There's a book for that
Let's take a walk through some of the books I have read and see what they can teach us about the world we live in.
There's a book for that
Resistance is not futile
As Palestine burns, there are many powerful voices who support this conflict. They have their reasons. Time will tell if they were justified.
There are many who disagree who think that the collective punishment, displacements, and genocide of an entrapped, colonised population is wrong.
There are also those who hold their ground, in the middle where it seems safe, where they can hide, hedge their bets, and wait for the winners and losers to be declared. This might seem like a winning strategy, to be silent and wait, not reveal too much, claim ignorance. Not take sides. But it is an act of cowardice. And in a world in which popular opinion is a driving force, silence, it is in fact acquiescence.
Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.
Resistance is not futile
Hi and welcome to my new podcast, “There’s a book for that”, with me, Rumbie, your host and the resident bookworm in any friend group. The premise is simple, I love a good research-intensive podcast, but often they are coming from a very similar, narrow perspective, and I wanted something with a wider frame of reference. In this podcast I will talk about different books I have read, mostly novels, and extrapolate some of their lessons to our world, eventually in multiple languages. So, if you like me, would like to understand the world from the perspective (and literature of the Global South), from those on the underside of history, the stories that often go untold, then maybe this podcast is for you.
Today, we are going to be talking about the issue of the moment, hoping to come out on the right side of history of this. This is not how I planned to launch my podcast, we were supposed to be talking about Idris Elba as a giant, wish granting genie, but oh well, I would still like to welcome you to the pod. I hope you will find it occasionally funny, (not today), informative and thought provoking, but for this first episode, we're starting out sad, so I apologise in advance. There will be some descriptions of torture in it, so if that’s not your thing, come back next week to talk about the emperor’s new clothes.
Introduction-
Alors, c’est parti- As Palestine burns, there are many powerful voices who support this conflict. They have their reasons. Time will tell if they were justified.
There are many who disagree who think that the collective punishment, displacements, and genocide of an entrapped, colonised population is wrong.
There are also those who hold their ground, in the middle where it seems safe, where they can hide, hedge their bets, and wait for the winners and losers to be declared. This might seem like a winning strategy, to be silent and wait, not reveal too much, claim ignorance. Not take sides. But it is an act of cowardice. And in a world in which popular opinion is a driving force, silence, it is in fact acquiescence.
In the words of Arundhati Roy, author of excellent, inscrutable books, ( though in a different context)
Quote “The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.” End Quote
We have all seen what is happening. It has been advertised on our screens and we have seen it. It has been shouted from the rooftops, and we have heard it, it has disrupted our travels, animated water coolers, burned up our data. We know!
As Palestine burns under attack from an occupying force supported by Western governments, for some among us, the natural reaction is to look away. “This is too heavy for me”, we might say. “Well, they started it”, I think. “People are dying everywhere”. “Why doesn't anyone care about insert name here”?
It's natural, if you are unaffected, to seek excuses for looking away to justify apathy or hatred, ignorance, or self-concern. The world is very big, and its problems can often seem overwhelming. And we who are small and powerless and can barely pay our bills, take care of our children, feed ourselves, why should we concern ourselves with what's happening thousands of miles away?
I understand. Sort of! I have known fear. That uncomfortable knot in your stomach that causes you to look away when you should be brave enough to look even closer, to reach in and touch what will surely hurt you. I have known what it is to be laden with responsibilities, barely keeping my head above water and struggling with the constant myopia brought about by the nature of everyday living. I have experienced the gravity that keeps your feet on the ground, killing dreams, and the hopes that one day things will be better, easier, or lighter. I also know that I do not necessarily have the strength within myself to do the things that must be done, at the right time. Fortunately, over the years, I have learned how to borrow strength and it is that borrowed strength that I would like to share with you now, as we think about how best to resist the temptation to be complicit, to be silent witnesses to a genocide.
In my 20s, (I consider myself terrifically old now I'm in my 30s), but in my 20s I was optimistic. Life had thrown a lot of shit at me, but I still had the hope that one day, my day would come and that things would turn around. I no longer hold on to these hopes for myself, not really, but I try to retain a little flame of hope for the world. In the past few weeks though, it has been difficult to keep that flame going. In my 20s, though, I had the energy to keep the flame not just alive, but well stoked and warm even, and of course I used a lot of that energy to read. Indiscriminately.
