. He conveniently ignores that by this yardstick, the Apartheid regime was infinitely more democratic than Israeli Zionism, despite the ability of the minority Arabs to vote, because they actually voted to abandon the Apartheid regime. There seems to be absolutely no possibility that Israel will vote to abandon Zionism.
To further bolster his argument, he uses the example of Saudi Arabia, which restricts citizenship. Presumably, we are to assume that Saudi Arabia restricts citizenship to Muslims, which is patently not the case. Saudi Arabia has thousands of non-Muslim workers, who have recently been granted the right to Saudi citizenship, if they have resided in the country for more than 10 years.[16] The exceptions, of course, are Palestinians, and Jews. This does not make Saudi Arabia a beacon of tolerance and democracy; but it must hurt when canards are shown to be just that, and you are fond of utilizing them. His equivalence falls short even when he utilizes such a poor example: Israel just does not stack up, even against the worse examples.
He does not run out of bad examples: "as Burundi and Rwanda, or India in 1947, erupt into terrible violence. Greece has an estimated 200,000 Roma who enjoy almost none of the benefits that other Greeks take for granted. Christians are targeted for attack in Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia and China" But, "A crucial indicator of the status of Israel's minority is that Arabs have the vote black South Africans did not."
And a crucial difference is that South Africa did not practice genocide on their Black people.
"One (bad) example: Mosawa (The Center for Equal Rights for the Arab Population in Israel), acting on a recent law banning discrimination, has launched court action against a Web site offering jobs to Jews only."
Benji, my man, South Africa abolished job reservation in 1979.[17] Surely you know that! It makes little difference, if an employer really wants to employ a member of a particular race. All this 'democracy' only matters if the voters vote to abolish inequality and in the case of Israel, if they vote to dismantle the 'Jewish State'. Blacks in South Africa were winning anti-discrimination lawsuits in the 1970's. They had the right to unionize by 1979. It made little difference, as it was the balance of power and the monopoly of resources that determined who was in charge. There was class, as well as racial politics at work.
His life expectancy comparison is a monumental fraud. Manipulating such figures is a national pastime in Israel. Here, he posits that the difference between the life expectancy between Arabs and people in European countries is a negative 4.8 years (74.4 years as opposed to 69.6). The evidence suggests that it is despite Israel, rather than because of Israel. Life expectancy in the West Bank is now 71 years from a 1967 low of 44 years, despite a concerted campaign by the IDF to lower it. Jordan's is 75 years. Arab mortality in Israel 7 per thousand, and 33 per thousand in the West Bank. These figures would be significant if there were a wide discrepancy, absent that they signify nothing. South Africa used similar comparisons to veil the widespread Kwashiorkor and malnutrition in African communities. They always compared them to the most impoverished African States. A striking similarity between the apologist for Apartheid, and the apologist for Israel.
SEPARATION (APARTHEID) BARRIER: Here Pogrund is more or less on the mark, the barrier has no comparison to anything found in the Apartheid regime. It is nevertheless an Apartheid wall. The worst that can be said is that is something that the Apartheid regime would have invented, if they had thought of it, or had a use for it; which, is hardly a recommendation for Zionism. Israel justifies it on the grounds that it 'saves Jewish lives'. But, the White population of Apartheid South Africa stood at approximately 6 million people; roughly equivalent to Israel's Jewish population (more or less) and suffered casualties which are as significant, if not worse, than those suffered by Israel. Yet, penning Black people into vast open-air prisons was never contemplated as a possible policy.
It has become fashionable for people to proclaim themselves to be 'anti-Apartheid' and one would be hard-pressed to find anybody today, who was not 'anti-Apartheid' in the South African Apartheid era. One merely had to exist, to have an opinion of it, one way, or another. But Apartheid had its champions, and could not have survived for so long without significant support. Not least of all was the support it received from Israel.
