The crisis facing the African continent is well known. Poverty, disease and ignorance, forty years after independence, still remain high on the list of key challenges facing the continent primarily because of serious structural distortions that see African economies, internally not integrated as they are, continue to rely on the production of cheap raw materials for export to the West. Over 70% of Africa Sub-Saharan states (SSA) are in the World Bank's category of 'low-income' countries, thus representing about 60% of all the world's countries in this category. With SSA's population growth averaging 2.8% during 1994-98 and the GDP growth rate at 3.5% during the same period, this is still far below the 6% GDP growth rate that is required to significantly impact on the lives of Africans. No wonder four in every 10 Africans live in absolute poverty; and, according to the United Nation's Economic Commission for Africa; expectations are that the proportion of people living in poverty is will increase in this millennium.
These social factors aside, Africa remains very marginal in global trade and FDI flows. While almost 50% of SSA's total exports are by South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ivory Coast; and almost 70% of total SSA imports by South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Angola, SSA's share of the total global trade is less that two percent. SSA's estimated total GDP of USD319.5 billion in 1998 is less than the 1997 combined total sales of General Motors, Ford Motor and Royal Dutch/Shell Group of USD439 billion.
What complicates matters even further is SSA's total external debt that stood at USD214.8 billion in 1999 and expected to increase to USD219.6 billion in 2000; while the debt-service ratio averaged over 20% between 1996 and 1999.
This situation has created a fertile ground for the flourishing of Afro-pessimism. For example, the US National Intelligence Council released in December 2000 its Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernmental Experts - a futures perspective on how the world is most likely to be in 2015. The document, informed as it were by a set of drivers, makes a very pessimistic prediction of the future of Sub-Saharan Africa: 'The interplay of demographics and disease - as well as poor governance -will be the major determinants of Africa's increasing international marginalisation in 2015'.
According to the document, 'the relentless progression of AIDS and other diseases will decimate the economically productive adult population...'; indeed, 'poverty and poor governance will further deplete natural resources and drive rapid urbanization'.1
Of course, Global Trends' forecast was informed, on the one hand, by Afro-pessimism as a dominant discourse on Africa and, on the other, by the failure to recognize as a driver the role that the African leadership could play in addressing the plight of the continent. For this reason, Global Trends could not anticipate either the African Union or the MAP initiative.
The recent Blantyre Summit of the OAU and the Extraordinary Summit held in March 2001 at Sirte, Libya, may be a historic step in Africa's quest for unity. The former OAU Secretary-General, Salim Salim, had no doubt about the historic significance of the Sirte Summit: 'The Assembly of Heads of State and Government proudly declares the African Union by a unanimous decision'.2 Similarly President Thabo Mbeki wrote about the same Summit: 'Contrary to what some have written that ours is a 'hopeless Continent', the decisions taken at Sirte cannot but give hope to the millions of Africans from the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic oceans in the south, to the Mediterranean in the north, that the enhancement of African unity will enable all of us to overcome the problems that have confronted us for centuries'.3 For over two decades, African leaders have been grabbling with possible solutions to our continent's predicament. During the first two post independence decades, the 1960s and 1970s, Africa's developmental endeavors, influenced, of course, by modernization theory, were aimed at modeling our continent in Europe's image. It was hoped that the statist developmental approaches in the form of, for example, import substitution industrial strategies, would leapfrog the continent into the 'modern' era. But as we know, the first few years of boom and optimism were followed by a long period of crises and stagnation.
The turning point was the 16th OAU Summit of July 1979, which resulted in the adoption of the historic Monrovia Declaration, which laid basis for the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) that was to be adopted the following year at a Special Economic Summit in Nigeria. The LPA was not only an attempt to concretize ideas entailed in the Monrovia Declaration, but also intended, with some sense of short-medium-long-term targets, to set a developmental agenda for the 1980s, and towards the year 2000. Informed by the belief that 'the same determination that has virtually rid our continent of political domination is required for our economic liberation', the LPA was anchored on two key principles: collective self-reliance and self-sustaining development and economic growth. According to LPA, 'Africa must cultivate the virtue of self-reliance. This is not to say that the continent should totally cut itself off from outside contributions. However, these outside contributions should only supplement our own effort; they should not be the mainstay of our development'.4 The following were to be the LPA guidelines:
But rather than enter a self-reliant path of development, most African states continued their dependence on external players. Nor could the OAU meet to assess the implementation of LPA, because the continent was very divided, especially over the issue of Western Sahara and the crisis in Chad, for example. It was only in 1985, at the 21st Summit, that the OAU could return to LPA, but by then the continent's crises were in full swing: the impact of the 1981-82 recession, the burden of external debt, and natural misfortunes such as famine, floods, desertification and drought.
Nonetheless, the 1985 Summit adopted an 'African Priority Programme for Economic Recovery' which was aimed at revitalising the LPA. These efforts were a contribution towards a UN Special Session on Africa that adopted a 'Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development, 1986-1990'.
