Apartheid On Two Continents: A Re-assessment Of Israel's
Practices
Writers Articles And Opinions
29 March 2010
By Mats Svensson
We all have a common history that
crosses borders in terms of both country and time.
Together with black and white in South Africa, we
acted forcefully, taking a stand against apartheid and
defining the evil and the good. We became part of a
historic decision, a decision that was made by an
earlier generation and led to many today being able to
feel pride over our common history.
Today we can unfortunately read
analytical reports showing that the evil remains in
other parts of the world. Today we should therefore
again react forcefully when this appears, when it
becomes visible. Tor Sellström has, in his work,
documented what Sweden did to fight apartheid in
southern Africa. South African researchers have now
found signs of apartheid in Palestine. But how do we
use this knowledge? How does the world react?
Most surfaces are covered with
post-its; yellow, green and pink. Each post-it has its
place. Not carelessly posted on the wall, but
consciously placed an exact distance from the rest. I
look around and see a pattern, but do not understand
all the codes: countries, persons, events, years,
money.
The shelves are covered with books and
folders, alphabetized, based on a library structure
but with the artist’s own codes; everything in its
place, always in the right place. I am actually not
allowed in here; no one is allowed in. Tor Sellström
does not want anyone to mess anything up, change
anything, move a book, a paper, a green post-it, a pen
or a message.
Tor is the artist, the artist who
paints a painting; an endless painting, a painting in
text, art in words. Who paints to make us understand,
remember; to never forgot what just was.
During the days he composes what has
been thought during the night. The art of work took
seven years to make. It began as a sketch in broad
brush strokes. Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana,
Mocambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa. Seven
years in a basement, in a dark room behind a closed
door. Seven years, day in and day out. Weekday as
holiday, day as night, hour by hour. The work of art
becomes larger, longer, broader and higher. Color is
added to color, scraped off, new shade, words are
added to words.
No one is forgotten. Everyone who was
there, the renowned as the unknown, gets their place.
The smallest organizations as well as the large ones
are referenced. Everyone gets a value, their own
value. The palette contains all colors, even colors
that do not exist.
Then I could see how the work of art
was almost ready. Six years were completed, just one
year remained. The first book, ”Sweden and National
Liberation Southern Africa, I Formation of a popular
opinion 1950-1970” had just come out, 540 pages.
Tor was starting to become impatient. The round the
clock work, the loneliness, the sleeplessness, the
constant search for facts began to take out their
right. It was as if the struggle -- what he described,
the fight against apartheid -- became part of Tor’s
inner struggle. It came to be about the large
political currents but also about the artist’s own
inner storms. Tor waits anxiously to complete the last
work of art with the subtitle, “Solidarity and
assistance 1970-1994” (912 pages).
Tor writes about the struggle against
apartheid and about everyone who supported the
resistance; everyone who did not wait for someone else
to act, everyone who did not wait for something to
over time disappear into the sand. No, the work of art
describes everyone who decided that the evil must have
an end; that the evil could not be handed over to the
next generation.
The work of art became large since the
portrayed were many and the events countless. Most of
the churches participated in the struggle, but not
all. Most of the political parties were there to break
the grasp of evil, but not all. Many companies acted
with force, but not all. In this work of art, however,
all sides are included; no one has been passed over.
We should not be able to forget.
Through Tor’s work, we have an
encyclopedia over apartheid and colonialism in our
hand, who acted and how. You can also dicipher who did
not act and why some stood by the side. Three volumes.
Two thousand pages of text with thousands of
footnotes. Words, lines, pages with an unambiguous
message. A message to us that as Swedes we should be
proud, that we should not forget. And at the same time
the artist requests us to always, in each time, in
each place, resist all forms of colonialism and
apartheid.
I was living in Shuafat in East
Jerusalem when I finished reading the last volume, the
dense, ungainly, tedious volume. Have often told Tor
that if someone says he has read all of the volumes he
can assume that the person is lying. Thousands of
pages of scholarly text just becomes too strenuous.
