opinions
V71 E3 – 13 MARCH 2012
Burnt Toast Berndt Hannweg
A foreign Apartheid Bruce Baigrie & Liam Minné
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The focus of IAW is to bring these issues into the public and academic sphere. As South Africans, we have a civic responsibility to support and show solidarity with the Palestinian cause. During our own Apartheid struggle we received support from the international community, including Palestine, and it is this support that we must now show in return. Nelson Mandela, in his address at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, noted this in stating, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” As UCT students, we must honour this responsibility and condemn all forms of human rights abuse and seek justice and equality for all.
Opinions Editor
The Science of Faith
Solidarity Forum
Don’t steal Apartheid from black South Africans Josh Benjamin
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hen the dust of historical calamities settles, there is no more pressing and pertinent responsibility than to preserve the history of the persecuted. It is of grave concern when a generation not only fails to do so, but effectively robs the persecuted of their surviving solace, their story of persecution. The Israel Apartheid Week, a worldwide campaign, not only distorts history and current affairs, but also robs black South Africans of their story of suffering under a genuinely racist regime. If the status quo in Israel does resemble Apartheid, the black South African narrative must then, in order to represent a true parallel, change accordingly. Instead of one where black people had little or no rights, it would tell of one where their freedoms surpassed those of their immediate neighbours. Instead of prohibition from benches and public amenities and exclusion from education and public discourse, Apartheid would instead have been
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the story of individual democratic leverage so high, a black judge could have prosecuted Verwoerd. The campaign targets “Apartheid” Israel and its “racist” policies, whose democracy allowed for the Israeli president to be sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment by an Arab judge. Or consider the South African tricameral system, which would similarly be replaced by a story of equal representation in parliament, through a fair and all-inclusive electoral process – just as the Israeli process is indiscriminate towards its 23% Arab population. The campaign to isolate South Africa through sanctions and boycotts would not have occurred externally, but rather by black people from leading academic institutions within South Africa itself – just as the BDS (Boycotts Divestment and Sanctions) was launched by ArabIsraeli Omar Barghouti from Tel Aviv University. These examples demonstrate that this flawed attempt to place two different historical stories in parallel succeeds at nothing more than robbing a persecuted people of their history.
Josh Benjamin is Chairman of the South African Union of Jewish Students
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This is not to overlook the brutalities that Israel has committed, but to reject a false analogy which does little to resolve a volatile conflict. Just as Israel represents an actualisation of a collectively-held Zionist dream, the Palestinian people must have their dream of selfdetermination actualised. Their right to statehood is inalienable. This will not be achieved through false analogies which promote polarisation and isolate the other side. It should not exclude the Israeli camp from discourse based on accusations of Apartheid – a twisted irony, considering how white racists attempted to exclude non-white South Africans through demonisation. If South Africans care about respecting those who tragically suffered under a genuine system of Apartheid, it is our duty to condemn Israel Apartheid Week in the strongest manner possible.
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of this war between science and faith are the media and the politician’s podium. After all, freedom of speech and religion guarantee everyone the right to voice their beliefs. But it is the third battleground which is the murkiest and possibly the most dangerous: the classroom. In no other place do we gather so many susceptible minds under one god-like authority who commands the trust, fear and respect that students have for eligion, like politics, is their teachers. After all, these one of those verboten topics are the people our parents are that no-one really likes to bring paying to prepare us for “the Real up in conversation. And if you do World”. bring them up, it’s generally with I had long believed this to someone whose preferences on be America’s domestic battle both you already understand. (apart, perhaps, from some Unlike politics, however, isolated outbreaks in Europe and which only enrich our lives Australia), so it was a surprise to once or twice every four or five discover that an unnamed Cape years, religion Town school and the religious had fired a At its heart, the constantly affect teacher after she debate revolves our day-to-day insisted on tealiving, often in ching children around Faith and ways we don’t that Mother Evidence realise. Nature was a lot But we do all older than people recognise, on some level, thought, and that life, beautiful the way our faiths (or lack as it may be, is still a series of thereof) impact the way we think. happy accidents. Or rather, the way we don’t. At odds with both staff The “theory” of Creationism and a body of parents who is composed of a variety believed otherwise, this veteran of schools, ranging from of biology was invited to find Intelligent Design to Young employment somewhere where Earth theorists. Practitioners are their kooky ideas, backed by a generally Christians, and their mere overwhelming majority aim is to prove that, at some of eminent scientists and other level, a deity was involved in thinkers, could be passed on to a creating everything. less critical younger generation. Most often found in America’s At its heart, the debate revolves Bible Belt, Creationists’ primary around Faith and Evidence. If activities are commissioning you have large amounts of Faith, studies affirming religious you will be willing to discount claims, and disputing the results anything, even rationally proven, and methodologies of studies that contradicts the object of that that contradict them. belief, or you may subtly alter Intelligent Design contends that belief so that, in some small that complex life cannot have way, it remains compatible with evolved (though that word is the Evidence. already a minefield of its own) If you rely on Evidence, without a guiding hand, while everything you know and believe the Young Earth states that the is subject to change the moment world couldn’t possibly be 4,5 new evidence comes to light. billion years old, given that we In this way, Evidencers seek to can trace Biblical lineage all the understand their world. way back to Adam, who was The two ways of thinking are at around (supposedly) only 4000 once abhorrent and impenetrable years prior to us. to each other, meaning that a All of those fossil records are resolution may never be reached. apparently a double-bluff on the And because they are part of the Big Guy in the Sky, it incompatible, we can only teach seems. His little jape, although a our children one of the two. thorough one, considering how Critical thinking? Or faith in a much of the damn stuff we keep higher power? Choose wisely, for finding. once taught, this will be the way The first two amphitheatres our children view their world.
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Bruce Baigrie and Liam Minné are Co-Chairs of the Cape Town Palestine
Image: Liam Hoare
he University of Cape Town Palestine Solidarity Forum (PSF) was established in 2010 with the aim of promoting social justice in Israel and Palestine. In doing so, the PSF promotes action, debate and education around the issue, while striving to combat all forms of antiSemitism or Islamophobia. UCT PSF recently hosted the eighth Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), which ran from 5 to 11 March. IAW is an annual international solidarity campaign that is hosted across university campuses, including eleven other South African universities, in over 110 cities. The aim of the week is to raise awareness about the State of Israel’s current apartheid policies towards
Palestinians and to promote the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel. Palestinians living within the Occupied Territories are impeded daily in exercising their basic rights to movement, property and equality. This is done through a state system of permits, segregation barriers, segregated roads and checkpoints. Currently there are over 500 000 illegal Israeli settlers living within the occupied West Bank. These settlers are afforded full civilian rights under Israeli civil law. In contrast, the Palestinians living within the same area are forced to go through checkpoints to cross land, are not allowed on roads deemed for Israeli use only and are evicted from their land in aid of continued settlement construction. This law affords the settlers liberties in the West Bank, yet denies Palestinians these same fundamental rights.
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