Five years later, the continent was still far from meeting the LPA targets, but the international and internal situation had markedly improved. The end of Cold War and the mounting wave of democratization across the continent not only created a better environment, but the future of many African dictators who presided over the LPA could no longer be guaranteed. In this context, the OAU Summit of 1991 adopted the Abuja Treaty in an attempt to revive the LPA and take forward, in concrete terms, the question of regional integration and the creation of an African Economic Community by 2025.
The Treaty envisaged a 34-year long, six-stage, linear process through a trade integration approach that begins with trade liberalization and a Custom Union, to the Common Market and Economic Community. The principles of the Treaty included 'solidarity and collective self-reliance', recognition and protection of human and peoples rights, and accountability and popular participation in development. The organs of the AEC included some of the institutions that were to be incorporated into the African Union; that is, the Pan-African Parliament, the Economic and Social Council, Specialiased Technical Committees, as well as the Court of Justice Indeed, the Treaty's shortcomings were due to its economistic approach, hence with the convening of the OAU Extra-Ordinary Summit in Sirte, Libya, in 1998, politics took a lead and time frames of the Treaty were revised.
Furthermore, the relevance of the OAU itself came under scrutiny, especially that the organization's founding principles were defined in terms of the struggle against colonialism and some narrow concern with national sovereignty. Thus the immediate focus in the post-Sirte phase became the transformation of the OAU into an African Union with the Pan-African Parliament, financial institutions (the African Central Bank, African Monetary Fund, and the African Investment Bank), Court of Justice and the Economic and Social Council as the strategic institutions. Accordingly, the Constitutive Act establishing the Union was adopted at the OAU Summit in Togo in July 2000, and the draft Pan-African Parliament (PAP) protocol by African parliamentarians in Pretoria two months later. The March 2001 Extraordinary Summit at Sirte was convened primarily for taking the Act and the PAP protocol forward.
Indeed, the African Union is a strategic development that puts the continent in a much better position, institutionally and politically, to address the plight of Africa; the Union, unlike the OAU, has both a political and economic mandate. As opposed to the OAU Charter that was very silent on issues of democracy and human right, the AU Act not only incorporates the latter issues, but also excludes from the community any leader who assumes power through unconstitutional means. Furthermore, as opposed to the OAU Charter that made some passing reference to co-operation, the AU as a mechanism, on the other hand, is anchored on a strong belief on regional integration.
The Millennium African Recovery Plan (MAP), as an initiative that development parallel to the establishment of the AU, is a framework not only for a Pan-African drive towards the recovery of the continent, but also for partnership with the North. The MAP is anchored on five areas that must be targeted for the realization of Africa's recovery: (a) peace, security and governance; (b) investing in Africa's people; (c) harnessing Africa's strategic advantages; (d) investing in infrastructure and information technology; and (e) developing financing mechanisms. The MAP as adopted at the last OAU Summit as the New Africa Initiative, is built around three strategies focused on the following: (a) preconditions for development; (b) priority sectors; and (c) mobilizing resources. What distinguishes MAP from the LPA or even the Abuja Treaty, is (a) the leading role played by African leaders in putting together the initiative; and (b) the commitment by African leaders to a set of principles that are essential for the development of MAP. Not only were the LPA led by the OAU Secretariat and the UN Economic Commission for Africa; there was also no political and institutional mechanism for ensuring that African leaders themselves set an example on how they run their countries and the whole continent.
The AU constitutes an institutional base for the realization of the African Renaissance and MAP an implementable, programme for the renaissance.
Indeed, Strategy and Tactics document recognizes 'in the first instance the difficulties wrought on the continent by years of colonialism and unjust international relations, including debt crisis, underdevelopment, social dislocation, and in some instances untenable political relations underpinned by forms of government that imperialism encouraged for its own selfish interests'. However, the AU and MAP take this perspective forward in that they address, in concrete terms, the continent's four strategies challenges: development, peace and security, democracy and governance, and improving Africa's position in the world.
The AU and MAP can also provide a framework for tackling the issue reparations that are being demanded from the West for the benefit those countries derived from slavery and colonialism. Of course, the issue of reparations presents itself at two levels; there will have to be a two-pronged approach - one aimed at the African Diaspora and the other at the continent. The Diaspora has its complications and dynamics that cannot be addressed here, but for Africa it is possible that reparations can fit in the third strategy (mobilising resources) identified in the MAP document.
The resources mobilized through this vehicle can be used in the implementation of the Programme of Action entailed in the MAP document.
More importantly, the MAP process will be guided by a political mechanism made up of the continent's leadership.
The advantage of this MAP-driven approach to reparations as opposed to financial hand-outs to descendents of slaves and victims of colonialism, is that the resources deriving from this process can be used for the long-term benefit of the whole continent - reverse the legacy of slavery and colonialism. The AU and the MAP have put us on course for the realization of the African Century.