But Jerusalem, the place where I found myself in May
2009, gave me strength. I read about something that
had been, that I long had tried to understand, but
which is also still going on. Then and now merged and
became one.
I walked along the wall, from the south
to the north. 520 km long it winds through Palestinian
villages, destroyed olive groves, pasture lands. It
winds through a rolling landscape, cutting off roads
and paths and precluding the continuation of a social
and economic life. When it is completed, another 200
km will have been built. In total, when the building
of destruction is ready, Israel can boast with 720 km
of separation, of killed dreams, killed hopes,
destroyed lives.
It is being built on Palestinian land,
on occupied territory, to steal land, to protect
illegal settlers. The thousands of visitors who every
year visit the holy land, who walk in the footsteps of
Jesus, could see the afflicted, listen to the voices,
hear the stories. The visits could give a unique
possibility to understand the ordinary and commonplace
oppression. Unfortunately the visits are often aimed
at something else, something that happened long ago.
Focused on the time when the area was occupied by the
Romans, unlike today when the occupying power is
called Israel.
And then in May 2009 I was invited to a
report launching in Ramallah. The report was called “Occupation,
Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of
Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian
territories under international law. Cape Town, South
Africa, May 2009.”
I felt both happiness and sorrow when I
got the report in my hand. Happiness that somebody
dared to begin telling the truth, but also sorrow over
my own silence, that I had hid behind my own
cowardice, my own lie; that I had not been able to see
what during many years had appeared so clearly. The
truth on paper came from Cape Town.
If somebody wants to try to understand
apartheid, colonialism, you should seek yourself to
South Africa. Rent a car, go out to Mamelody, sit at a
Shibin or in a small jazz club. Listen to the music
and ask the questions. Here you can trust in that your
questions will get answered. If there is anything a
South African understands, it is apartheid. As the
mother has breast fed her child, the child has
simultaneously received apartheid’s whole system. As a
Swede, I can never understand this. What recently
happened was too disgusting and at the same time too
consistent in its science. But this also implies that
researchers in South Africa see, know, and perceive if
there are tendencies of apartheid and colonialism
elsewhere.
During my years in Palestine I worked
for short periods close to persons who were near
President Mbeki and the Mandela couple. We worked in
the Gaza Strip, spoke to the fractions, laughed and
cried together with Hamas and Fatah. Often my South
African colleagues cried out that apartheid in South
Africa was a picnic compared to the West Bank and
Gaza. This comparison was something that a South
African often repeated verbally. What now was new was
that I held in my hand a scientific report about the
same thing, which processed what I so clearly felt.
After 15 months of research, Human
Sciences Research Council, Cape Town, declares that
what is happening in Palestine is not only occupation
but also colonialism and apartheid.
There are similarities and differences
between this report and Tor’s books. They are both
based on an extensive factual basis, not feelings. At
the same time, there is a decisive difference. Tor
documents who did something, how he did this, and why.
In the report from South Africa about the situation in
Palestine, the international community is not an
important actor. The international community is
politically silent and there is little to report on.
The authors of the report have instead chosen to
analyze concepts such as colonialism and apartheid and
do this in relation to legality. The books and the
report consist of research at its best. Research with
an address, research that means that we need to take a
position, must judge, value and as humans react.
Colonialism and apartheid are
expressions that we within humanity have decided to
fight. They are both crimes against fundamental human
rights. Each state has a legal responsibility to the
international community to not be an active part of
apartheid or colonialism. In accordance with this,
each state has a responsibility to cooperate to end
all forms of colonialism and apartheid, not recognize
a form of action which has its origin in colonialism
or apartheid, and not support a country committing
these crimes. Sweden also stands behind this
undertaking. It has been manifested under the common
notion of international law.