I came across a book, probably in the Senate House Library, about the struggle for liberation of South Africa under the apartheid government at the time. The book, “Strike a woman strike a rock, stayed with me for a very long time. It profiles women who were active against the apartheid government across the cross section of white and black women, telling their stories in their own words. Occasionally, over the years, that knot in my stomach would come back as I thought about one particular person, Ivy Gcina, one of the women interviewed in the book, and what she had gone through. I didn't remember anybody else's name in the book, but somehow her story embedded itself in my consciousness, perhaps because it was while reading her story that I chickened out and put the book down, permanently. I should have persevered and kept going, but I gave up because it was too awful, too sad. I gave in to fear. So today, I invite you to come back with me, to hear Ivy Gcina's story, to take on her courage and fervour and find the strength to resist apartheid again, to challenge the domination of white supremacy and all ideologies of dehumanisation and cruelty.
Context and background
So, following the fall of the apartheid government in 1991, after decades of activism and of course, international sanctions, Ivy Gcina served as an MP for the ANC from 1994 until her retirement in 2004. In the book, Barbara MacLean, the author, interviewed her in her office.
Ivy Gcina described her experiences, the intimidation, the death of her children and her motivation. In an article in the Sowetan Live, a South African publication following her death in 2021, we learn, from an official ANC statement,
Quote, “Ivy Gcina was orphaned at a very young age and got her primary education through a church school. She joined the ANC Youth League in the 1950s and was active in bus boycotts and protests against Bantu education. Her children were born when the organisations were banned and to ensure their political consciousness, she got her uncle to write out the Freedom Charter from memory. It was prohibited to be printed in those days. After the 1976 Soweto student uprising, Gcina committed herself to the revival of the Federation of South African Women.
When the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (Pebco) was established, she headed the women’s committee and in 1983 was elected the first Port Elizabeth Women’s Organisation chair. Among activists, Ivy Gcina was notable for courage and her steadfastness in adversity. Not only was she frequently detained and assaulted, but her house was petrol-bombed and at one point sprayed with acid.
“Mamu Gcina was severely tortured through beatings and suffocation by named members of the security police in Port Elizabeth during the state of emergency in July 1985. She was again detained from June 1986 to June 1987. She lost three of her sons in the struggle, two in combat and the other one in exile. Four of her sons were combatants of Umkhonto we Sizwe. End Quote.
The “Freedom Charter,” mentioned there, which she insisted that her children should know from an early age, still informs the South African government’s ANC’s basic statement of principles. It was originally adopted by the multiracial Congress of the People on 26 June 1955 and the preamble reads,
Quote, “We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people; That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; That only a democratic state, based on the will of the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief; And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white, together-equals, countrymen and brothers-adopt this FREEDOM CHARTER. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing of our strength and courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won. End Quote
I would like to take a minute to say that there was a multiracial people’s congress in 1955, but “the rainbow nation” only came about after 1991. Progress takes time, but in the meantime, a lot of people suffer and die. It’s unfair to ask them to wait patiently for their turn to be human beings.
Now, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or the Spear of the Nation, which Ivy Gcina’s children were members of, refers of course to the paramilitary wing of the, African National Party, currently in charge of South Africa. It was also co-founded by that well known terrorist Nelson Mandela in 1961 and finally disbanded in 1993. The organisation was allied with a number of countries struggling for their liberty, in Africa and further away, and opposed, surprise, surprise, by Rhodesia and South Africa, with support from a large contingent of the people who are very actively supporting genocide now.
Umkhonto we Sizwe It was founded following the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960 when the South African police opened fire on a crowd of more than 5000 protesters killing 69 and injuring 118. As Africans, black people in South Africa struggled for their liberty under the apartheid government, they found that things were getting worse and not better, leading them to decide that it was time for a primary paramilitary wing. At the Rivonia trial, Mandela and his comrades charged with four counts of sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. He was found guilty and sent to prison for 27 years.
Do you condemn him, this terrorist?
He was, as I am sure you know, a lawyer, and so when the time came, he used to those skills to give an impassioned speech, an apologia for the armed resistance and acts of sabotage they carried out in pursuit of justice. I will read from that speech, throughout this episode, starting with the following, in which he outlines the conditions under which Africans (black people, white people were not Africans then) had been labouring in their quest for equal rights.