'We are apt to observe that to be born in the South, to be born a women, disabled, or amongst the poor - all these circumstances often define one's life possibilities as part of the wretched majority.'
Nelson Mandela in his address to the World Summit on Social Development, 1995
In August 2001, politicians, academics, activists and other experts from around the world will attend the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa. Interestingly, the Conference refers to racism, xenophobia and related intolerances but is silent about the worldwide phenomenon of gender discrimination and oppression. Presumably gender oppression which actually exists within all forms of oppression in all countries is subsumed under 'other intolerance' - perhaps just a little bit of a nuisance and not a fundamental world problem.
South Africa's history has been shaped by injustice, oppression, discrimination and exploitation with all their consequences of inequality and prejudice. The colonial and apartheid regimes created a system that not only dispossessed black people of social, economic and political power and rights but also controlled, brutalised and dehumanised them. Black people in general and Africans in particular were reduced to subhumans and the apartheid regime thus institutionalised racism. This 'Colonialism of a Special type' was unique in that the coloniser lived side by side with the colonised within one country.
While apartheid has been formally overthrown, its legacy of fundamental inequalities between black and white and racism continues to date. Racism is thus more than a set of attitudes and aberrations. It is a complex reality of power relations, which govern every aspect of our lives including access to resources. This is the reality of the 'two-nations' in one country - one nation wealthy and white and the other poor and black. 1
However, these two broad groups are not homogenous, just as those that were under CST were not. As President Thabo Mbeki stated, '...South Africa is a country of two nations. One of these is white, relatively prosperous, regardless of gender or geographic dispersal. It has ready access to a developed economy, physical, educational, and other infrastructure... The second and larger nation of South Africa is poor and black, with the worst affected being women in rural areas, the black population in general, and the disabled...'2 Class exploitation, racial oppression and gender domination are systems of power relations that intersect with each other while existing within each other. There is, for instance, no pure class/race oppression that does not have a gender dimension and vice versa. It was in recognition of these dynamics that the liberation movement in general and the Women's Movement in particular talked of and fought against 'triple-fold oppression'.
Colonialism brought in its trail patriarchy, the system of domination of women by men and male control at all levels of society based on the socially constructed notions of gender, gender roles and gender relations. That patriarchy interfaced with indigenous forms of patriarchy and was used to benefit apartheid.
In South Africa, while there is the overarching system of patriarchy, different women experience different forms of male domination and oppression according to their class, status, religion, race and even ethnic and cultural backgrounds. While these social constructs exist independently and have their own logic and life, they simultaneously exist within each other and also intersect with each other. It is thus vital to understand that fundamental complexity of relationship between class, race and gender in order to eliminate social oppression in South Africa and internationally.
For example, white, middle-class women will experience patriarchy differently to rural African women. Most of them escaped the socially prescribed gender roles as they foisted these roles on their 'maids', the domestic workers who they exploited to the full. They thus benefited from and continue to benefit from the racism and sexism.
For the majority of women in South Africa, oppression emerges in terms of patriarchal control, their relation to the means of production (they are mostly poor workers or unemployed) and the fact that they are black. The essence of 'the triple oppression' - exploited as a class, oppressed as a national group and dominated as women, is a fitting description of the complex relationship between class, race and gender in our context.
The SACP aptly describes this 'triple oppression' when it says, '...the specific capitalist growth path in our country involved the appropriation of existing patriarchal customs and traditions, and their articulation into the reproduction of the capitalist system. This articulation saw the vast exacerbation of the coercive features of pre-existing patriarchy. In particular, the brunt of the reproduction of a massive army of reserve cheap labour was borne by the unpaid (and hidden) labour and effort of millions of women. The reproductive functions often carried (at least to some extent) by society at large in other developed economies (by way of pensions, public education, health-care and housing, and municipal water and power infrastructure) has been borne, at huge personal cost, by millions of black women in our country (and in our region). It is they who have had to care for the young, the sick, the unemployed and the aged. It is they who have to spend their lives fetching water and fuel. The legacy of this continues to impact dramatically upon the life-opportunities, resources, and general marginalisation of the women of our country and region (SACP, 1998:19-20).
Geographical location, the 'rural/urban divide' and its racist and gendered character has its roots in the migrant labour system. This was created by the colonial and apartheid governments to provide cheap labour for mining and other industries, while preventing the black labour force from living permanently in 'white' areas. The apartheid policies prevented black women from living in urban areas. Women were therefore left to eke out a bare existence from the barren land as remittance from male relatives was very little and erratic.
Apartheid used repression and brutality to maintain itself and to suppress any resistance to it. The history of South Africa is the story of oppression and repression on the one hand and resistance and the greatest heroism on the other. The African National Congress and its Allies led the heroic struggles for democracy, non-racism and non-sexism. At the core of these struggles were women, the majority of who were African. It was clear to the women that their liberation depended not on some goodwill of the apartheid state or on the victory of the struggles by men, it depended on their own effort, side by side with all democratic forces. The brutal repression did not deter women. Led by their organisations, women marched in the streets, they demonstrated, they mobilised, organised and fought against racism.
