In South Africa, a system known as apartheid which discriminates against people based on race was part of the government which was controlled by whites. Nelson Mandela was one of the strongest forces to go up against the government to end apartheid. He symbolized all black South Africans who wanted to end their segregation and discrimination. His wife, Winnie Madikizela, better known as Winnie Mandela, symbolized the same. Winnie was raised in an environment that nourished her and molded her into the woman she became and ignited the flame that would spread and help the fight against apartheid. However, in the process, Winnie Mandela made personal sacrifices in the areas of family, freedom, and fame. Winnie was born in 1934 in a rural village in South Africa called Bizana. Her parents were physically abusive when it came to punishments, and Winnie became known for being quite violent. Her parents raised her and her siblings to have strong self-esteem and pride in their Xhosa tribal heritage. Winnie’s father was the village teacher, and although he taught many subjects, he was best at history. The school was supplied with textbooks that said that white people “civilized” Africa. They claimed white superiority and that whites owned the land. Yet Winnie’s father taught the ancient civilizations and traditions of the Xhosa tribe, how the white people stole their land, and how the native African people became enslaved. Winnie was raised as a headstrong woman empowered by her family and heritage, and she went to many lengths in order to help lead black South Africans in their fight against apartheid.
Winnie was involved with the African National Conference (ANC) when she met her husband. When her husband was sentenced to life in prison for sabotaging Madikizela-Mandela with no livelihood, she was left alone to care for their two children. Even so, she continued to fight and became the leader of the ANC Women’s League and the Federation of South African Women. With Nelson Mandela imprisoned this made her his representative, she became a focal point for international media. As a result of this and her activism, she was banned from coming and going as she pleased and communicating freely with others, and she was placed under house arrest for nearly 11 years. This included limitations on visitation and communication. During these years Winnie was incarcerated and put in solitary confinement, “She was arrested several times on trumped-up charges. Once she was kept in solitary confinement for nine months awaiting trial.”. She had to send her children away to keep them safe, at one point they almost died from malnutrition because they weren’t being well taken care of. She gives vivid descriptions of what her solitary confinement was like in her book 491 Days, “Solitary confinement is worse than hard labour. When you do hard labor you are with other prisoners, you can tolerate it because you all dig together, you communicate and you are alive. Solitary confinement is meant to kill you alive.”. Madikizela-Mandela was treated inhumanely during her imprisonment, “it was purely because of my name that I survived because the easiest thing for them at the time would have been to kill me, which they threatened every day. ‘Oh, you’re still alive?’
They would come in and say, ‘You’re still alive? We don’t know if you will be alive tomorrow’.”, she was also starved, “even when you tried to eat you brought up because you were very, very hungry”. Reasons for her imprisonment were because she numerously violated her banning orders and continued promoting the outlawed ANC. “In 1975 her banning orders expired. After 13 years of banning she tasted freedom for nearly a year…Mandela’s freedom was brief, however.” She was forced to relocate in 1976 to the Orange Free State of South Africa, she was confined there for eight years. Then in 1985, her Brandfort house was firebombed which she accused the government of and moved back to Orlando. Madikizela-Mandela was a target for most of her life, she gave up her freedom, she sent her kids away, and she went through so much suffering. This didn’t stop her, she never gave up on the brutal fight to end apartheid.
Winnie Mandela was the primary connection to the outside world for Nelson Mandela during his imprisonment. In the world’s media, she kept the name “Mandela” alive through the trope of the rhetorical widow. Women who were widowed or not whose authority came from their husband’s inability to speak were called rhetorical widows. Widowhood provided them with a platform from which to speak and transformed women from individuals into mouthpieces. As a result of becoming her husband’s spokesperson, Winnie lost her own identity. Because she was the rhetorical widow of Nelson Mandela along with having her character flaws and passions, she continued to dedicate her life to ending apartheid. “The U.S. popular press made use of the cultural commonplace of widowhood by establishing the following: first, that she should be seen as analogous to other rhetorical widows; that she was an extension of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela; and third, that she was the most reliable spokesperson for Nelson Mandela.” Even though she was “being seen as merely the extension of Nelson Mandela” she “seemed aware of and resigned to her status as his wife”. She accepted the fact that in all her efforts when people looked at her all they saw was her husband, she gave up her individuality. She was proud to be a symbol of all she and others have been fighting for. She said, “When they send me into exile, it’s not me as an individual they are sending. They think that with me they can also ban a political idea. What I stand for is what they want to banish. I couldn’t think of a greater honor.”.
Even though she did all that she did, towards the end she was hated for her violent and radical ways. It was said the “she did not deserve the positive interpretation that she had received before 1989” and “that in elevating Winnie Mandela in her husband’s absence, black South Africans made the mistake of letting a black woman take charge.”. She became a controversial figure and many anti-apartheid groups avoided and distanced from her. She was shunned and in a way people “systematically dismantled her credibility by stripping her of the three testimonials. Instead of empowering her words with the power of the convert’s tale, she was portrayed as self-serving”. “In 1986 Winnie Mandela was quoted as saying, ‘With our matches and our necklaces, we will liberate South Africa.’ Necklacing refers to a practice of placing gasoline-soaked tires around the necks of people whom antiapartheid activists consider ‘traitors’ to the cause and then setting them on fire.” She was never given positive credit for what she did in the end, Madikizela-Mandela has always lived a life filled with violence. Everything she went through, how could she just live a normal life after everything, no one saw her as an individual once apartheid ended, she was the negative and Nelson Mandela was the positive.
Winnie Mandela made personal sacrifices in the areas of family, freedom, and fame, she went to many lengths to help lead black South Africans in their fight against apartheid. Not being able to watch her children grow up, and being despised, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was not your everyday housewife. She reflects, “Looking back as a parent, you feel you do not deserve this forgiveness because you cannot explain yourself to the children and you fear that they would never understand. You are lucky that they understand so much anyway; that they do not begrudge you.”. Madikizela-Mandela kept and continued the work of her husband, Nelson Mandela when he could not. She stepped up even when their leader was imprisoned, she was the engine that pushed South Africa into a future without apartheid.
Leaders are those who direct their people, but effective leaders are those who hold the capacity to outgrow and transcend personal capabilities to transform the face of society. Invictus concerns itself with the aftermath of an inhumane Apartheid and the role of an influential leader Mandela who demurs against surrendering to fate while uniting a furcated nation. In comparison, Malouf’s Homeric adaption of the Iliad as imagination through his novel Ransom explores the personal struggles of the leaders, Priam and Achilles in achieving self-satisfaction and self. The novel and film are both set in a significantly different period wherein Troy faces obliteration by the Greeks, while South Africa faces a major division of the nation through the racial discrimination that has risen from the horrendous injustices of the apartheid era. Even though the novel and film are centuries apart historically, both prompt the audience to re-evaluate the role of transforming societal norms and customary beliefs.
Predicated upon the crisis of the past, Eastwood’s Invictus explores that for a leader to “lead” effectively they must primal the adoption of interpersonal and effective communication skills. In the early 90s, South Africa was on the brink of a civil war due to the immoral apartheid between the Afrikaners and the Africans. Its dreadful economic conditions, as well as the segregation of its people, burdened the herculean role of Nelson Mandela as a President. However, for Mandela, an anti-apartheid revolutionary, the primary concern was to unite its people by adopting sports as a symbol of reconciliation. Mandela’s exceptional communication and interpersonal skills allowed him to build his “rainbow nation” which symbolically represented the breaking down of racial barriers in South Africa. To be specific, Mandela’s effective communication and interpersonal skills are demonstrated when Eastwood employs a panning shot displaying Mandela walking into the presidential building for the first time. Mandela encounters a bilateral environment in which whites are packing away their valuables as they “fear” black supremacy while the blacks blossom with prideful and ecstasy emotions. Brenda enters the scene and Mandela greets her with a warm smile and comments “Ah Brenda, you had your hair done, I like it”. Utilizing Brenda’s positive facial expressions due to the kind words, Eastwood illustrates to his audience that positive communication creates a supportive environment which helps build a meaningful, long-lasting relationship. Additionally, communication can be used to eliminate potential misconceptions- “he wants the satisfaction of firing us himself”. This is demonstrated when Mandela addresses his comrades for the very first time, “Thank you for coming on such short notice”. Witnessing the bizarre and demoralized emotions of his staff, Mandela elucidates “If you are leaving because of your…skin color…I am here to tell you have no such fear”. Exercising on the expressional change, Eastwood demonstrates that effective communication removes pre-delusions and ultimately becomes the single most effective weapon of a true leader. Interpersonal and communication skills help a leader to present their vision to ensure the achievement of their goals. Malouf also echoes such a message through the kind of Troy, Priam who has a mission to Ransom the body of his son Hector.