Quote “The African National Congress was formed in 1912 to defend the rights of the African people which had been seriously curtailed by the South Africa Act, and which were then being threatened by the Native Land Act. For thirty-seven years – that is until 1949 – it adhered strictly to a constitutional struggle. It put forward demands and resolutions; it sent delegations to the Government in the belief that African grievances could be settled through peaceful discussion and that Africans could advance gradually to full political rights. But white governments remained unmoved, and the rights of Africans became less instead of becoming greater. In the words of my leader, Chief Luthuli, who became President of the ANC, and who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, (I quote): "Who will deny that thirty years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately, and modestly at a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all", unquote.
In 1960 there was the shooting at Sharpeville, which resulted in the proclamation of a State of Emergency and the declaration of the ANC as an unlawful organisation. My colleagues and I, after careful consideration, decided that we would not obey this decree. The African people were not part of the Government and did not make the laws by which they were governed. We believed in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that 'the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the Government', and for us to accept the banning was equivalent to accepting the silencing of the African people for all time. The ANC refused to dissolve, but instead went underground. We believed it was our duty to preserve this organisation which had been built up with almost fifty years of unremitting toil. I have no doubt that no self-respecting white political organisation would disband itself if declared illegal by a government in which it had no say”. End Quote
As I've grown older I found Mandela to be perhaps an overly optimistic person. I suppose one does not become a lawyer unless one believes in the law, but I find that the law is rarely uniformly applied to brown and black people, so I am therefore less inclined to believe in the validity of international law.
However, as part of his speech he said, of the systems which are now keeping a genocide going,
Quote. From my reading of Marxist literature and from conversations with Marxists, I have gained the impression that communists regard the parliamentary system of the West as undemocratic and reactionary. But, on the contrary, I am an admirer of such a system.
The Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world. I have great respect for British political institutions, and for the country's system of justice. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration. The American Congress, that country's doctrine of separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary, arouse in me similar sentiments. End Quote
I'm not sure what he would say if he was here today to see Palestine being bombed with white phosphorus, against international law and all those Magna Carta people creating draconian laws to oppress their own citizens should they dare speak out against a genocide. Perhaps he would have flashbacks, and see that while things have ostensibly moved forward, white is still might, and might is always right. In the face of such blatant revisionism and the use of international law to support the ethnic cleansing of a people, I believe that we have no option but to resist.
We must resist the temptation to be silent in the face of genocide, the temptation to call it something other than what it is. The temptation to say Gaza not a concentration camp, making it easy for those who would commit genocide to find and get rid of their victims. We must resist the temptation to use nice words and say that it is not an ethnic cleansing, not forced displacement for the purposes of capitalism and white supremacy. We must resist and find the strength to denounce Islamophobia, and the events are taking place in Palestine right now.
When I talk about resistance, especially at such a time when tensions are high and it's easy to get riled up and for what’s happening in Palestine to be reframed, or for other people to frame us talking about what's happening in Palestine as being antisemitic, and I have made peace with that. Speaking for myself though, part of why I resist, part of why I feel I must speak out is because of a book I read when I was young. As a young child, I was a voracious reader. Obviously, that's why I have a podcast about books.
So, when I was about 9, I was bored. I had run out of books in the school cupboard. We used to have a little cupboard in the classroom and I'm guessing I'd run out of my school library books as well. Perhaps it was a holiday and so I raided my mum's bookshelf. And I found a book about a young girl. She was 13 and obviously when you're 9, you're going to read a story about a 13-year-old girl because you are practically the same age. It was easy. For me to see her as a girl. And I read this story about my friend who spent most of her life most of the life at the time of writing waiting for her period to come, and for a boy named Peter to like her. They were hiding in an attic for reasons I didn't quite understand in a place called Amsterdam that I'd never heard of and could definitely not find on a map. At that time, I lived in Zimbabwe, but I knew that this girl, however different she was her life was dear to me. I loved reading her diary, this insight into her life but when I got to the end of the book and read the postscript by her father and let me know that whatever had been happening, these events, I didn't understand, the need to hide in this attic, the secrecy, the silence had ended in her death.
I was shocked.
Devastated. Part of the moral of that story is don't let your children just pick up books and read them without telling them what's going on, what the context is, because it really messes them up. But I read this book, and it really affected me because I've always thought if I could have done something to keep my friend alive I would have. If I could have thrown a rock at a Nazi or worse, and it would have saved her life. I absolutely would have.
