Thoughts on
Apartheid
By Dr. Ghulam M. Haniff
St. Cloud, Minnesota
One would think that the sky was
falling down judging by the controversy surrounding
the publication of President Jimmy Carter’s
book on Palestine. In his writing Carter details
the plight of the Palestinians as they go about
their daily lives taunted by Israeli soldiers
at every turn and, with gaping poverty staring
them in the eyes. Most of all, he notes that the
Palestinians have been corralled into smaller
and smaller enclaves as more and more of their
land is taken away from them.
On this side of the Atlantic those in Israel’s
corner have convinced America, through the cudgel
of anti-Semitism and media denigration, that certain
issues must never be raised such as the suffering
of the Palestinians. Carter apparently never got
the message.
His book appropriately titled ‘Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid’ explores the on-going
humiliation of the Palestinians living under Israeli
occupation. Carter finds that a social institution
known as apartheid has been created to keep the
natives under control. He describes apartheid
“as a forcible separation of two peoples
living in the same land with the subjugation of
one people by the other.” In Palestine the
Israeli occupiers have systematically subjugated
the Palestinians and corralled them into Bantustan-like
enclaves.
What galls the Israel First crowd in America is
that Carter dares to use the word “apartheid”
to describe the reality of Palestinian existence.
Israelis believe, that as God’s chosen people,
they are morally superior to everyone and therefore
the use of the word “apartheid” with
its racist connotation is anathema to them. They
cannot possibly be racists. However, their actions
right in front of the eyes of the world, tell
a different story.
The two pre-eminent colonial powers of the modern
times, Britain and the US, offer protection to
the Israelis to obliterate the Palestinian identity
and to make the Palestinian dispossession complete.
In their colonial conquests that is exactly what
Britain and the US did to the natives who succumbed
to their military might.
One finds it difficult to believe that in the
21st century the darker people, the “natives,”
are still the target of control and destruction
by the ever conniving white-man. During the heyday
of colonialism the institution of apartheid was
the instrument of choice for keeping the natives
down and powerless. That is how the “Other,”
the people of color, the dark-skinned “hordes,”
fared from the day Christopher Columbus set foot
in the New World.
For over five hundred years a handful of whites
controlled the darker races making up over three
quarters of the world’s population. During
the past few decades the Israelis have repeated
that experience with the Palestinians as the victims.
The Palestinian life has been so degraded that
nobody in the “international community”
(made up of whites with the US at the top) cares
what happens to them.
Wherever the white-man has gone a system of apartheid
was put into practice supported by military force.
South Africa represented the most notorious example
of such an operation until the system began to
crumble. In the United States the institution
of apartheid, known as segregation, was equally
pernicious and lasted until the “Other,”
the darker races, began to rise. Its many debilitating
effects continue to linger on to this very day.
The victims of segregation, mostly the blacks
in America, are permanently scarred with the mark
of oppression in their souls, in their very physical
being and in their psyche. Indeed, that is the
condition of the “Other,” the natives
everywhere, which according to Frantz Fanon have
become “the wretched of the earth.”
Here in North America, the conquered natives,
the American Indians, were corralled into reservations
and were doomed to languish in drunken stupor
for decades. Almost all of their land was taken
away from them. Israelis are emulating that model.
Today, Gaza and West Bank are two huge open-air
prisons surrounded by military force armed with
lethal weapons. Inside the West Bank are hundreds
of Jewish settlers ensuring internal control.
Wherever the white-man went he clearly demarcated
his territory for exclusive control. In fact,
signs of various sorts were put-up. These carried
warnings such as “No Coloreds,” or
more crudely, “No Niggers.” Quite
often he showed his “civilized” character
by the message “For Whites Only.”
In some places his crudity emphasized superiority:
“Chinese and Dogs Not Allowed.” These
warnings could be found in the depth of tropical
Africa, out in the bushes, in China, in the dense
heat of Malay archipelago, of course, in the Indo-Pak
subcontinent, the American South and places just
too numerous to mention.
Israelis too have designed a system of measures
for keeping the Palestinians out. Most Americans
do not know about these realities since these
are hardly ever mentioned in the media. President
Carter is probably one of the first writers to
bring out the reality of Palestinian life under
occupation. For that Carter has been branded an
anti-Semite.
These aspects of colonial control are discussed
widely by the Arabs, by the Muslims and by the
people of conscience in the world. Only in America
have the public fallen for the line that “Israel
is fighting for its survival.” Others know
better as they see apartheid in action.
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