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 By Ramzy
Baroud, 6/04/2007
I stand at the southernmost corner of Africa, the Cape of
Good Hope. The grand mountains underneath and behind infuse
a moment of spiritual reflection unmatched in its depth and
meaning. Before me is an awe-inspiring view: here the
Atlantic’s frigid waters gently meet the warm waters of the
Indian Ocean. They meet but don’t collide. The harmony is
seamless; the greatness of this view is humbling.
I was invited to South Africa to deliver a keynote speech at
the ‘Al-Nakba’ conference, held in Cape Town. The journey
led me to other cities. Many speeches, presentations, media
interviews later, I sat with a borrowed computer and
scattered thoughts: how can one reflect without the least
sense of certainty, assuredness? I ought to try.
“Where are the Black Africans?” was the first question to
come to mind as a friend’s car escorted me a distance from
the Cape Town International Airport. I saw very few
indications affirming that I was indeed in Africa as I gazed
at the exaggeratedly beautiful surroundings of the airport.
My friend needed not respond however, as the car soon
hurriedly zoomed by a “squatters’ camp”; no slum can be
compared to this, no refugee camp. Innumerable people are
crammed in the tiniest and crudest looking ‘houses’ made of
whatever those poor people could find laying around. It was
not ‘temporary accommodations’, but permanent dwellings:
here they live, marry, raise children and die.
It takes no brilliant mind to realize that Apartheid South
Africa is still, in some ways, Apartheid South Africa. A lot
has been done on the road to equal rights since the Africa
National Congress (ANC) along with freedom fighters and
civil society activists combined forces to defeat a legacy
of 350 years of oppression, colonialism and – in 1948 – an
officially sanctioned system of Apartheid, a system
instilled by the white minority government to ethnically
cleanse, confine and subdue the overwhelmingly black
majority. True, the hundreds of Bantustans or ‘homelands’ in
which the Blacks were locked, only to be allowed to leave or
enter White areas – as servants – with a special pass, are
no longer an officially recognized apparatus. The
‘presidents’ of those Bantustans – puppet rulers hand picked
by White authorities – are long discredited. Now, South
Africans, of all colors, ethnicities and religions select
their own leaders, in democratic elections that are, more or
less, reflective of the overall desires of the populace. But
it takes much more than 13 years, and uncountable promises
to reconcile the calculated inequality of centuries.
Despite a hectic schedule of two weeks, I made it a goal to
visit as many squatters’ camps as I could. I followed the
path of ethnic cleansing that took place in District Six in
Cape Town; it was a Trail of Tears of sorts, a Palestinian
Catastrophe. My grandparents, mother and father where
dragged from their homes under similar circumstances in 1948
in Palestine. They too were not suitable to live within the
same ‘geographic radius’ with those who had deemed
themselves superior. Those who were forcibly removed from
District Six have finally won their land back. Palestinians
are still refugees. My grandparents are long dead, so is my
mother. My father, a very ill and old man, is waiting in our
old home in the refugee camp in Gaza. He refuses to yield,
to capitulate.
I spoke at a technical college that was erected for Whites
only on the exact same spot where thousands of Colored and
Blacks were uprooted and thrown somewhere else, somewhere
more discreet, more acceptable to the taste of Apartheid
administrators. I paid a tribute to those resilient people
who refused to embrace their inferior status, fought and
died to regain their freedom and dignity. I saluted my
people, who stood in solidarity with the fighters of South
Africa. In our Gaza camps, we mourned for South Africa and
we celebrated when Nelson Mandela was set free. My father
handed out candy to the neighborhood kids. When Bishop
Desmond Tutu visited Palestine, Israeli settlers greeted him
with racist graffiti and chants across the West Bank. For
Palestinians, this was a personal insult. Tutu is ours, just
as Che Guevara, Martin Luther, Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi,
Ahmad Yassin and Yasser Arafat were and still are.
On Robin Island, where Mandela and hundreds of his comrades
were held for many years, I touched the decaying walls of
the prison. Food in the prison was rationed on the basis of
skin color. Blacks always received the least. But prisoners
defied the prison system nonetheless; they created a
collective in which all the food received would be shared
equally amongst them. I tore a piece of my Palestinian scarf
and left it in Mandela’s cell; its chipped, albeit fortified
walls, its thin floor mattress still stand witness to the
injustice perpetrated by some and the undying faith in one’s
principles embraced by others. I visited every cell in
Section A and B, touched every wall, read every name of
every inmate: Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Bantus were
all kept here, fought, died and finally won their freedom
together. They referred to each other as comrades. Injustice
is colorblind. So is true camaraderie.
I have never felt the sense of solidarity and acceptance
that I felt in South Africa. There is an unparalleled lesson
to be learned in this amazing place. There is a lot to be
sorted out: a true equality to be realized, but a lot has
also been done. A veteran ANC fighter thanked me for the
arms and money supplied to his unit, and many other units,
by the PLO in the 1970’s and 80’s; he said he still has his
PLO uniform, tucked in somewhere in his little decrepit
‘house’ in one of the squatters’ camps dotting the city. It
was a poignant reminder that the fight is not yet over.
Amongst the many names scribbled at the fenced wall at the
helm of Cape of Good Hope, someone took the time to write “
Palestine”. In the Apartheid Wall erected by Israel on
Palestinian land in the West Bank, the South African
parallel is expressed in more ways than one. The
relationship cannot be any more obvious. The fight for
justice is one, and shall always be. |