Over the last few weeks, nearly 10000, just like her have died, under terrible conditions, children, mothers, brothers, husbands young people with their futures before them. All because of some ideologies and thoughts of five, six, seven people who managed to spread out their propaganda like a disease to a bunch of other people until everyone else decided that they were powerful enough that they would take action that they would dehumanise this little girl and people like her for no other reason than that she was born how she was born, to whom she was born, and that was a reason to kill her in a cruel and weird way. If I had been there. I would have fought tooth and nail. For her, her family, whoever.
And so, when I look at Palestine, the same impulse remains. The same forces which led to the death of my friend in a freezing camp somewhere when she was barely even a teenager with life gloriously beckoning before her are the same ones that are now operating in Palestine. So, I react the same way, I want to find a way to run away, to pick up my friend and run, to offer a place of sympathy or silence. When we talk about domination or dehumanisation, when we talk about the ideologies that make people justify putting people in concentration camps, justify calling people human animals or the calling for the obliteration of a people, it is important to remember that it doesn't matter who's doing the genocide. It doesn't matter to whom the genocide is being done. The genocide itself is what is wrong, and it what we oppose. I don't need to like people to stand up for them. It's not just because I loved Anne Frank that would stand up for her. It’s because genocide is wrong.
When we talk about resistance, we're not talking about fighting individuals, but systems. We're talking about the systems that underlie the wickedness that we're seeing in the world right now. It is the same wickedness that has ravaged the global South, ending bloodlines, the theft of land, the displacement and dehumanisation. We are talking about capitalism and white supremacy, racism, Islamophobia, systems that have informed lives for centuries. For those of us who come from those parts of the world where we have been second hand people we recognise it. And so, we resist because we know that there has never been a time when people came together and said, hey, I know let's do a racism then at some point, they decided, no, this is enough. I’ve stolen enough land and resources, I’ve killed enough people, I've got enough. Let's stop and just stopped on their own.
As long as they can get away with it, they will continue to do it. When we resist, we do it because we believe in the sanctity of human life- not just the lives we like.
Thanks for making it this far. If you are still uncertain about whether you should resist, here are a few more reasons.
1. It is in your own self-interest- if you do not fit the ideal, which is at this time, white, as we saw with Ukraine, and not Muslim, then it is in your own interests to resist, because all we are seeing in Palestine is a test case, and if Palestinians are all gone, someone else will be up. We must resist because our very lives are at stake, and we are only as safe as long as there's someone less safe than us but one day it may be your turn again, you and the special group you belong to that you believe is exempt. The same factors driving this genocide are the same ones that have driven colonialism, imperialism, slavery and even gun violence poor education, the lack of access to universal healthcare in the richest country in the world. Capitalism funds genocides in Congo where many are dying to feed the greed of the rich or in Brazil where many indigenous activists have also been murdered trying to protect the land. The case of Palestine is not an isolated incident but a part of the blood-soaked tapestry of capitalism, and white supremacy which has tainted the world for so long, the actors might have changed, but the playbook remains the same.
2. Secondly, we must resist capitalism because it will never be sated. Capitalism is not the same as these ancient gods or monsters that we read about in myths and legends, where you could make an annual sacrifice to the God or monster, leave a willing virgin or unwilling actually as was more likely the case and you know the angry God or monster, or tyrant would go away for a while. Capitalism demands sacrifice every hour every minute, every second of every day and so in resisting we acknowledge that we cannot bring enough sheep cows or virgins to keep this ravenous appetite at bay and eventually it will consume itself and us with it. Did you know that Palestine has oil? Do you remember when the US taught Iraq about democracy, on their oilfields?
3. Thirdly, we must resist in solidarity. The liberation movements of Africa were intertwined and thus effective because it was understood that all liberation was mutual. Different leaders supported each other and Mandela in his speech during his trial name drops the leaders of newly independent African nations who provided support.