After long periods of colonialism under
which different European countries were the oppressing
party, and the poor in Asia, Africa and Latin America
the oppressed, it became finally clear that this must
be fought. Each Swede with principles of law as a
guiding star stood behind this and came to support
different liberation struggles around the world. In
the same way, a clear understanding of Apartheid as
part of the utmost evil was formed. Sweden was,
according to Tor, the country which at an early stage
took a clear position against apartheid and came to
play an important role in this struggle. Many in
Sweden could therefore feel happiness, joy and pride
when we got to see Mandela walk out of prison after 27
years. The “terrorist” had had redress and we though
apartheid had been forever exterminated.
However, Human Sciences Research
Council shows that apartheid remains. Professor John
Dugard was for several years the UN special rapporteur
for Palestine in the UN Human Rights Council. In his
final report in January 2007, he poses the following
question to the international community: “What are the
legal consequences of a regime of prolonged occupation
with features of colonialism and apartheid for the
occupied people, the Occupying Power and third
States?” Third parties in this case include Sweden.
It is this question which is the
starting point for the report about occupation,
colonialism and apartheid. But this time we are not in
southern Africa, because the report places Israel
under the looking glass. The authors are clear. After
15 months of intense research, they declare that the
similarities between apartheid in South Africa and
today’s politics in Israel are many. The state Israel
is guilty of colonialism as well as apartheid. The
ones who have participated in the commission of the
report come from different institutes in South Africa,
England, Israel and Palestine.
Apartheid in South Africa had three
starting points; to divide the population into groups
based on race, and to give the white race preference
in terms of rights, services and privileges. The
second starting point was about dividing up the
country into geographically segregated areas and
transferring the population into these based on race.
In addition, a person from one area could not access
another area. The third prerequisite was a combination
of security laws and rules created to oppress and
suppress any resistance and which also strengthened a
system of domination based on race.
The authors of the report consider that
the Palestinian people live under a similar system.
The three prerequisites are visible in the occupied
territory. The system of privilege is extensive and
well built, the geographically segregated areas clear
and well established and the security laws are
one-sided and in place to among others preclude all
forms of resistance, something each Palestinian is
well aware of.
The South African report has been
handed over to and read by every diplomat in
Jerusalem, Ramallah or Tel Aviv. It is probably
registered with most foreign ministries, including
Sweden’s. At the same time, each country with
self-respect has long ago signed onto fighting
apartheid in case its ugly face should surface. And
now it surfaces. Researchers from South Africa, with
support from other countries, do not hesitate.
South Africa therefore now aims the
spotlight not only on Israel, but also on each country
within the European Union, as well as the USA and
others within the UN family. Researchers ask us all
what the third party is going to do. Apartheid is
back. Apartheid is near. A short plane ride away and
you can again experience what we all thought had been
buried forever. We are requested to take a stand and
dare walk out on the stage and have our voice heard.
Israel bears the main responsibility to
eradicate the crime it has itself created. This can be
done by removing the structures and institutions that
have led to apartheid and colonialism. There are also
rules that demand compensation from Israel for the
damage caused. Israel must also ensure that each
individual in Palestine has the right to decide over
his or her future, political belonging, and economic
and social development. For this to become possible,
everyone living in Israel or within the occupied
territory must be equal before the law.
In this work, to ensure that each
Palestinian can live freely, a third party, for
example Sweden, has an important voice and an
important role. The international community demands,
in accordance with international law, that Sweden also
live up to the common undertakings, to fight apartheid
and colonialism in all its forms. South Africa has
given us a baton and it is now therefore up to us to
dare to pick it up, to begin to call a spade a spade.
Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel´s practices in the
occupied
Palestinian territories under international law Human Sciences Research Council, HSRC
May 2009, Cape Town, South Africa
Sweden and National Liberation in
Southern Africa Volume I: Formation of a popular opinion 1950-1970
Tor Sellström
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala 1999
Sweden and National Liberation in
Sothern Africa Volume II: Solidarity and Assistancce 1970-1994
Tor Sellström
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala 2002
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