The true test is the test of time, and time has exposed many of the 'anti-Apartheid' activists for what they are. 'Anti Apartheid' campaigner Peter Hain is now a champion of colonial exploitation and intervention in Iraq, and a vital cog in Tony Blair's neo-colonial regime. Helen Suzman believes in confronting racism, except when it means confronting Israeli racism. Alana Mercer decries racism in her former homeland, and she does not mean Israel. Pogrund revises history, to portray himself as the champion that liberated Black people in South Africa. He pretended to do so then, and he pretends to be a humanitarian champion in Israel now. But, he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/16/wsuz16.xml.. Suzman made her name criticizing the Apartheid regime, but were never heard her detailing precisely what her 'liberal' beliefs entailed. She never directly champions 'equal' political representation. This is one of the few instances where she reveals what she had in mind: "I used to be a fan of proportional representation, but I am not at all now I have seen it in action." Proportional representation is another form of 'group rights', on which Apartheid was based. For decades she basked in the limelight as the de facto 'proportional' representative' of Black rights in a White Parliament.
[2] http://journ.ru.ac.za/rjr/Berger_story2.html First alluded to in the Movie 'Cry Freedom', this detail is often left out of biographies of Donald Woods. It was revolutionary in the 1970's South Africa to present black opinion in White Newspapers. But Biko was nothing, if he was not a revolutionary. Donald rapidly evolved from a 'bleeding heart liberal' and became that most dangerous of individuals: a White Revolutionary Sympathizer. Pogrund was nothing of the sort; he gave his White liberal views, on Black opinion.
[3] http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/AuthorBiography.aspx?AuthorId=436 Rand Daily Mail Editors seem to all fall under the spell. On the June 2001, another former Rand Daily Mail Editor, Raymond Louw commented on the Racism in Israel being worse that the most extreme excesses of Apartheid. Allister Sparks caused a uproar when he similarly compared the situation in Israel to South Africa. http://www.indcatholicnews.com/haretz.html He also wrote an article proposing a Single State Solution on 24th May 2004 based on the South African experience.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001936701_allister24.html
[4] http://africanhistory.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-banned.htm
[5] http://www.crl.edu/areastudies/CAMP/collections/Pogrund.doc
[6] http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/38771/index.php The link is tongue in cheek. Liberals claim nothing less than being the linchpin that underpinned liberation of Black South Africa. They did not actually do anything, except annoy the Conservative National party with their incessant nagging. No prisoners were released, no laws were changed; not one liberal reform was implemented until the total surrender of the Apartheid regime to the historical imperative. It is always argued that 'International opinion' caused the capitulation, but sometimes, some things are just not worth the bother. The country was becoming ungovernable.
[7] http://www.shmuley.com/index.php?section=article&id=62Jews as the personification of perpetual, pre-eminent victims: "Want to see Apartheid? I'll show you Apartheid"
[8] http://www.news24.com/News24/Columnists/Jon_Qwelane/0,,2-1630-1633_1603086,00.html
[9] http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/10832/
[10] http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/jewish/biblio.php3?srcid=2
[11] http://www.google.com
[12] http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/specialprojects/Luli/Place-in-the-city/Unit4/unit4.htm
[13] http://www.juancole.com/2002_12_01_juancole_archive.html#85322725
"At a conference in South Africa, State Minister Ronny Kasrils, himself a Jew, condemned Israel's treatment of Palestinians and said it was actually worse than the Apartheid government's treatment of blacks in South Africa had been."
[14] http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart/political/27.5.94_TheEraOfYellowTerritories.html ... The obvious similarities do not escape the observant. Tanya Reinhart has an irritating habit on insisting on her perceptiveness. "All blacks were considered citizens of Bantustans, making them "foreigners" in South Africa and deprived of their electoral and social rights. The situation created by the Gaza and Jericho agreement, signed this May (1994) in Cairo, is almost identical."
[15 http://au.encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArtTextonly.aspx?refid=761561373&find=1
[16] http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/23-10-2004/main/main9.htm
[17] http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa081.html "With the Industrial Conciliation Acts of 1979 and 1981, South African labor law was largely deracialized."