Quote- It was on this note that I left South Africa to proceed to Addis Ababa as a delegate of the ANC. My tour was successful beyond all our hopes. Wherever I went I met sympathy for our cause and promises of help. All Africa was united against the stand of white South Africa, and even in London I was received with great sympathy by political leaders, such as the late Mr. Hugh Gaitskell and Mr. Grimond. In Africa I was promised support by such men as Julius Nyerere, now President of Tanganyika; Mr. Kawawa, then Prime Minister of Tanganyika; Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; General Abboud, President of the Sudan; Habib Bourguiba, President of Tunisia; Ben Bella, now President of Algeria; Modibo Keita, President of Mali; Leopold Senghor, President of Senegal; Sekou Toure, President of Guinea; President Tubman of Liberia; and Milton Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda and Kenneth Kaunda, now Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia. It was Ben Bella who invited me to visit Oujda, the Headquarters of the Algerian Army of National Liberation, the visit which is described in my diary, one of the Exhibits. End Quote
In an address at the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People in Pretoria on 4 December 1997, Mandela, now President of South Africa said,
Quote- The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own. We can easily be enticed to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice. Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face. Yet we would be less than human if we did so. It behoves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice. End Quote
As long as any single people are oppressed, and unable to live in peace in their own land, none of us should feel comfortable.
4. 4. We resist because we understand our own weaknesses. We know our own blind spots where we have been overcome by fear or rage and acted poorly. We resist therefore because while we understand the impulse to protect one's own by any means necessary, we understand and recognise that this cuts both ways. Our resistance must never shy away from the sure knowledge that those on the other side, “the other team”, love their husbands, wives, children, land, people, families, and lives as much as we do.
5. We must resist because apathy and despondency are hope killers, and we cannot afford to lose hope. We must instead lose ourselves in our activities, our shared goals. This is a good time for me to come back to Ivy Gcina. One of the reasons why I stopped reading the book she was talking about the way they treated her, because it just sounded really painful and sometimes we're not ready for that pain in our own lives.
She was arrested so much that she said if it were two days I was not picked up, I would think what did I miss? What have I not done today? She describes her experience of torture in 1985 as the hands for Black collaborator as well as white people when once again, she was arrested.
Quote, He hit me to early hours in the morning- that black one. I don’t know for how long (all skin folk etc). I could feel something going down my throat. It smelled like blood. Then my eye sunk in. Then another Security Branch say in Afrikaans I am stubborn. They stop that black one and he went out. The others they say to me, “We’re going to talk here. We’re going to hit you until you talk. This one hits me with something like a pipe that is hard. On my back, my legs, elsewhere. Until very late. Until he gets tired. My whole body is pitch black. They say that they know the whole thing, but they want me to confess with my own mouth, to say that I took the children out of the country, (to join the ANC forces). And when they come into the country, I keep them.
I said, “if you have the knowledge of this, why don’t you arrest me and charge me?” They said, no, you are too clever. I said, No, I am not clever, I working here in your presence. Then they took me to another room. There is a big machine there. It is a chocking machine I think. It was very late now. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to faint, but I think I must stay strong. While this white policeman is beating me, another one came shocked my neck. Another one came to shock my leg. I fell down. When I stood up, another one takes my head and hits it on the wall. When they hit me, I always bite my teeth together. Then I do not bite my tongue. End Quote.
She describes the long-term damage in the book, an impaired sense of smell, her damaged ear, the months in solitary confinement and more. She talks about the threats and harassment, the physical threats to her person, the acid in the bed, petrol bombs in the house. She lost so much and talks about the deaths of her children. Reading her account, I was struck by the cruelty of it all and wondered where those people who had done all these things were now. But I admire her so much when she says.
Quote. No, I was not afraid. I was prepared to die, actually. End Quote.
We must resist the temptation to think that resistance is easy.
6. I would like to take a little detour here. As we know, Christian Zionism is playing a really large role in what's happening right now. In the Bible is a concept of a scapegoat, as part of the act of atonement. So in the Old Testament what would happen was priests would come together and what the people of God would come together for an annual sacrifice and knowing that they're all sinners they've also and God is mad at them which is bad God gave them a way out of that and so this is where the idea of a scapegoat comes from that with that word that we use comes from and the scapegoat was a literal goat. from Leviticus 16 vs 20, we learn,
Quote- When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 21He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. 22The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness. End Quote
What we're seeing now is scapegoating of Palestinians by the West, but the New Testament to which Christians adhere also has Jesus as the final atonement lamb, who willingly gave his life (like the goat), so that everyone could be saved from their sins, nullifying the need for the atonement sacrifices and scapegoats. Difference is, he was not a conscript, he was a volunteer.