Under the ambit of the FEDSAW and the ANCWL they, for instance marched to Pretoria on August 9, 1954, forcing the then Prime Minster to flee from their wrath. Our streets, our villages, every inch of South African soil, were turned into battlefields with black women leading the onslaught against apartheid. They were brutalised and violated, banished, detained, jailed, exiled and murdered. Still this onslaught did not deter them. They returned from jail and continued with the struggle. They went into exile and joined the liberation and armed forces; they dodged police when they were under banning orders and joined the underground structures; they confronted police with stones in their hands and babies on their backs; they returned from the torture chambers with more vigour. They organised a strong Women's Movement that led the protracted struggles throughout the era of colonialism and apartheid in our country. Generation after generation they continued to rally around their clarion call of 'wathintabafazi wathintimbokodo uzakufa' (now you have touched the women, you have dislodged a boulder, you are going to be killed). While apartheid has been dislodged, the struggle against the vestiges of apartheid, racism and sexism continue.
As earlier indicated, while apartheid has been dismantled its legacy of racism continues. The following are but a few statistics as examples of the racial and gendered divides in our country. They show the racialisation and feminisation of poverty, a product of the Colonialism of a Special Type and its patriarchal character.
1. Percentage of people living in poverty by race group.3
2. Poverty rate among female-headed and male-headed households. 4
On average, there are three times as many female-headed households within the African community, as compared to the white community 5.
Female-headed households are mainly in the rural areas and in informal settlements and tend to be poorer than those headed by African men.
3. Urban unemployment figures for 2000.6
4. Access to piped water in dwellings by race groups.7
The lack of access to a water source inside the home is more common in rural and peri-urban areas, and 71% of African households in these areas have to fetch water from outside the home. The water source is often some distance from the dwelling, and on average, women spend over an hour every day fetching water.
The system of class, race and gender oppression in our country cannot be reformed. Equality cannot be brought by assimilation, absorption or accommodation of blacks, or women or the working class. Complete and fundamental transformation of the system has to be undertaken. The material basis, the legacy and the ideology of racism, capitalism and sexism have to be eradicated.
The advent of democracy ushered in a new era in our country. South Africans under the democratic government have already started on the path of the transformation process. Constitutional, legislative, institutional frameworks and mechanisms have been put in place. Programmes have already been embarked upon to address the painful legacy. The democratic environment creates better opportunity for the reconstruction and development of our society.
However, attitudes tend to lag far behind the other conditions and realities. Racist and sexist attitudes still prevail. While there should be no competition between the fight against racism and sexism, the reality is that society tends to respond more (in support, against or apologetically) to acts of the former than the latter. This is perhaps because gender oppression is so entrenched and yet hidden; it begins within the family and permeates throughout all aspects of society. It often appears to be normal and natural, and is thus more difficult to identify and mobilise against than racial discrimination. Cultural, religious, psychological explanations also reinforce its 'natural, god-given or culturally divined' aura.
The various forms of discrimination and oppression form a complex web, which is difficult to unravel by pulling only one string, the whole tapestry has to be undone.
As South Africans gear up for the UN World Conference against Racism, a highly-publicised row, transcending international boundaries, threatens to derail preparations, if not the very Conference itself.
The first is a threat by the US to boycott the Conference, unless the international community agrees to its demands that the draft Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, drop any reference to Zionism as a form of racism. The talismanic effect of the boycott threat has, as a result, fed perceptions that the US has heaped scorn on the considerations and status of every state or country in the world, by openly indicating its bias towards Israel.
Whether these hold true or not, ample evidence suggests that US foreign policy has been leaning heavily towards Israel. This is fuelled by the fact that it was also Zionism that caused the US to keep away from the first UN conference against Racism in 1978 and the second in 1983 - both hosted by Geneva. In this respect, President Bush's administration has come under attack for pursuing a unilateralist approach to world affairs that risks undermining relations with many countries, particularly in Europe.
Coupled with this is an intensification of the brutality of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's regime in its efforts to quell an 11 month-old uprising against the Palestinians. With the ever-increasing violent images being beamed into television screens worldwide, it would be difficult to pardon the international community of responsibility to act swiftly and effectively, to help bring about peace to the region.
Much of Sharon's iron fist politics, though portrayed (with a completely straight face) as a 'shift' in the country's policy towards the Palestinians, show scant, if any, differences from those employed by his predecessors - former Prime Minister's Barak, Netanyahu, Rabin or Ben-Gurion. The paunchy General Sharon, also a former army officer like his predecessors, is the only figure, in his estimation, capable of showing Palestinians the kind of reasoning that will set them, 'the natives' straight, notably the Palestinian National Authority of President Yasser Arafat. Both are deeply troubling events, which require serious focus.