Similarly, in Ransom, Malouf showcases that effective leaders must communicate to foster empathy that helps leaders achieve their desired vision. More specifically, the narrative offers Ransom’s characters what Priam calls a “crack in the door” through which they can access other people’s worlds. For Instance, Priam tearfully pleads with Achilles to take pity on a father bereft of his son and return Hector’s body. Through adopting words Priam Invokes the memory of Achilles’ father, Peleus. He begs Achilles to pity him, by saying ‘I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before – I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son.’ When Priam presents his “story” to Achilles, he imagines himself as an old man and thus experiences a version of himself that will never exist in reality. Therefore Achilles can only know himself as an old man through the empathy and imaginative connection created through communication. In this way, accomplished Leaders employ words in such a manner that forces an individual to witness a “new” and “unexpected” outlook of the world. Capable leaders are the ones who can evoke emotions through words and thereby manipulate an individual into believing their view. Malouf elucidates the role of communication as influential in Priam’s personal development as a leader.
Every Individual is destined to face betrayal and calamity however it is in the best interest of a leader to forget and forgive to lead effectively. South African leader, Nelson Mandela an anti-apartheid activist forgave his oppressors who victimized him and his people for over “27 years”. Eastwood explores Mandela’s goal of a “rainbow nation” which is achieved through forgiveness. Forgiveness is a pivotal tool as Mandela believes it “liberates the soul (And) removes fear” by making opposing parties realize their shared humanity. Eastwood demonstrates the idea of forgiveness at the onset of the film. Ministering to a wide shot Eastwood illustrates Mandela’s protocolic entry where the viewers witness Mandela’s cars traveling right in the middle of the road. This symbolizes the Anti-Apartheid movement proposed by Mandela as he decides to be a leader of both sides, the whites on the left and the blacks on the right. To be exact, such actions Mandela symbolizes his ability to balance out “black aspirations” with “white fears”. Demonstration of the scene advocates the fact that Mandela has forgiven his oppressors and is ready to unite the “nation”. Through the protagonist Mandela, Eastwood accentuates to his audience the true characteristics a leader should possess. Eastwood highlights the importance of forgiveness as it preaches leaders to move on and accept change. Forgiveness is an exceptional leadership tool since it holds the capability to unite people and it constructs the opportunity for a matured relationship.
Segregation is defined as the enforced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment. It is an act of racism. This was a legally growing problem in the late 19th century and lasted until the late 20th century against people of color in many states in the USA and colored people of colonized countries around the world. Being a worldwide spread problem, segregation had many different forms, with two of the most widely known being Jim Crow Laws and Apartheid. Though they were both more or less the same type of segregation each had different results and emanated from different spectrums of the globe. The tactics used
The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws that implemented racial isolation in the Southern United States. Enacted in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries by conservative white Democratic-dominated state governing bodies after the Reconstruction period, the laws were authorized until 1965. Jim Crow laws ordered and legalized racial isolation in every single open store, office, business, and school of the Confederate States of America. These laws encouraged racial segregation from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s (close to the 1950s, the beginning of the civil rights movement). The Apartheid, practiced in South Africa, was characterized by an authoritarian political culture based on white supremacy, which encouraged state repression of Black South Africans for the benefit of the nation’s minority white population/BOARS and lasted from 1948 until the early 1990s. Aspects of apartheid began in the form of minority rule by White South Africans and the socially enforced separation of Black South Africans from other races, which later extended to pass laws and land apportionment of land.
The Jim Crow Laws lasted sixty-three years, over half a century of segregation and discrimination among the African-American Community. Dating back to before the Civil War the average status of slaves had made it pointless to pass laws distancing them from white people. The two races could work with one another because of the slave apparent in their subordinate place. In the urban networks, where the majority of the free blacks lived straightforward kinds of seclusion existed before 1860, and no uniform model was created. In the North free blacks similarly worked under unforgiving restrictions and consistently found a considerably less flexible seclusion than in the South. One may have foreseen that the Southern states would have made a segregation structure right away after the war, yet that did not happen. In a couple of communications the lawmaking bodies constrained unbendable parcels, anyway just in explicit zones; Texas, for example, required that each train have one vehicle in which every single ethnic minority expected to sit. The South had no authentic game plan of state-supported guidance going before the Civil War, and as the after-war governments made government-subsidized schools, those were stop-and-go confined by race. Regardless, New Orleans had fused schools until 1877, and in North Carolina’s past slaves routinely sat on juries near whites. From the late 1870s, Southern state gatherings, were never again controlled using carpetbaggers and freedmen, passing laws requiring the segment of whites from ‘ethnic minorities’ with no attempt at being subtle transportation and schools. Generally, anyone of ascertainable or immovably assumed black ancestry line in any degree was thus a ‘minority ‘. The pre-Civil War capability supporting those whose ancestry was known to be mixed particularly the half-French ‘free ethnic minorities’ in Louisiana was cast out. The disengagement rule was connected with parks, theaters, restaurants, and even burial grounds with the ultimate objective of keeping any contact between blacks and whites as equals.1 People of color did not sit idly by and take this new form of oppression by sitting down or standing aside letting their oppressor rule over them. Appearing around the early 20th century were individuals who led the fight against segregation and helped others realize that complete freedom was still attainable. These people were known as Civil Rights Activates, such as MLK Sr. (Martin Luther King Sr.), Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and many others but these are a few of the people whose contributions impacted the most in the fight for civil rights and have left the greatest legacy for the people of today. A very influential human rights activist figure of this group is the passionate Muslim minister Malcolm X. He was born May 19, 1925, in Omaha, NE, and died of assassination on February 21, 1965. Malcolm X is one of the most extraordinary symbols of the Black Power. He propelled an age to oppose bigotry ‘by any conceivable means’. His life was a skirmish of thoughts in which he reacted to institutional bigotry and isolation with strategies that advanced near the battle for social liberties. Talking in January 1965, a month before his homicide, Malcolm X cautioned of approaching social change and worldwide transformation. His capability to reach such a large number of individuals is the thing that characterized him as a speaker, an extremist, and a progressive. His uncompromising battle for opportunity and equity won him the appreciation of radicals all over the world in a time characterized by hostility to provincial uprisings. However, Malcolm wasn’t brought into the world with progressive thoughts or even a craving to change the world. He shaped these thoughts through his involvement, and a development that requested genuine material change, majority rule government, and uniformity.Though he was a great influential figure there is one other who is considered to be the most influential there is one-man whose name and legacy are remembered and highly praised above them all, he is remembered most commonly as MLK Jr. Or Martin Luther King Jr. MLK Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, GA and died April 4, 1968 in ST. Joseph’s Hospital, Memphis. He came to be one of the most influential leaders of the civil rights movement from 1954 until he died in 1968. In the civil rights movements, King is best known for advancing through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire. A world-renowned event by King is his “I Have a Dream” speech. It was August 28, 1963, “over 250,000 people, including thousands of whites, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C”. King gave his famous speech. Continued protests, boycotts, and marches gradually convinced the American populace to seriously consider major changes to the way blacks were treated in America. If not for the leadership impact placed by Martin Luther King Jr. Events such as the Plessy v. Ferguson case would have never transpired. Plessy Ferguson was a hard-fought court case battle in the United States Supreme Court in 1896. The case was an incident from the year 1892 in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car that was designated for only people of color. The court rejected Plessy’s argument, saying that his constitutional rights were violated, the Supreme Court had ruled that a law that implied a legal distinction between whites and blacks was not unconstitutional. As a result, the Jim Crow legislation and separate public adjustments based on race became customary. The case was to decide the judgment on racial segregation laws for public facilities. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court finalized its decision on the “Plessy v. Ferguson” case ultimately deciding on “separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment though it applied to political and civil rights such as voting and jury service, it did not apply to social rights such as sitting in the train car of your choice.” The subjects that appeared in the segregated facilities were equal. This was represented in a doctrine that became very controversial that came to be known as ‘separate but equal’. This was the start of the brighter future for America giving way to greater accomplishments in the fight for rights for all races and both genders. A little over half a century had passed since the case of “Plessy v. Ferguson” and though there was integration within schools, work places, and common stores there was still a strong sense of segregation still holding steady. Discrimination of the masses were people of color and whites had almost everything separated creating a new form of oppression that allowed the whites to once again bring down the colored community. This is where the Civil Rights Act of 1964 comes into flourishion. These rights are what ended segregation in public places, banning employment discrimination as well as stereotypes on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Thanks to the many hard fought battles America was able to create a nation free of any oppression.
