South African apartheid unofficially ended in 1991, I was four years old. I didn’t really understand it. By 1994 when South Africa had its first multiracial elections and Nelson Mandela became president, I was seven and I understood a bit more. There was a place where it was illegal to be Black and now a Black guy had been elected president. In 2000 I was 13 years old and I was somehow allowed to watch 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2. The one where Mel Gibson and Danny Glover fight evil South African government officials. I felt an odd mixture of revulsion and titillation when the cartoonishly evil Afrikaner diplomat called Glover a “kaffir”. Was this what racism looked like? It would all be fine in the end. The bad guys were taken care of, their diplomatic immunity was revoked.
I believe no one is born to hate, as Nelson Mandela said " No one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin, or their background, or their religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes naturally to the human heart than it's opposite." Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report in April that helps put the recent bloodshed in its proper context. It details the crimes against humanity of persecution and apartheid that Israeli authorities are committing against millions of Palestinians... I could be wrong, but I believe if minorities in this country don't watch out we could have the same atrocities here in America... Solidarity Forever!!
to bring another society into this parallel, when i was in south africa there was a national evening of reading from the Apartheid Archive, a collection of writings submitted anonymously, created so white south africans would open their mouths, which they weren't doing in the TRC hearings. as i listened my jaw dropped, everything they said could have described where i grew up (lynchburg, virginia, in the 50s). after it was over i was saying this to people and they told me that in '48, when Verwoerd wanted to officially set up apartheid he and a bunch of others came to visit the southern US, to take notes on how to do it, and proceeded accordingly. the parallels aren't as easy as between israel and south africa, two clearly colonial powers. we're that, but with the added problem of enslavement. the history is different, but the dynamics eerily similar.
I agree, it's not that complicated...apartheid in Israel/Palestine, and also what the Republicans are moving toward here...
I believe no one is born to hate, as Nelson Mandela said " No one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin, or their background, or their religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes naturally to the human heart than it's opposite." Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report in April that helps put the recent bloodshed in its proper context. It details the crimes against humanity of persecution and apartheid that Israeli authorities are committing against millions of Palestinians... I could be wrong, but I believe if minorities in this country don't watch out we could have the same atrocities here in America... Solidarity Forever!!
to bring another society into this parallel, when i was in south africa there was a national evening of reading from the Apartheid Archive, a collection of writings submitted anonymously, created so white south africans would open their mouths, which they weren't doing in the TRC hearings. as i listened my jaw dropped, everything they said could have described where i grew up (lynchburg, virginia, in the 50s). after it was over i was saying this to people and they told me that in '48, when Verwoerd wanted to officially set up apartheid he and a bunch of others came to visit the southern US, to take notes on how to do it, and proceeded accordingly. the parallels aren't as easy as between israel and south africa, two clearly colonial powers. we're that, but with the added problem of enslavement. the history is different, but the dynamics eerily similar.