Most intellectuals and countries remain convinced that the real problem at the root of these outrages is the general political failure to come to inclusive and proper terms with democratic politics. There is, therefore, no substitute for the premise that Palestinians and Israelis be recognised on the playing field, as equals in rights and expectations. Then, and only then, can one proceed to do justice to their miserable day-to-day lives.
To the uninitiated, which Israeli misinformation capitalises heavily upon, the notion of a 'resurrection' of the biblical land of Israel for 'God's chosen people' sounds like a reasonable concept, hardly one warranting cries of racism. It therefore becomes necessary to extrapolate on the concept as defined by Israel's founding fathers, and determine its niche, if any, within international politics.
Zionism defined as the, 'national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.' Again, this may appear fairly innocent, were it not for the acquisition of citizenship, which, in most states in the world, is the founding premise from which the duties, responsibilities, and indeed, rights of individuals of nation states, is derived.
Provided you are Jewish, Israeli citizenship can be acquired with little fuss. Many nationals of other countries, including South African Jews, can obtain it simply whilst visiting the country on holiday or work, and hold dual passports whilst living permanently in, or as a citizen of another country. The 'Law of Return', passed by the Israeli Knesset in 1950, grants every Jew the right to go to Israel as an 'oleh' or immigrant. Coupled with this is the Israeli Nationality Law, which automatically confers citizenship on any Jew entering the country, unless they specify otherwise. As a consequence, all Jews everywhere are Israeli citizens by right, and are entitled simply to show up in the country and declare themselves to be Israeli citizens, provided they pose no imminent danger to public health or state security.
Where then, it may be asked, is there racism? Plainly, these 'automatic rights' of citizenship are not applicable to the 'other' residents of the land - the Palestinians. It is this aspect of Zionism that has been regularly criticised for its racist aspects. Vibrant attempts have been made to define Zionism as Socialist Zionism, Political Zionism, Practical Zionism, Religious Zionism, and Radical Messianic Zionism. But the message is clear - citizenship, which makes the individual privy to all the rights afforded by this status, is racially-determined.
Though there are a large number of Arab Israeli citizens, the 'automatic' granting of citizenship does not apply.
The international community has not woken only recently to the subtle racism of the doctrine of Zionism. In 1975, the UN General Assembly passed resolution no. 3379 which: 'Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination'. This UN resolution recalled UN resolution of 1953, which takes note of 'the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism'. In addition, the 1975 resolution, took note that the Organisation of African Unity in 1975 considered ' that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being'. In 1991, this UN 1975 resolution no.3379 was revoked.
Advocates for an end to military occupation, and a negotiated settlement of equals between Palestinians and Israelis, such as Professor Israel Shahak -an emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Hebrew University, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and the founder of the Israeli League of Human Rights - had the following to say on the Zionist movement: 'Unless we recognise the real issue - which is the racist character of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel and the roots of that racism in the Jewish religious law [Halacha] - we will not be able to understand our realities. And unless we understand them, we will not be able to change them.'
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has taken its toll on the innocent and the suffering of the country - blood has halted negotiations, littered the neighbourhoods with scores of injured and the tragic memory of the dead victims, and has left indelibly new boiling points. These were reflected in the preparatory UN regional conferences against racism, organised in Europe (Strasbourg), Latin America (Santiago), Africa (Dakar) and Asia (Tehran), respectively. Thus, the inter-governmental Durban Draft Declaration of the UN World Conference against Racism states: (brackets denote its contested nature within the international community) '[The World Conference recognises with deep concern the increase of racist practices of Zionism, anti-Semitism in various parts of the world, as well as the emergence of racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular, the Zionist movement which is based on racial superiority;]'
How to trace the path ahead? The international movement needs, and has a responsibility to find the key to re-open the door to a just and lasting settlement, beyond racism. It needs our encouragement and must be put onto a more cheerful and promising course.
A case in point was the recent meeting convened in South Africa of the Non-Aligned Movement's Committee on Palestine, and the recent G-8 declaration calling on Israel and Palestine to accept international observers.
Israel must not use 'emotional blackmail' tactics, which it commonly does, such as to shift the scene back to 1948 - nor be in the grip of a powerful neurotic fear from its commitments to equality and an end to the military occupation of Palestinian land.
In addition to the sentiments of governments and intellectuals reflected above, the non-governmental draft Durban Forum Declaration against Racism called for the: 'Employment of all effective measures available to participants, relevant UN organs and member States to ensure that Israel complies with its obligations under human rights, humanitarian law and UN resolutions with the view to end its colonial policies and Apartheid system'.
Silence is not a response nor is a warm endorsement of Israeli feelings in the face of economic interests and lobbies. No one prefers useless killings to negotiations, or paranoia in favour of real politics. South Africans, having emerged from a race struggle, have a stake in those struggles, not in the demonisation of any group, Palestinian or Israeli.
The time is overdue for the shady chorus from the Democratic Alliance to the Israeli lobbies, which want to mystify Israel's aura, to shift to an authentic tone of acknowledgement and negotiations. No amount of verbal fumbling and shuffling is adequate to an occasion that is both urgent and demanding. The children of Israel and Palestine deserve the best.