Another strong case of segregation similar to The Jim Crow Laws was the Apartheid. This was a system that focused on the oppression and discrimination of race. In more detail, it was the relationship between the white South Africans and the black South Africans. This act of segregation also came with its own set of laws and procedures that powered racial segregation as well as discrimination economically and politically. Population Registration Act of 1950, a law passed that separated all people into classifications, you were either a Bantu (black South African), White, or Colored (mixed). This practice was used throughout the entire country for years before it received its official name after the National Party in 1948. The National Party is a political party in South Africa that was founded in 1914 and was mostly comprised of descendants of white settlers. The party was very committed to their policies of white supremacy giving birth to apartheid. This group rose to power in 1948 and ruled South Africa until 1994. Throughout their term, they passed many Acts based on segregation such as a collective of acts called Land Acts. This law was placed to bolster the white minority by controlling over eighty percent of South Africa’s land to force the Bantu and Colored South Africans into designated controlled areas to ensure that the majority would never bombard any white areas in vast numbers. Another part of the Apartheid system was the racial law Separate Amenities Act of 1953. This Act legitimized racial segregation in public places, transportation, and services, leaving very few places that weren’t affected by this act. These acts of oppression bred many anti-apartheid activists into floatation, the most recognizable of them being Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko. One of the more interesting of the two in my eyes was Steve Biko. He was a well-known voice of Black freedom in South Africa between the mid-1960s and his demise in police detainment in 1977. This was the period in which both the ANC and the PAC had been formally restricted and the disappointed Black populace (particularly the young) were exceedingly responsive to the possibility of another association that could convey their complaints against the Apartheid state. In this manner, it was that Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) came to noticeable quality and even though Biko was not its solitary head, he was its most unmistakable figure. It was Biko, alongside other people who guided the development of understudy discontent into a political power exceptional ever in Africa. Biko and his companions were reacting to improvements that risen in the high period of Apartheid, when the Nationalist Party, in power for just about two decades, was rebuilding the nation to fit in with its arrangements of independent advancement. The Party approached unwinding what little pockets of coordination and vicinity there were between White, Black, Colored, and Indian individuals by making new neighborhoods, new parallel organizations, for example, schools, colleges, and authoritative bodies, and surely, new ‘nations’, the ancestral countries.Even though Biko was killed at a relatively young age, his effect on South Africa was and keeps on being significant. Besides the BCM, he is additionally credited with propelling the South African Students Organization (SASO), which was made as a Black option in contrast to the liberal National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). It is important to disambiguate this move, as Biko is now and again misjudged to have been ‘against White.’ This categorization is false, as Biko had no issue with White individuals fundamentally – his objective was dependable, at last, racial oppression and the Apartheid government. The choice to split far from NUSAS and the arrangement of the BCM was somewhat to remove from liberal sympathizers who could endeavor to represent their Black partners however were in any case, by uprightness of their race, recipients of an evil framework. Biko is best associated with engaging Black voices, introducing a feeling of Black pride like Césaire and Senghor’s ‘Negritude’, and for taking the freedom battle forward and exciting the young development. This brings me to the man who solidified the change in South Africa forever, Nelson Mandela. Mandela was born July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, and died December 5, 2013, in Houghton Estate Johannesburg, South Africa. Mandela began his life as an anti-apartheid early on; his first experience was at Frost Hare College where he first encountered white supremacy. His real battle began after he became the president of South Africa(1994-1999). Like most civil rights activities Mandela originally empowered peaceful dissents as he needed to pursue Mahatma Gandhi’s precedent yet this did not work and later on they utilized progressively savage strategies. The politically sanctioned racial segregation government at that point named Mandela and the other social equality activists as psychological oppressors. Mandela was captured by the politically sanctioned racial segregation government amid the Rivonia Trial and was condemned to imprisonment. He went through 27 years in prison, and the greater part of that time was spent on Robben Island. During this time he had turned into a global image for the Apartheid development. Mandela and the counter-politically-sanctioned racial segregation development increased universal help as there were overall dissents and authorizes against the politically-sanctioned racial segregation government The battle against the politically-sanctioned racial segregation government was a triumph because of both nearby and universal weight which constrained the routine to end. On 11 February 1990, F.W. de Klerk, who was South Africa’s leader around then, discharged Nelson Mandela from prison. Together they attempted to end politically-sanctioned racial segregation by canceling politically-sanctioned racial segregation laws, liberating social liberties protestors, and unbanning ideological groups. Then 27 April 1994 was a verifiable day when South Africa’s first majority rule decisions were held and everybody was given the direction to cast a ballot paying little respect to their race. The ANC won the races and Mandela, as its pioneer, turned into the principal justly chosen president. South Africa is currently a completely law-based nation. Mandela kept a common war and he guaranteed that nobody would be segregated due to the shade of their skin. From that point forward all South Africa’s natives’ rights are ensured by the new South African constitution dependent on human rights. Be that as it may, even though Apartheid never again exists, the heritage of Apartheid can in any case be found in South Africa today, particularly in auxiliary issues, for example, training and the dissemination of work. Mandela ventured down as president in 1999 however kept on advancing harmony around the globe. He likewise wound up included with numerous foundations for kids and training.
With an overall detailed description of both the Apartheid and Jim Crow Laws, it is possible to make a clear comparison of the two. The similarities are genuinely self-evident; in South Africa and southern America, people were assembled into races and put together pretty much concerning the color of their skin, and each race was dispensed in diverse schools, train autos, transport segments, pools, eating offices, and somewhat private neighborhoods. The offices for those classed in the white race were typically prevalent and better subsidized. For each situation, the racial standing framework was safeguarded by prohibiting relational unions among whites and different races. Both were defended by those whites who bolstered the two frameworks as the best way to avert racial clashes, and both truly exacerbated racial clashes. Police savagery against blacks was basic in the two spots. There were likewise numerous distinctions.
The United States of America has always been declared to be tolerant and democratic, but the reality does not always match this definition. Racial segregation as one of the most prominent socio-economic inequities still presents today remains the issue that the government turns a blind eye to. The absence of discrimination written in a form of law appears to be enough for the government not to fight about ever-rising inequality in thousands of schools. The book The Shame of Nation by Jonathan Kozol highlights these issues through real-life stories and data combined into a comprehensive analysis. Kozol seeks an explanation of this devastating iniquity based on two main rationales: a dual American system on the governmental level and endemic underbudgeting of public schools on the local level.
A Dual System in American Public Education
Even in several decades after the famous Brown v. Board of Education case of a dismantled policy of de jure segregation and mandated integration in public schools, there is still a strong racial de facto segregation as present as ever. A dual “separate but equal” system of American education remains preserved with whites being superior and minorities being portrayed as content. The racial segregation of schoolchildren became a sensitive topic that the government seems to avoid or state that there is no problem at all. The problem gets masked with the “administration been telling minority parents that their child’s best chance of attending a good college is to be found in segregated public schools” (Kozol, 2005). Thus, the regime only continues to be used in thousands of schools.
The rationale for such a prominent inequity can also be considered media. The media remains highly reluctant to talk about such sensitive issues as racial segregation and bring the problem to light. Even the language used to report the situation is tied – they do not use the word “segregated” or misleadingly call them “diverse” (Kozol, 2005). “Linguistic sweeteners, semantic somersaults, and surrogate vocabularies are repeatedly employed” to form the social opinion and prevent dissatisfaction with lack of action on this forte. The lack of accurate narrative description becomes a serious social problem that misinterprets the real condition of minorities and segregated schools.
