One of my favorite parts of being at Wits is my access to their lectures and events. Yesterday I attended a talk called "What I Saw: Apartheid?" given by ANC Parliamentary Caucus Chairperson and anti-Apartheid activist Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge about her recent trip to Israel, giving a feminist critique on the conditions that she witnessed. The event was sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), the South African Student Congress (SASCO), African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and the Young Communist League (YCL) and began with an impassioned cry of "Amandla!" which means "power" in both Zulu and Xhosa. The crowd then responded "Ngawethu" which means "to us!". The talk itself was interesting but not particularly enlightening; Madlala-Routledge's observations of segregation, denial of resources, and prejudice were pretty well known to most of the audience. What was notable was the political climate in the room, the palpable tension between the passionately pro-Palestinian majority in the room and the few staunch Zionists who attended the rally (for it turned out to be more of a rally than a talk) to confront the speaker and to record the event for their records. According to the Dean of Wits, the Israel/Palestine confrontations are among the most heated on campus, and the two organizations have a rivalry that goes beyond simply their political positions.
The talk ended with the president of the PSC proclaiming "Talking is crap. It is not the way to the solution!" Which troubled me. Up until that point I was pretty supportive of what was discussed in the rally, but once the talk to turned to intolerance of any pro-Israeli point of view, any discussion of compromise, I started to feel uncomfortable. I believe that in conflict silencing anyone is a violent and violating act, and it only perpetuates the cycles of depredation to try to reach a solution through the suppression of discourse.
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3 comments:
Your feed-back is interesting. I would have liked to have heard your views at the meeting and to have had the opportunity to engage with you on your thoughts. For me the visit to Israel/Palestine was the first and what I saw was deeply disturbing! I reported on my personal observations. With me were people who have been to Israel many times who saw what we saw together for the first time. They were as shocked as I was. I also saw young Israeli's working together with Palestinians. To me this was the most valuable part of my experience during the visit. How many such initiatives have you heard about? Maybe if you were listening you would have picked this up as the centre peice our our visit - to witness first hand the tremendous joint effort being made at the grassroots level by Palestinians and Israelis. I think the more people can see for themselves the more real it becomes. No amount of posturing or shouting one another down will change the life of the Palestinian child or the Israeli child who grow up to hate each other. It will not help the Israeli who lives in fear or the Palestinian whose life has been taken away by the military occupation. I think if we take the attitude that we have heard it all before, we close our minds to the reality of the people whose human rights are abused on a daily basis. Listening should be on both sides of the divide, otherwise there is no hope. What are you personally doing about the situation apart from observing as you indicate? What is Wits doing? That is my question.
Hi there, great blog. Kudos for the discussion with Madlala-Routledge.
Was wondering if you could elaborate on what Routledge actually said...particularly on the apartheid issue.
Was the PSC really advocating violence? I guess they were there with the ANC YL who advocate the use of force to defend Zuma.
Thanks for the coverage.
Hi There
Nice post, I cant say I agree with you, but the piece is well put together and balanced.
What I think most of the people in that room would have missed is that the occupation is not the issue, not for the PSC anyway.
For them the issue is that there is such a country called Israel at all. Silencing pro-Israel voices is really just the start for them, they
defend the use of symbols such as Swastikas and frequently make use of Nazi vocabulary in their publications.
Although vocal in criticising Israel the ANC has always maintained it has a right to exist. Through some of the statements that Mrs Madlala-Routledge made
and by her agreeing to talk for an anti-semitic organisation she crossed a line of thinking that is not even supported by her own party.
Whatever Mrs Madlala-Routledge thinks of the conflict she shouldnt let herself be used to promote the agendas of Jew haters on campus.
On a lighter note I see that you have been enjoying some of our fabulous Joburg tourist attractions. May I suggest that you take a trip up Munro Drive, the view is wonderful this time of year.
Ben
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