It is hypocrisy for Israeli ambassadors to plaintively, not to mention patronisingly, talk about 'full democratic representation' for non-Jews in Israel, 'preferential criteria' for Jews and, dubbing as 'disturbing remarks' the urgent diplomatic efforts of our leaders, without acting against the punitive discriminatory actions against Palestinians. A burden is laid on our consciences not to postpone the real democracy, particularly the freedom of Palestinians, until later.
The worst possible discriminatory punishment of Palestinians, such as forced closure of villages, to demolish their houses, raze their refugee camps, to kill unprotected men, women, children, and impose military occupation, are humanly unacceptable and immoral. One cannot make a deal with such occupation humiliation, like cancer that continues to expand, unless it is identified, tactically surrounded and then fully engaged humanely.
We need to recall what President Thabo Mbeki said, late last year: 'It is inexcusable that, more than fifty years after the United Nations affirmed the right of Palestinians to sovereign statehood and more than thirty years after the United Nations Security Council, in a binding decision, called on Israel to withdraw from all Arab territories that it had occupied in the war of June 1967, the suffering and humiliation of foreign military occupation still continue.' Our task is to labour and struggle humanely to confront military occupation, discriminatory actions and, then, march on to the road of finding the keys for a just settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. Then, we have truly shown our solidarity with the forces of social progress and peace.
Engaging Anti-Semitism Finally, in our search for the keys of a just settlement, it is the better part of honesty to dissociate oneself from crude anti-Semitic attacks, silly unreflective dogmas about Israel, and lip service formulas to the besieged Palestinians, such as those emanating from reactionaries. These serve nought, but to display to the world a mind-set that is both sectarian and hopelessly out of tune with the human spirit? Instead, we are called upon, from the womb to the tomb, to re-attest the manifest principles of equality and non-discrimination, without distinction of any kind.
Conclusion The Durban World Conference against Racism, is an appropriate occasion to celebrate heroic individuals and groups like Rabbis for Human Rights and the movement led by Jeff Halper to end house demolitions in Palestine, with the serious programme: no occupation and no discrimination. A further exception are the few brave Israelis like the New Historians group of Michel Warschavsky, who have pressured the Israeli government to end the occupation and, not to lecture a people under occupation about the 'disappointed hopes' of Israelis.
Such programmes by intelligently brave individuals inspire us not to allow the world to spin into further shame. It is up to us in Durban and beyond to speak up against the terrible abuses of power. Israel and the US cannot have the field to themselves, which results in exploitation, and 'suicide' bombing backlashes that have been virtually incalculable.
Documents of the African National Congress and South African Communist Party:
ANC 50th National Conference Resolution on Palestine, 16-20 December 1997, Mafikeng,
www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/conf/conference50/resolutions.html.
ANC Secretary-General's Statement on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 29 November 2000. 'SACP Statement on visit to Palestine. The Israeli State is a violent Apartheid State. SA Media must play its role to expose Israeli Aggression', 19 February 2001. www.sacp.org.za/pr/2001/pr0219a.html.
President Thabo Mbeki: Letter from the President: 'South Africans wish to see the people of Palestine and Israel living together in peace', in ANC Today, 4-10 May 2001.http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2001/at15.htm
Message from President Thabo Mbeki on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 29 November 2000.
Address by Thabo Mbeki, chair of the non-aligned movement at the 9th session of the Islamic Summit Conference, Doha, State of Qatar, 12 November 2000, www.gov.za .
Speech by President Thabo Mbeki at the memorial service for Kate Zuma, Johannesburg, 15 December 2000, www.gov.za.
UN Durban Draft Declaration of the World Conference against Racism and UN Resolutions: www.racism.org.za for the full text of the NGO Forum Declaration and Programme of Action and, www.racism.gov.za for the full text of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, 10 November, 1975; United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86, 16 December, 1991; United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3151 G, 14 December, 1953.
South African Foreign Affairs Ministry:
'Media Statement on the deteriorating situation in the Middle East', dated, 19 July 2001.
Other related reports:
Editorial on President Mbeki's speech at the OIC under the title 'Disturbing Remarks', in Jewish Report, November 17, 2000. See also 'Untruths form foundation of racism forum' by Israeli ambassador T Herzl, Business Day, 2 August 2001.
www.bday.co.za . 'US Threatens to boycott racism conference' by Steven Holland, July 27, 2001.
www.iol.co.za
Professor Israel Shahak:
Letter to the editor of Kol Hair, published in Hebrew, January 6, 1995.
Also, examine Professor Shahak's 'Israel's Discriminatory Practises Are Rooted in Jewish Religious Law' in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1995.
www.washington-report.org.backissues/0795/9507018.htm
. 'The New Israeli Historians and 1948', 12 February 1995. www.soci.niu.edu/~phildept/Kapitan/Morris.html
.