Underbudgeting of Public Schools
The other important rationale for the racial segregation at schools is economic – a lack of budget for proper educational conditions. The underprivileged minorities often have to study in old schools that only worsens the learning process. “Hundreds of thousands of our children are trying to learn in overcrowded, out-of-date and unsafe classrooms” (Kozol, 2005). Not only the conditions are not suitable for students to learn in, but these schools are often staffed by underqualified teachers, which does not allow for the proper education. The effect of economic turndown and undercutting state assistance leads to schools even closing libraries for lack of funds with which to pay librarians.
The white schools, on the other hand, do not typically suffer from a lack of budget spendings at all. Private and public funds generously donate money only to specific public schools that have predominantly white students. The parents in the public school in Greenwich Village “collected $46,000—two-thirds of it, remarkably, in just one night—to retain the extra teacher” in an average size class (Kozol, 2005). Such a sum of money, if donated to poorly-doing schools could have led to an appropriate teacher/student ratio and better learning conditions. The private subsidies are also commonly “collected under the table because parents sometimes feared that they would otherwise be forced to share these funds with other schools” (Kozol, 2005). Thus, the gap in budgets becomes apparent as one of the sources of segregation and discrimination.
Racial segregation at school and in society remains an important unresolved issue that needs to be addressed. The lack of governmental attempts to resolve the issue that is covered by the media’s silence and the lack of budgeting become the key factors of the gross socio-economic inequities. Kozol focuses on the severity of the situation in the Shame of the Nation throughout the chapters filled with stories and interviews. However, despite the given rationales of the disparities, Kozol remains sure that better conditions will come in the future.
Reference
Kozol, J. (2005). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America. Crown Publishers.
31 years ago, in September 1977, Bantu Stephen Biko, a young black activist, and a fighter against apartheid in South Africa have been killed in police torture chambers. Although he was only one of many young black figures of resistance who have become victims of the special forces of the police in South Africa, he, undoubtedly, was one of the great prophets of his generation. More than 20 000 people from all of the country have gathered to honor his memory at the funeral – having collected, thus, one of the most mass demonstrations in South Africa in the seventies.
Outside of South Africa, the news about his death has stirred up a wave of criticism against the policy of apartheid. Biko called for consciousness awakening, considering it as a means of resistance to oppression, against reconciliation with existence within a system that was based on inequality. He has gone through the way from an activist of one of the student’s organizations, which united black and white students, to the leader and the ideologist of one of the largest protest movements in South Africa which struggled and fought for blacks’ rights. The short life – 30 years which has been taken away – Biko has devoted to the dethronement of apartheid’s defects, the system of a social organization that brought sufferings to the black population of South Africa.
In his representation, the black consciousness is a way to resist racism not only by the rallying of the oppressed black majority, but also by the realized formation of the fundamentally excellent system of social relations: “Black Consciousness is, in essence, the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their operation – the blackness of their skin – and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.” 1
This essay despite its introduction is not about one man, it is about the movement that was influenced by a man and played a major role in the revival of resistance to apartheid in South Africa with the main idea that the ideology of Black Consciousness was the basis of African resistances towards white domination.
The System of Apartheid
The system of apartheid has its roots in the 350-year-old history of religious, land, and labor conflicts. In 1652 a group of Dutch immigrants has landed on the Cape of Good Hope and has gradually based a colony with rigid social division, living at the expense of the cultivation of the fertile earth by using the labor of slaves from Africa and Asia. In 1795 the control over territory was grasped by Great Britain, and Dutch-Afrikaners have moved in the depth of the continent and have based their new colonies. In 1899-1902 the British have suppressed a revolt in what is called the Second Boer War. “The war lasted three years and resulted mainly from a combination of personal ambition, conflict over a sea route to India, and most importantly, competition for control of the gold-mining developing in Witwatersrand.”2
After the declaration in 1910 of the Union of South Africa in which the former territories of British and the Boers have entered, the Afrikaners united under the power of the British monarch, who appeared in the majority had accepted the constitution in which basis laid the principle of the superiority of the white race. This was followed by the legislation that set the racial segregation by which almost all the land has been assigned to white owners, and the African, Asian, and “colored” population has been gradually superseded from the political life.
Following the declaration of the Union of South Africa, South African Native National Congress has been formed, and renamed in 1923 into the African National Congress, for racial discrimination counteraction, the fight for suffrage and equality while the shifting governments of the country steadily rejected its demands. Over half a century the rights of the black population were continuously denied through various acts that put further restrictions with each one released.
For example in 1913 an act called the Natives Land Act “prohibited African purchase or lease of land outside certain areas known as “reserves”3 The Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 stated that “Africans were denied freehold property rights and were only allowed in South African cities “For so long as their presence is demanded by the wants of the white population.”4 After the power was captured in 1948 by the extremist Nationalist party which called itself the Gesuiwerde (purified) National Party formed by D.F. Malan, the system of apartheid became rooted in South Africa until 1994. The politics and policies of apartheid separated South Africa from the rest of the world through systematic and legal segregation upheld and defined by a small but powerful white bureaucracy. 5
The Movement
During the apartheid regime the culture, not only youth but also public, was frequently imposed from above, instead of being developed naturally on the basis of consciousness and historical continuity. The concept of consciousness imposed from above has been multiplied by the concept of an ethnic accessory which was defined by ideology and was supported by group interests. The policy that was born from the philosophy of the iridescent nation considers the many-sided nature and dynamism of various groups and does not accept the concepts of “natural”, static and invariable group or groups as it was treated by the apartheid’s regime.
This fact allowed the black population to start positioning themselves as the others in the cultural environment that was dominated by the white population. In South Africa, this tendency was shown in the creation of the organization under the name the “Black Consciousness Movement”. Helping black people in clearing the psychological inferiority complex which prevailed centuries over them in their political thinking and activity, and, especially, in their struggle against the domination of the white is mostly attributed to Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement.
The strategy of clearing of white domination and inequality, offered to the black population by Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement, was focused on the principle that carrying out any changes is possible only within the limits of the program developed by the black population. For this purpose, the black population should overcome the feeling of inferiority that was intentionally cultivated by the apartheid regime with the purpose of preserving the white domination in South Africa. “The racism we meet does not only exist on an individual basis; it is also institutionalized to make it look like the South African way of life”6
It was in this climate that Steve Biko founded the SASO as an alternate to the existing student organizations NUSAS that was not very effective recently. The white leaders of NUSAS (National Union of South African Students) acknowledged that they faced limitations in resisting apartheid and trying to represent blacks as equals7. Thus, the black consciousness movement began with the formation of the SASO.
The SASO Manifesto adopted in July 1971, declared that Black Consciousness was “an attitude of mind, a way of life, in which the black man saw himself as self-defined and not as defined by others”. It required “group cohesion and solidarity” so that blacks could become increasingly aware of their collective economic and political power8.
The Influence
Black Consciousness aimed at creating a social order dominated by a black way of life and thought, permeating a certain cultural blackness in all customs, tastes, values, religious and political principles, and all social relationships in their intellectual and moral connotation9. The black consciousness movement also brought to light the writings of African leaders that had been so far neglected, some of which included the works of Cheikh Anta Diop, Leopold Senghor on Negritude, Kenneth Kaunda on African humanism, and most importantly, Julius Nyerere on self-reliance and ujamaa or African socialism.
The evolving nature of the Black Consciousness Movement gave the struggle against apartheid a very dynamic front – by providing a conciliatory or revolutionary, a peaceful or violent, a bourgeois or socialist dimension to the confrontation between blacks and whites. By eschewing violence and emphasizing black cultural and psychological emancipation from white domination, the Black Consciousness Movement was initially the vehicle of a black philosophy of pride and self-affirmation invigorated by an ethic of “Christian Liberation”.
As the movement gradually came to recognize that it can be truly effective only if it addresses the real issues of class struggle and the fundamental role that the individual has in abolishing oppressive social structures, the Movement started focusing on the problem of the superstructure. As the most radical impact the black consciousness movement had on the resistance to Apartheid, the movement underlined that the black revolution which was made ineffective by the material structure can be rejuvenated only by the transformation of the black intellect. Thus, the revolution would occur only if the black mind stripped itself from submission to white hegemony and erected on its own foundations the principles of the new moral order.