Hitler and the Nazis was a really bad person who did some many atrocious things to Jewish people, but we have not seen anyone calling any westerner a human animal or even a Nazi, when we have seen literal holocaust deniers and Nazis marching over the past few years. Yet Palestinians are being called all manner of names, suffering all manner of cruelty because the West has found a way to put their guilt on the Palestinian people thus releasing themselves to move about their daily lives and let the Palestinians be murdered for their guilt.
Palestinians were not there trying to kill Jewish people in the early 40s, and yet they been called animals on television and yet their only crime is that they were there a hundred years ago when Zionism was gathering momentum, and they continued to be there after 1948, and they are still here today. We must resist the temptation to wipe our dirty hands on other people’s souls.
7. We must resist for what we will gain. Everyone really admires Nelson Mandela for his sacrifices. Our country. He spent 27 years in prison. He lost basically his life after 40. For his country, for the liberation that he fought for. And yet now, after 27 years, in fact more of being a terrorist. Because of the resistance that he did we're able to look at him as Nobel Peace Prize winner. He's a great guy. But when you read what he actually said. During the trial You understand that it wasn't. All peaceful, that he was against the system of repression. He says.
Quote. South Africa is the richest country in Africa and could be one of the richest countries in the world. But is a land of extremes and remarkable contrasts? It may well be the highest standard of living in the world, while Africans live in poverty and misery, 40 per cent of the Africans live in a hopelessly overcrowded in some case, drought-stricken reserves.
Reserves like Gaza are where they would come. And they would take your land, and then they push you onto these ugly, drought-stricken pieces of land where you can't even grow your own food or live. These are what we call in Shona, maruzeva.
Quote- Forty per cent of the Africans live in hopelessly overcrowded and, in some cases, drought-stricken reserves, where soil erosion and the overworking of the soil makes it impossible for them to live properly off the land. Thirty per cent are labourers, labour tenants, and squatters on white farms and work and live under conditions similar to those of the serfs of the Middle Ages. The other thirty per cent live in towns where they have developed economic and social habits which bring them closer in many respects to white standards. Yet most Africans, even in this group, are impoverished by low incomes and the high cost of living.
When you read this, this could be stated by a Palestinian today. These are words that resonate with many people who have experienced colonialism, who have experienced what it is to be of second-class citizen in their own homes. He continued-
Quote- The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority. Legislation designed to preserve white supremacy entrenches this notion. Menial tasks in South Africa are invariably performed by Africans. When anything has to be carried or cleaned the white man will look around for an African to do it for him, whether the African is employed by him or not. Because of this sort of attitude, whites tend to regard Africans as a separate breed. They do not look upon them as people with families of their own; they do not realise that we have emotions - that we fall in love like white people do; that we want to be with their wives and children like white people want to be with theirs; that we want to earn money, enough money to support our families properly, to feed and clothe them and send them to school. And what 'house-boy' or 'garden-boy' or labourer can ever hope to do this? Africans want to be paid a living wage.
Africans want to perform work which they are capable of doing, and not work which the Government declares them to be capable of. We want to be allowed to live where we obtain work, and not be endorsed out of an area because we were not born there. We want to be allowed and not to be obliged to live in rented houses which we can never call our own. We want to be part of the general population, and not confined to living in our ghettoes. African men want to have their wives and children to live with them where they work, and not to be forced into an unnatural existence in men's hostels. Our women want to be with their men folk and not to be left permanently widowed in the reserves. We want to be allowed out after eleven o'clock at night and not to be confined to our rooms like little children. We want to be allowed to travel in our own country and to seek work where we want to, where we want to and not where the Labour Bureau tells us to. We want a just share in the whole of South Africa; we want security and a stake in society. Above all, My Lord, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy. But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs as it certainly must, it will not change that policy. End Quote
8. We must resist, because that is human nature- Growing up, I was a fervent Christian and of my favourite books in the Bible was the book of Esther in which we learn of an attempt to murder all the Jews again. A lot of Jewish history has the threat of genocide in it the threat of being wiped out the threat of being so small so insignificant among your neighbours that there is always the threat of death. From the enslavement in Egypt, to the babies being murdered in Exodus, the books of Esther, Daniel, Nehemiah and even the New Testament with the murdered babies by Herod points to a history of near misses.
So when I see some Jewish people say that Jewish people need to remain in exile as a condition of what God wants for them, I personally as an African whose people fought for freedom and who now can go back home to Zimbabwe and be among people like me who speak my language understand the need. I understand why you would want to have your own place and honestly I support it, but it’s perhaps a little strange that Palestinians would suffer for it and not you know, the people that did the wicked bad things.