Israel in Lebanon:
The Report of the International Commission to enquire into reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon by Sean MacBride, Richard Falk, Kader Asmal, Brian Bercusson, Geraud de la Pradelle and Stefan Wild. London: Ithaca Press, 1982. See particularly chapter fifteen of selected testimony and reports on the Sabra and Chatila massacres, commandeered by the ominous General Arial Sharon.
Mideast Partnership:
'Mideast Partnership Can Still Work', by Yossi Beilin and Yasir Abed Rabbo, in New York Times, op-editorial page, 1 August 2001. See also 'Defiance, dignity, and the rule of dogma' by Edward Said, in Al-Ahram Weekly, 17-23 May 2001,
www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/534/op1.htm
MH Haykal. Salaam al-Awhaam. Cairo: Dar al-Shruq, 1996.
When humans happened, they thought a God had called them out of the Reeds, the River, the Sea, or the Sky, and gave them pre-eminence in the Garden of Eden. They learnt the basic spiritual insights of human beings to survive by communal caring for one another. This has been called the primary spiritual experience, and it is still basic to the functioning of the human race.
As the centuries passed, civilisations developed. Cultural, political and economic groups saw themselves as superior, a chosen race, designed by their gods to conquer others. Religious institutions developed, linked with these rich social rulers, which have been called secondary religion. The claim to be divinely favoured gave religion a racial identity, a conceit which has persisted through the ages.
Behind barriers of ocean and desert Africa developed its own primary experience of life. Instead of brick buildings, ships and gunpowder, it embraced a rich communal understanding of land, and ubuntu/batho as the way of life for the human community. African religion emphasised the spiritual characteristics of people in community, not the divisive ecclesiastical and academic power structures of the north, and it was not racist.
Then the competing colonial nations arrived, planting stone crosses on the African coast as symbols of imported secondary religions. They thought Jesus was white, and attributed the superiority of whites to God, which authorised them to conquer. The British, ruling more of Africa than anyone else, had no doubt about the superiority of their civilisation and its faith, writes Jan Morris. 'Time and again the spokesmen of imperialism appealed to Providence as the ultimate source of British power'.
White Christians took up 'the White Man's burden' of civilising the world -providing it didn't cost Europe anything. Racism wrapped their fear, greed, and prejudice in a package of respectable religiosity Not all Christians agreed. These believed that God had no favourites, and in Christ there was no East or West. FD Maurice said: 'We have used the Bible as if it were a mere supplementary police manual, an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they are being overloaded.' The famous missionary CF Andrews criticised his peers: 'Such dominance of one race over all others is by no means a sacred trust from God: it is rather a sordid commercial conquest and exploitation in which the 'white' race prejudice forms an important and integral part.' But these were the exceptions.
In general, racism forced an alien history onto Africans who were stereotyped as subsidiary human beings - black, ignorant, and savage.
This view hardened into the cultural racism of the churches, the economic racism of the colour bar, and the structural racism of apartheid. White Christians sang hymns about 'lesser breeds without the law', excluded blacks from Parliament, and passed a racist Constitution, 'in humble submission to Almighty God.' By the mid-19th century African Christians were rejecting these imported church structures and people like Nehemiah Tile, James Dwane, Shembe, Mother Christina Nku, and Bishop Lekganyane formed their own indigenous churches.
Christians were at the heart of the struggles for political liberation from the earliest years, and when the African National Congress was formed in 1912, clergy led it. They have been in it ever since.
The apartheid regime was adopted in 1948 as a Christian policy.
Government never doubted apartheid was the way of the Lord and racism was not an issue, but a way of life. Opposing racist injustice was denigrated as advocating a 'social' gospel which distorted the 'real' or 'personal' gospel.
Non-Christian religions were practised by non-white people which gave Islam, Hinduism and African Traditional Religion a racial stereotype. Like the Jews, they spoke the languages of 'other races', and were 'not like us'.
Religion became a site of struggle over racism. The non-racial ecumenical Christian Institute (CI) begun by Dr Beyers Naude in 1961, and the Message to the People of South Africa published jointly with the SA Council of Churches in 1968, rejected racist doctrines as a 'false gospel'. In the same year the World Council of Churches at Upsala inaugurated the Programme to Combat Racism (PCR).
Such insights seldom reached the people in the pews because clergy were scared of their congregations and the Security Police. Churches continued to practice racism in appointments, training, stipends, office bearers, and congregational structures. Several divided on racial grounds.
Others refuted these attitudes as heresy, and in 1986 issued 'A Challenge to the Church', sub-titled 'The Kairos Document': 'State Theology' is simply the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism, and totalitarianism. It blesses injustice, canonises the will of the powerful and reduces the poor to passivity, obedience, and apathy ... This god is an idol.' Similar views were expressed by the Call of Islam, Jews for Justice, and the inter-faith World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP-SA). By 1992 all the main religions of South Africa participated in producing the 'Declaration on religious rights and responsibilities' which had no trace of racism in it, and was used in preparing the 1996 Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Racism is blind. When whites say 'I'm not a racist' in a church stuffed full of carpets, stained glass windows, fancy pews, hymns books, with a huge car park, they are not demonstrating the blessing of God but the blindness of racism. They are too comfortable to be challenged by the economic disparity of congregations.