While the intellectual elite stuck to the subtle points of BC ideology the common masses embraced the movement’s rhetoric in its emotional form, as a form of angry self-assertion10. Although the ideology was interpreted by angry youngsters as Black Consciousness and did not exactly resemble the set of complex ideas that had been elaborated by the movement’s leaders, the leaders felt that the expression of anger among the youth was a testimony to their success in inspiring blacks to assert themselves more openly11.
However, this anger soon led to the uprising in 1976 at Soweto, in a way that despite being a direct outcome of the movement, it marked the beginning of a decline in its mass influence.
After the 1976 unrest, there was considerable debate as to the ideology of the Black Consciousness Movement and whether the white should be included in the struggle of the black population. Some Black Consciousness leaders continued to advocate excluding whites from the pre-liberation struggle, until 1977, when Biko himself advocated greater cooperation with supportive white organizations. He stated: “We don’t have sufficient groups who can form coalitions with blacks — that is groups of whites — at the present moment. The more such groups will come up, the better to minimize the conflict”.12 With this statement, Biko moved towards the concept of closer cooperation between white and black groups, which would later be the foundation of the UDF.
Footnotes
Biko, I Write What I Like, p. 49.
Lindsay Michie Eades, The End of Apartheid in South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999) p. 6.
Lindsay Michie Eades, The End of Apartheid in South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999) p. 8.
Lindsay Michie Eades, The End of Apartheid in South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999) p. 8.
Lindsay Michie Eades, The End of Apartheid in South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999) p. 12.
Biko, I Write What I Like, p. 88.
Marx, Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990. p. 52.
Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology. p. 270.
Fatton, Black Consciousness in South Africa: The Dialectics of Ideological Resistance to White Supremacy. p. 60.
Marx, Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990. p.65.
Marx, Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990. p. 65.
The impact of peaceful demonstrations against repressive authorities has proved that the democratic tool is significant tool that can be used to change the society in favor of majority rule. The mainstream South Africans employed this tool after being forced to bear the brunt of four-decade repression under the apartheid government.
Strategic acts of peaceful civil disobedience saved several lives in mid 1980s, but drove home the message of popular disapproval of the political establishment. Peaceful strikes such as refusal to purchase goods from white men shops; failure to remit monthly rental fee, and job boycotts forced the repressive regime into submission, after its revenue dwindled.
The paper explores various peaceful activities that forced the white ruling elite of South Africa to embrace negotiations that would open more room for African-led democracy. Additionally, Thoreau argument that democracy is not analogous to justice is also analyzed in regard to the fight against Apartheid in South Africa.
South Africa Overview
Painter and Blanche (521-525) indicate that widespread unrest rocked major South African towns in 1980s, protests which the locals churned against the colonialists. In spite of the largely peaceful demonstrations, which the locals believed would limit casualties and bring the change they yearned for; security forces were deployed by the government to contain the protests.
The government applied a confrontational containment strategy that led to altercations between the law enforcers and the protesters. Isolated cases of violence were reported as youths and the police came face to face during protest and containment of the situation.
Hapless activists of African descent were routinely manhandled and incarcerated by the government agents. Protesters, who were aware of the ruthless government machinery against them, began to convince the ordinary man to refrain from violent confrontations with security forces and adopt peaceful modes of expressing their dissatisfaction with the political elite.
According to Davis (369-372), the protesters learnt of the insignificance of their disparate actions and thought of adopting a united front that would coordinate their efforts to ease their cause.
People’s committees were established at the grassroots level. New leaders also were enlisted from the neighborhoods to help champion the freedom agenda at their localities, which involved taking care of the interests of the people and promotion of peace in the society.
On the national arena, the United Democratic Front (UDF) was gaining popularity. Painter and Blanche (520-539) believed the outfit promoted a string of benign boycotts, such as refusals to pay rent, failure to report on duty, learning centers. These efforts were intended to force the minority government into submission, which was in line with Thoreau’s argument.
Thoreau Argument as applied in South Africa case
Thoreau (6-11), suggests that because any polity typically harbors more harm than good, actions of such organizations is generally acceptable by the society. Thoreau (6-7) suggests that this is what led the mainstream South Africans to rise against the minority government during apartheid rule in the country.
The philosopher, however, refuses democratic leadership, arguing that the system is not sober enough to guarantee the whole society fairness and wise judgment. Further, he indicates that an individual’s opinion based on his or her conscience may be superior to the general resolutions reached by a political organization in form of policies or the general mass in the streets.
In view of this, Thoreau (8-9) indicates that a culture of total respect for the rule of law is undesirable. According to the philosopher, the suitable thing that an individual should engage in is to act decisively at the right time: that total respect for the rule of law, in one way or another may turn the true advocates of law into victims of the same law.
For instance, by “Placing the sabotage campaign in historical context … it resembled ‘the earlier tradition of armed resistance to the entrenchment of the foreigner,” (Davis 359), he implies that black agents of justice in South Africa such as Nelson Mandela, clamored for fair application of the law by the government. However, such activism led them into snares, resulting to their apprehending during mass protests. Eventually, they were charged under the same law they were pushing its implementation.
This turn of events, according to Thoreau (7-8), is akin to deep corruption, which he suggests exists in any government. Thoreau indicates that the high level of dishonesty in government circles hampers wisdom and rational argument of cases that involve the governed. Due to this insensitivity of the ruling class, disenfranchised persons tend to rebel and forcibly attempt to change the administration. Revolutions are however, undesirable, according to him, because they are linked to profound damages and suffering of the people (Lusted 40).
By suggesting that “We have to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable, and that we need not come to open war,” (Thoreau (10), he implies that South Lusted (41) believes that Africans might have weighed the damages that may have impacted from revolutionary actions, against the gains of the same. Eventually, they shunned revolution because the suffering would be unbearable.
Thoreau indicates that revolution should not be contemplated when the ruling elite and its agents are actively hell bent on implementing injustices such as brute force against unarmed protesters. Such public ‘immorality’ calls for the implementation of any necessary means by the government, to quell the unrest, the repercussions on the common man notwithstanding.
Significance of peaceful protests in South Africa
According to Sweet (404) suggest that “Thoreau thus functions as a marker both for key episodes in environmental history,” which implies that nonviolent mode of expression was better, as it reduced government brutality and damage to economic and social infrastructure. Economic strikes against the apartheid government forced the whites to incur losses on their goods.
Beneath their clamor for conscience, the aboriginals’ underlying point was that the corporate world is directly connected to social stability; hence could not function against a background of social instability and injustice. Though, excessive use of force was used by the government, the country went beyond the control of the apartheid government, eventually earning blacks their freedom.
Conclusion
Generally, peaceful protests led to the defeat of the apartheid government of South Africa. Although, the people were frightened by brute force, which was the government’s response to the situation, boycotts minimized casualties and sent a clear message of the urgent need for independence of the blacks.
White business owners, who were feeling the pinch of economic boycotts, demanded the termination of the impasse. In 1989, peaceful mass protests and strong advocacy groups negotiated the release of Nelson Mandela. Political outfits in the country were also declared legitimate. In 1994, South Africa popularly elected her first black president, Nelson Mandela, even though Thoreau argued that democracy is not justice for the minority.
Works Cited
Davis, R. Stephen. The African National Congress, its Radio, its Allies and Exile. Journal of Southern African Studies, 35.2 (2009): 349-373.
Painter, Desmond, and Blanche, Martin Terre. Critical psychology in South Africa: Looking back and looking ahead. South African Journal of Psychology, 34.4 (2004): 520-543.
Sweet, Timothy. Projecting Early American Environmental Writing. Early American Literature, 45.2 (2010): 403-416.
Thoreau, Henry David. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Life in the Woods. Read, 54.16 (2005): 6-11.
There have been numerous debates surrounding whether Israel subscribes to an apartheid ideology in its treatment of Palestinians, or not. Several political, social, and global commentators have expressed their opinions on this issue with varied outcomes (Honest Reporting 2017; Havardi 2016; Reimann 2017). Scholars, humanitarian organizations and the United Nations (UN) have also contributed to this discussion by critically evaluating Israel’s policy on the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories (West Bank and Gaza) and within the Israeli sovereign state (Pappé 2015; Jacobs & Soske 2015). These observers have either supported, or opposed, the view that Israel is an apartheid state.