Anyway, the book of Esther tells the story of a very beautiful smart girl who's used by God and her uncle Mordecai to save the lives of the Jewish people. Backstory- Esther or Hadassah, an orphan girl raised by her uncle ended up married to the King because he was collecting wives. At the same time a big time antisemite called Haman had sort of tricked the King into signing a decree to have the Jews in all of Persia murdered. Persia was like a fifth of the world at that time, and the decree meant that any Jewish people, across the whole empire could be killed. So Esther, at the prompting of her uncle, goes to talk to the King and says “dude, I thought you liked me, and he says, I totes do, what’s up?” And she goes, well, apparently you gave this guy permission to kill my people and the King's like oh I didn't know that that's what that was going to do because sometimes our leaders sign things or say things without really thinking about but effects of what they're saying or signing. Either they are truly pernicious or super dumb, jury is out.
So, then Esther says, well, since it was all a mistake, could you undo that, and that would be tickety boo, but the King is like, I’m a man of my word, this is Persia, we don’t lie, when I put my seal to a genocide, I can’t undo it, but what I can do is give Jewish people the right to defend themselves. Thus, the Jewish people were able to take up arms and defend themselves and fight back against these people who wanted to kill them. I think that's a really important story and the reason why is that is in the story, if the Jewish people had simply taken up arms and defended themselves, without the edict from the King giving them permission, they would have been in the wrong. That act of self-defence would have been illegal, because only the state has the monopoly on violence, even if you are defending yourself, your people. Oftentimes, the difference between terrorism and self-defence is just about who supports you. You need friends in high places to commit a genocide, but the other side of the coin is that you also need friends in high places to defend yourself against genocide, otherwise you are a dirty, filthy terrorist.
Would we condemn Esther and her people if they had taken up arms in their own defence if the King had told them to just accept their deaths? I wonder.
Finally, we must resist in order to hold on to our humanity. I am sure that future historians will have a lot to study with this, but there are those for whom fellow feeling for other humans who are not like them is low. Perhaps they don’t even consider these other humans to be human at all.
And so, for these individuals, the influx of videos of people suffering, dead babies, beheaded people are quite titillating. For these individuals, these groups watching Christians get fed to the lions of the Colosseum would have been a fun family day out. They would have aimed for front row seats to lynchings, taken picture for the postcards, collected souvenirs from the guillotine and wanted to be splattered by the blood that fell from people having their guts ripped out.
They would have been the first to follow the groups chasing witches, watching them get drowned or burnt at the stake while eating snacks and laughing. Curiosity would driven them to want to know how loud a person can scream when they are being boiled inn oil or burned alive at the stake. They would want to see the lions tear people limb from limb and would want to be there feeling the warm blood splashing on their bodies when dissidents were hung drawn and quartered. Perhaps they would sneakily cut off a finger or an ear to keep as a souvenir. Human beings have a long history of watching people that they don't like or disagree with being murdered in public and for a long time that was entertainment. The history of watching black and brown bodies being violated is not new, and for those people who enjoy watching other melanated humans suffer all their Christmases have come at once and the longer that this goes on the more those people have to play with to share to laugh about to glory over and we can't let that continue to happen.
With the availability of social media there's so much content that anyone who has these wicked hearts can watch people suffer and cry to their heart's content and look up on the fragile tiny bodies at any time. We are being forced to show bodies to prove that people died, because world leaders keep saying these bodies do not exist, but by so doing, we are giving more access to people. We must resist and fight to end the slaughter quickly so that those who have shown time and again that they do not believe that those who are not like them do not feel pain have nothing to play with. A month’s worth of tears and anguish have not melted a single heart, so we must accept the possibility that this is pleasing to them, and we must thus resist to extinguish that fire, suck out the oxygen from this system and make it impossible for people to continue exercising their lack of empathy. We must resist, and deprive those who are so willing to believe in the superiority of one life over another of that which brings them joy.
I will finish here with a final word from the terrorist Nelson Mandela- more strength for us to borrow, more wisdom for us to aspire to.
Quote “Our struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. [someone coughs] During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” End Quote
That was a lot, thanks for sticking with me, please join me next week when I will be talking about the emperor’s new clothes. If you liked this episode, please pass it along, and in the meantime, Aluta continua.