Many middle class, well-educated people still have to learn that white, generous, kind, worshipping people 'just like us' produce societies which oppress and kill, and justify it in racist or nationalist terms. Decent religious people ran the slave trade and colonial oppression, goose stepped their way to the gas chambers, obliterated the populations of Dresden and Hiroshima, incinerated Vietnam, invented apartheid, and impoverish millions in the Third World today by globalised usury.
Religions condemn racism, but continue to support neo-colonialism, neo-liberalism, and religious fundamentalism, which prevent the transformation of society. Since the restrictions of apartheid legislation were removed, many people have done little to actually build a united, non-racist, non-sexist democratic South Africa.
Racism is unnatural: it does not affect children until they are educated into it, so part of the answer is to rear a generation NOT taught to be racist. Young people can lead the change in adult attitudes (as they did in Soweto in 1976) if the youth of today are equipped to enable them to build a non-racist society tomorrow. What tools are our parents, educators, and religious institutions giving them? Non-racism is caught not taught. An Institute for Justice and Reconciliation survey shows that 60 percent of South Africans have never eaten in the home of people of another 'race'. Ten minutes positive conversation can dissolve a life time of ignorance and prejudice. It needs a personal commitment to enact a non-racist life style. Bishop Mvume Dandala has said: 'The process of moving away from racism into a free society where we deal with one another purely on the basis of being human, will involve a very conscious effort by individuals to commit themselves to this path.' Culture and religion are often confused. Cultures change constantly with the social environment, but people are not deserting their religious values when they adopt a new culture. People constantly adapt to other cultures and many switch from one to another several times a day depending on who they are with and where they are. Spiritual values are crucial tools in shaping this new democratic, non-racist, non-sexist culture that liberation has made possible, and it is racism, not religion, that resists these changes Despite having freedom of religion, many still perpetuate divided denominations, exclusive congregations, and sexist and non-democratic practices. But no one will force a fuller humanity upon them by imposing inclusive relationships. No-one will force us to break out of the racist ghettos of the inherited Group Areas system. The rich still cling to their privileged suburbs, but no one will reinvent compulsory removal schemes in reverse. No one will compel whites and blacks, Muslim and Jew, Hindu and Christian, Catholic and Pentecostal, to be friends.
But we know that separated-ness produces strife. When people live apart from one another, racism snarls and gnashes its blood stained teeth in suspicions, fears, jealousies, and rumours, fomented by religious or political extremists and sensationalist media which promote oppression in the name of freedom.
Both Religion and Politics are functions of neighbourhoods. Their national activities signify little until translated into living partnerships. People in all sectors can take deliberate steps to establish a united South Africa in local neighbourhoods, breaking out of the stereotypes that are producing racial clashes all over the world, and replicating the harmony known in some religious and political circles in the earlier struggle. We all have homes: are they sites of the new non-racist South Africa, or part of the past? Religions congregate - but do the congregations meet together? Are they credible communities building a collective consciousness of non-racist communities constituting a transformed society and overcoming inherited wrong thinking, wrong doctrine, language, distance and culture? Throughout history movements for change have been initiated by small groups who act ahead of the big battalions. How can religious/political initiatives establish local schools for citizens of a transformed free society? Experience shows that a common focus is needed to turn vision and theories into facts. Groups experienced unity when they took collective action against slavery, fascism, colonialism, and apartheid. Crucial points of united action across a Broad Front are clear to everyone committed to make South Africa great today, including Moral Regeneration, the Problem of the Rich, and a new focus for Spiritual strength.
We are ham-strung by western values, and when we focus together on the moral regeneration of our society in Africa we shall get rid of racism. 1994 changed structures: freedom today requires changed attitudes to take up the changes in structure The problem of the Poor requires us to answer the problem of the Rich.
How can we mobilise the vast wealth controlled by so few in our country to banish the poverty suffered by so many? An economic focus can bring all races together.
We need to recover a focus on Spiritual strength. The great visions for our country from the Freedom Charter to the Millennium Africa Plan, including everything that non-racist youth or women or bosses or workers dream of, demands it. We need love, joy, peace-making, patience, kindness and goodness, loyalty, humility and self-control. The community needs people of vision and compassion, strength and sympathy, generosity and good humour.
But it is a simple sociological fact that millions of people today find traditional religious activities irrelevant, and those who have left will not go back. We are all spiritual, but we are not all religious. We need to develop the secular spirituality which throbs beneath the experience of being human together, so that racism will join feudalism and slavery as something that people used to do in the old days.
If racism and its associate evils are to be identified and left behind, we need to re-discover that primary spiritual experience of communal caring for one another. It still happens.