In this paper, the apartheid analogy stems from the application of discriminatory policies on Palestinians, by the Jews, as was the case with how white supremacists treated black people in South Africa. The comparison started in 1961 when Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of South Africa’s apartheid policies, drew several comparisons between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and South Africa’s treatment of non-whites in the apartheid era (Havardi 2016). Based on these comparisons, many international observers started to use the apartheid analogy to describe, or analyse, the conflict between Israel and Palestine (Cole 2017; Honest Reporting 2017; Havardi 2016; Reimann 2017).
In the 1970s, several Arab-based magazines fuelled this analogy by comparing Israel’s’ actions in the occupied territories to the Bantustan strategy in South Africa, at the time (Cohen 2014). Several Palestinian scholars adopted the same view and started spreading the notion that Israel was applying some form of latent apartheid against Palestinians (Cohen 2014). Some academicians and activists started including this view in their literary works throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when conflict between Israel and Palestine was at its peak. This analogy became more prominent in the 1990s, when Israel gave limited self-governance powers to Palestinians living in occupied territories (Cook 2013). By 2013, many international observers started to normalize this analogy in their works and assessment of Israel’s policies in occupied territories. This paper critically assesses the ideology that Israel is an apartheid state, from a legal perspective, by comparing and contrasting arguments made by scholars, academicians, and international bodies on the subject. Through a review of both views, we argue that Israel is an apartheid state.
Support for the Apartheid Analogy
System of Control Policy in the Occupied Territories
Critics believe that the branding of Israel as an apartheid state stems from the system of control policy that it applies in settlements close to the Israel-Palestinian border (IBP, Inc. 2015; Cook 2013). The West Bank comes into sharp focus when reviewing this policy because this is where most critics have found evidence of its use. The use of identification cards and the establishment of several military checks on different roads support the assessment that Israel is using the system of control policy to discriminate against Palestinians (IBP, Inc. 2015). The establishment of different roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens also reinforces the same view because it is similar to how white supremacists in South Africa set up different transportation systems for white people and non-whites.
Marriage Law
The existence of a marriage law prohibiting Israelis from marrying Palestinians is also another area of similarity between present-day Israel and South Africa’s apartheid era because white people in South Africa also prohibited white people from marrying non-whites. People who view Israel as an apartheid state often cite prohibitive marriage laws as another area of similarity between Israel’s apartheid analogy and South Africa’s application of the concept (Abunimah 2014). At the centre of their arguments is a legal provision that allows Israeli-Jews to bring their spouses to Israel, but at the same time denying Israelis who have married Palestinians to bring their spouses to Israel. Many researchers who have investigated this issue in-depth have revealed that in the Israel-Palestinian context, Palestinians are regarded as an “independent race” (Reimann 2017; Cole 2017). Comprehensively, people who support the apartheid analogy in Israel say the state subscribes to the ideology of limited social interaction between its citizens and Palestinians, thereby drawing significant comparisons to the same policy adopted in apartheid South Africa.
Land Ownership
Similar to the South African law prohibiting non-whites from owning factors of production, Israel also has a law that forbids Israeli citizens from selling land to Palestinians (Abunimah 2014). This law stems from the actions of the Colonial Jewish National Fund. It states that land owned by a Zionist institution or by an Israeli citizen will be taken off the market if the owner intends to sell it to a Palestinian (Pappé 2015). The law of return is another policy practiced by the Israeli government, which prohibits Palestinian nationals who had been expelled from their ancestral land in Israel from coming back home (Reimann 2017). However, the same law allows Jews to come to Israel whenever they wish. Israel has justified the selective application of this law by using near racist terminologies to bar Palestinians from going back home. According to Abunimah (2014), Israel claims that Palestinians create a “demographic threat” to Israel. Thus, if they are allowed to go back to occupied territories, they may cause the demographic disappearance of Israel as a Jewish state (Cook 2013). This concept of self-preservation through land injustices has highlighted the view that Israel subscribes to an apartheid ideology.
Selective Application of Laws in Occupied Territories
A UN report investigating claims of apartheid practices in Israel identified a group of 300,000 Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem and found that they experience discrimination on different economic and social fronts, including education, health care and employment (Reimann 2017; Cole 2017). The same report points out that this group of Palestinians is suffering under a selective application of laws that deny them the same residency rights and building rights that the Jews enjoy (Reimann 2017; Cole 2017). According to the IBP, Inc. (2015), a larger group of Palestinians, numbering 4.7 million, who live in West Bank and Gaza, suffers the same injustice because they are subjected to a selective application of laws that affect their economic and social wellbeing. The Israelis are subject to civil law, while the Palestinians are subject to martial law (IBP, Inc. 2015). In other words, there is a dual governance system in the occupied territories, which treat Israelis and Palestinians differently (Cook 2013).
This view is backed by a recent UN report that affirmed the existence of apartheid laws in the occupied territories (Reimann 2017; Cole 2017). Particularly, it pointed out that the application of martial law on 4.6 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories was evidence enough that apartheid was rife in West Bank and Gaza (IBP, Inc. 2015). Demographically, this law affected 2.7 million and 1.9 million Palestinians living in West Bank and the Gaza strip, respectively (Reimann 2017; Cole 2017). The UN report also points out that these settlements are being governed by Israel in a way that fully meets the criterion for defining an apartheid state (Reimann 2017; Cole 2017). Except for the existence of genocide, the report points out that the Israeli government practices all manner of inhumane acts outlined by Amnesty International (2016). Indeed, as Abunimah (2014) observes, the 350,000 Israelis living in West Bank enjoy the protection of Israeli civil law, merely based on their race and Jewish status. The dual legal system is deemed problematic in the process of seeking peace between Israel and Palestine because, combined with discriminatory practices in marriage, land ownership and residency status; it is difficult to convince Palestinians that they are equal partners in the peace process.
Criticisms of the Apartheid Analogy
Jurisdictional Boundaries
Proponents of Israel often believe that the portrayal of Israel as an apartheid state is fundamentally wrong because of many technical and moral reasons. For instance, they have tried to delegitimize the arguments that Israel uses the system of control policy in the occupied territories to oppress Palestinians because these territories are not technically in sovereign Israel (Cook 2013). Instead, they argue that these territories, where these laws apply, are fundamentally under the Palestinian government (Havardi 2016). Using this argument, they say it is unfair to compare Israel’s system of control to the apartheid policy in South Africa.
Differences between Israel and South Africa’s Policies
Those who do not believe Israel shares the same apartheid analogy as South Africa say there are significant differences in policies between both states. For example, they point out that the policies practiced by Israel in the occupied territories are largely nationalistic and colonial (Havardi 2016). Comparatively, those practiced by the South African regime were broadly post-colonialist and fundamentally racial (Rotich, Ilieva & Walunywa 2015). In other words, they were based on a policy fuelled by racial criteria as the basis for treating whites and non-white citizens. Consequently, people who do not support the view that Israel is an apartheid state argue that the country’s laws are not focused on people’s race, religion or creed (Havardi 2016). In other words, they say Israel’s laws do not make specific references to citizen categories. Comparatively, South Africa’s apartheid laws were notably specific on people’s race, as a basis of how they would be treated (Rotich, Ilieva & Walunywa 2015).
Pro-Israeli scholars also point out that Israel is fundamentally a democracy that allows Arabs to vote (Havardi 2016). Apartheid South Africa had different policies that prevented the majority black population from voting. White supremacists in South Africa used apartheid as a racially motivated practice, legitimized by a similarly racially biased legislature, which had the support of the police, to implement their wishes. Apartheid South Africa used apartheid to “protect” the minority population from the majority black population (Rotich, Ilieva & Walunywa 2015). Comparatively, Israel is a majority-rule democracy that recognizes all citizens’ rights to vote. In response to the prejudices against Palestinians living in Israel, pro-Israeli scholars argue that such prejudices are similar to others found in other democracies around the world, including the UK and the US (Cook 2013). Furthermore, they say, unlike South African laws that legitimized such prejudices; Israel’s laws do not condone them (Havardi 2016).
Regarding the selective application of laws in occupied territories, the pro-Israeli supporters say Palestinians living in these regions are not under Israeli law, but under Palestinian authority (Havardi 2016). Honest Reporting (2017), a pro-Israeli rights group supports this view by saying that although Jews are the majority population in Israel, the minority Arab population in the country has ascended to high political offices and taken part in the country’s legislative processes. This is unlike South Africa, which had a “zero-tolerance” policy regarding the participation of non-whites in the country’s legislative or political processes (Rotich, Ilieva & Walunywa 2015). This human rights group also points out that apartheid South Africa dictated what kinds of jobs black South Africans could do, where they could live, and where they could travel. The same is false for Israel because the government allows for freedom of movement, assembly, and to vote (Honest Reporting 2017). Comparatively, when black South Africans demanded for these rights, or opposed the policies of the apartheid regime, they were killed (Rotich, Ilieva & Walunywa 2015). The same is not true for Israel in their treatment of Palestinian opposition.
Benjamin Progrund (cited in Pappé 2015, p. 99) supports the same view by pointing out that the differences between the application of laws in apartheid South Africa and present-day Israel are different, at a basic level. For example, he explains that Israeli and Arab babies are born in the same hospitals with the help of the same health care staff (Pappé 2015). The same was unheard of in apartheid South Africa. Similarly, since Arabs and Israeli share restaurants, travel using the same modes of transport, and even visit each other, Havardi (2016) finds it hard to believe that Israel is an apartheid state. Concisely, he affirms that such freedoms are not possible in an apartheid state.
Differences in Motivations between Israel and South Africa
Some people who support Israel’s actions in the occupied territories often hold the view that the government does not participate in any form of apartheid because the motivations for discrimination in Israel are not the same as those evidenced in South Africa (Pappé 2015; Cook 2013). Contrary to popular view, they say that Israel is the victim of discrimination by Arabs and not the other way around where Israelis discriminate against the Arabs (Pappé 2015; Cook 2013). Stated differently, they believe that the Palestinians have been the main aggressors in the conflict and Israel’s actions are only defensive. In other words, proponents of this view say that Israel is not motivated to discriminate against the Palestinians because of their biological differences; instead, it is pursuing a nationalist agenda. This is unlike the South African case where apartheid was based on biological differences between white people and black people (Rotich, Ilieva & Walunywa 2015). Pro-Israeli observers also take issue with the fact that Israel’s nationalist agenda is being characterized with apartheid rhetoric, while other countries, such as Kosovo and Bosnia, have experienced the same type of conflict, responded in a similar manner as Israel did, and escaped the apartheid tag (Abunimah 2014; Pappé 2015; Cook 2013).
The Selective Application of Law is Temporary
According to Havardi (2016), most of Israel’s laws against Palestinian occupation and residency status in Israel are temporary. Therefore, they do not amount to an outright declaration of the existence of apartheid. Pappé (2015) points out that the selective application of laws in the occupied territories is only a temporary problem occasioned by an ongoing and changing security situation. Therefore, he deems it unfair to brand Israel as an apartheid state because there is no permanency in the current laws. The same researcher adds to the debate surrounding the differences in treatment of Palestinians and Israelis inside Israel by saying that the country is under no obligation to treat Palestinians as native citizens (Pappé 2015). Havardi (2016) justifies these claims by saying that Israel can exercise its right to remain a Jewish state because it is not obligated to treat “outsiders” as equals. Comprehensively, these views explain why some people do not accept the apartheid analogy in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Discussion
Although some people argue that Israel’s laws are non-discriminatory because of the democratic ideals associated with the state, it is difficult to ignore the many similarities between Israel’s discriminatory policies on Palestinians and those adopted in apartheid South Africa on black people. Granted, some of the actions of the Israeli government are not as harsh, or directly targeted towards the Palestinians, but it is safe to say they are largely discriminatory. Backed by the US and other western nations, Israel’s apartheid actions have been masked as “defensive strategies.” Few international bodies refrain from reprimanding it because of the fear of a backlash from the world’s major powers that fund these institutions in the first place. In another spectrum of analysis, we find that there is a difference between how Israel’s discrimination policies differ with other forms of discrimination in western democracies because Israel’s policies are based in law. Indeed, although pro-Israeli human right groups say, Israel’s policies are different from those seen in apartheid South Africa; we find that these laws still favour Jews, with a particular bias against Arabs. For example, Israel has created immense benefits for its citizens and made it mandatory for Jews to have them. However, it does not make it mandatory for Arabs to enjoy the same.
Acts of aggression by Israel in the occupied territories are against human rights principles because they overlook the fundamental rights of Palestinians in favour of the Jews. Indeed, it is difficult to deny that Israel has consistently applied laws and governance principles that closely symbolize those of apartheid South Africa. More importantly, Israel denies Palestinians the right to self-determination, as has been highlighted in various UN-backed reports, such as that highlighted by Cole (2017).
Furthermore, in this paper, we have seen that many discriminatory laws prohibiting land ownership, intermarriage, and free movement (especially in the occupied territories) are still practiced by the Israeli government. They are closely similar to laws prohibiting social interactions between whites and non-whites in apartheid South Africa. Therefore, I believe the views held by pro-Israeli scholars are flimsy and, at best, diversionary because they are stuck on technicalities and formalities that fail to gain traction in practice. Israel’s actions in the Gaza strip and West Bank highlight their aggressive nature, which has been legitimized by strict laws limiting free movement and social interactions between Jews and Palestinians. The imposition of martial law on the Palestinians is by far the greatest indicator that Israel is slowly drifting towards being an apartheid state (IBP, Inc. 2015). My view on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, viz-a-viz the ideology that Israel could be an apartheid state closely resemble the views of Reimann (2017) and Cole (2017) in their assessment of the same issue. They say Israel continues to exhibit apartheid-like tendencies, if our assessment was to include their actions in the occupied territories of Gaza and West Bank. There is no safeguard to know how far Israel can go in formulating similar apartheid-like laws, but, currently, Israel’s policies are closely similar to those of colonial South Africa.
Conclusion
While there may be similarities between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the treatment of black people in apartheid South Africa, it is equally important to recognize the unique security issues that Israel faces in the Arab World. Essentially, Israel is a western democracy and many of its neighbours perceive it as such. Most Arab nations surrounding Israel also see it as a “western outpost” in the Arab peninsula because it is regarded as a home to the Jewish people. Therefore, it faces unique security issues, especially from Jihadist groups based in the Middle East who do not wish to tolerate its existence. However, regardless of the danger posed by some of these religious fundamentalists, in this paper, we argue that it is unfair to subject an entire population of Palestinians to the actions of a few people. Such is the fear that has guided Israel’s policies and governance systems on security matters. Today, such fears have brought Israel’s policies closer to an apartheid regime more than ever before.
Reference List
Abunimah, A 2014, The battle for justice in Palestine: the case for a single democratic state in Palestine, Haymarket Books, London.
Amnesty International 2016, Terms in international justice, Web.
Cohen, S 2014, Future of the Middle East – United Pan-Arab States, Author House, London.
Cole, J 2017, Why the UN branded Israel an apartheid state, Web.
Cook, J 2013, Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s experiments in human despair, Zed Books Ltd., London.
Havardi, J 2016, Refuting the Anti-Israel narrative: a case for the historical, legal and moral legitimacy of the Jewish state, McFarland, New York.
Honest Reporting 2017, The Apartheid State Libel, Web.
IBP, Inc. 2015, Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) business law handbook volume 1 strategic information and basic laws, Lulu.com, New York.
Jacobs, S & Soske, J 2015, Apartheid Israel: the politics of an analogy, Haymarket Books, New York.
Pappé, I 2015 Israel and South Africa: the many faces of apartheid, Zed Books Ltd., London.
Reimann, J 2017, Israel is an apartheid state (even if the UN report has been withdrawn), Web.
Rotich, R, Ilieva, E & Walunywa, J 2015, ‘The social formation of post-apartheid South Africa,’ The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 132-155.
The historic period from 1948 to 1994 in South Africa witnessed rigid segregation legislature that was adopted by the National Party. Superiority of white population in the country prevented the African population from establishing fair treatment, which led to the division of the inhabitants in racial groups and residential areas in which various ethnicities lived. Non-white citizens were limited in freedom and rights.
The preconditions and consequences of apartheid are brightly illustrated in A Walk in the Night and A Dry White Season. Specifically, A Walk in the Night represents slight changes in racial power dynamics through representing a single story of Mikey Adonis whose life changes completely in a night when one event makes the hero grow angry and decide on a terrible and brutal action.
A Dry White Season also recounts a story of racial intolerance and deterrence on the part of the white-dominating government. The story focuses on a white English teacher who becomes the witness of unjust and cruel treatment of his black gardener’s son. Both movies focus on various representations of apartheid and segregation through exploring the restrictions imposed on human rights, education, and employment opportunities.
In A Dry White Season, the main heroes struggle for equality in education and employment opportunities, but the movie explicitly represents the inferior position of native African population in contrast to social dominance of White population in South Africa.
Hence, Mr. Ben du Toit is a schoolteacher; he is a highly respected person who believes that he lives in a fair, open, and equal society. However, there are no native Africans who could take such honorable positions. They all work for white people, such Mr. Gordon, Mr. Toit’s gardener.
When Mr. Gordon learns about his son’s death, he is not allowed to see the place where he was buried. In the movie, Mr. Toit expresses his confidence’ in transparency and objectivity of the government’s policy toward African people. When the teacher informs Gordon about his son’s death, the gardener angrily replies, “And I’ll find out. God is my witness, I’ll find out what had really happened and where he lies” (Palcy, 2000).
However, further events prove the cruel and unequal attitude toward black citizens and, therefore most of the police’s actions are premised on prejudices and ignorance. The official administration did not inform Mr. Gordon about his son’s death and arrested him aftermath for the unknown crime.
Mr. Adonis in the A Walk in the Night is also fired for the unknown reasons. His employer prejudices his actions and accuses him of being lazy and doing nothing just because he asked him to go out to the bathroom. By calling him “kaffir”, Mickey becomes angry and frustrated by looking at the open intolerance on the part of his white colleagues. The film, therefore, demonstrates how social and political impact can negatively influence the individual’s psychological state.
Indeed, political context of violence is represented through insult of ethnic minorities by inappropriate and offensive words. Therefore, when his Uncle Doughty explains that “it’s just a manner of speech”, Mikey becomes outraged and kills him (Dube, 1998). The feeling of justice, as well as inability to come up with his anger and rage makes Mikey come out of control. The psychological and social pressure imposed on him leads to devastating consequences.
Despite the explicit hostility expressed by the white society, the protagonists search for the truth and strive to find any hints of mercy and understanding. Even Mr. Toit in the movie does not fully realizes the extent to which the government is corrupted because he blindly believes that the attitude to all members of society is equitable and unbiased, but further investigation revealed that the demonstration organized by the black community for equal education resulted in a great number of deaths and ungrounded arrests.
So, when Mr. Toit addressed Mr. McKenzie who pervaded him in the rightfulness of actions against the rebellious demonstration. By demonstrating the brutality and horrors of the police regime, the film appeals to anti-apartheid struggle. Similar reasons for inappropriate and prejudiced treatment are highlighted in A Walk in the Night, in which the main protagonists strive for affirmation of his rights. After he kills his uncle, he decides to confess to save his girlfriend’s brother, which points to his moral awareness and reconciliation.
However, the police overtly ignore his confessions and apply to violent yet legitimate actions to solve the problem. Desperate attempts of the hero to improve the situation and rescue his friend’s life fail of Mikey’s inability to stand the corrupted authority.
Similar attempts have been made by Mr. Toit’s gardener who decides to find any information his dead son. However, the police strives to conceal the truth and, therefore, Gordon is charged and taken to the police office for the unknown reason. When Ben finds out about Gordon’s suicide, he becomes more concerned with the case, although his family does not understand his despair and frustration with the social system.
Like the Native Americans, he also feels isolation and misunderstanding on the part of the surrounding people. Melanie Bruwer seems to be the only person who understands Ben’s disappointment and suppression by telling: “This country doesn’t allow me to indulge myself. It isn’t possible to live a private life if you want to live with your conscience” (Palcy, 2000).
Becoming more conscious about the inequality and horrors surrounding Soveto’s people, Ben faces rigid opposition from the rest of his close relatives and friends. Nevertheless, he calls Soweto people to fight for their integrity and prove their dignity.
The harmony within Ben’s family and his happily life contrasts with cruel and inhuman treatment of African population, which is another representation of racial segregation existed in twentieth century. The violence of police, depiction of dead, bloody victims of the demonstration, and horrible tortures are so vividly illustrated that it is difficult for the audience to watch the scenes.
However, they are necessary for understanding the emotional and psychological stance of the movie. The highlighted contrast allows the viewers to understand the premises of apartheid and the hardships that colored people had to endure.
Both movies provide various interpretation of apartheid to prove that justice and law are represented in opposition. Pledging for justice, Mr. Ben du Toit and Mikey Adonis faced a serious confrontation on the part of the horrible political regime.
Both movies also prove that justice in South Africa is overtly disregarded as soon as it comes to race and ethnicity. Intolerance, unequal treatment, and restricted freedom separated the black community from education, job opportunities, and impartial attitude. In general, both pictures appeal to the African and White audience to understand the living conditions under which the racial groups of South Africa existed.
Works Cited
Dube, M. M. (1998). A Walk in the Night. South Africa: South African Broadcasting Corporation. DVD
Palcy, E. (1989). A Dry White Season. England, UK: Pinewood Studies. DVD.
Desmond Tutu is a South African Archbishop who rose to international fame in the late 1970s and the early 1980s because of his role in fighting apartheid – a racial segregation policy in the RSA (Republic of South Africa). Tutu was a fearless advocate of racial equality who used the religious platform to voice the plight of black South Africans. He won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize alongside his friend and fellow activist Nelson Mandela.
Desmond was born in the year 1931 to a teacher father and a mother who worked as a cook. He was born in Transvaal and schooled in Bantu High School located in Johannesburg. He trained in college as a teacher and soon after, in the year 1954, he finished his studies at “the University of South Africa” (“Desmond Tutu – Biography” par. 7). He briefly taught in high school before he started attending theology classes. In the year 1960, he became a priest.
Between the years 1962 and 1966, he went to England where he graduated with a Master of Theology (“Desmond Tutu – Biographical” par. 1). He subsequently taught theology in his country before he returned to England as the deputy head of a theology school. “In 1975 he was appointed Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, the first black to hold that position. From 1976 to 1978 he was Bishop of Lesotho, and in 1978 became the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches” (“Desmond Tutu – Biographical” par. 1). Tutu has been honored with several doctorate degrees by US, German and UK universities.
Desmond Tutu has had quite a several achievements. As mentioned above, he was appointed in the year 1978 as the “Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, the first black to hold that position” (“Desmond Tutu – Biographical” par. 1). Months later, he was elected as the Bishop of Lesotho. That year, he was appointed as the first black SACC (South African Council of Churches) General Secretary. In this position, Tutu gained global recognition as he spoke fearlessly against the regime.
He was an enthusiastic civil rights leader in South Africa. Desmond worked together with other leaders and ultimately helped in ending racial discrimination in the RSA. Tutu was an active and vocal member and leader in the United Democratic Front (UDF), which was formed to fight racial segregation (“Desmond Tutu – Biography” par. 11). He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 1984, recognizing his role in the fight against apartheid in the RSA.
Desmond Tutu has had a mark in the history of social activism and the fight for racial justice. He is arguably one of the greatest advocates of social justice and his name is indelibly written in the annals of social justice activism alongside other great names like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and so forth. His methods for fighting social injustice were similar to those of the aforementioned leaders because he resisted using nonviolent techniques. Tutu is arguably a living legend.
As evidenced in the discussion above, Desmond Tutu was an instrumental part of the fight against the apartheid South African government that repressed the rights of black South Africans. Having acquired enviable levels of education at a time when it was difficult for black South Africans to get quality education, Tutu used his knowledge and the opportunities it brought to fight racial inequality in South Africa. He even called for sanctions against the government in a bid to end racial discrimination (Alistair 1). His efforts earned him worldwide recognition, eventually making him a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Historical lenses can significantly change any past event’s perception and reveal different lessons it carries for modern society. The research topic, South African Apartheid, can be discussed from political, social, and economic views as it affected each. A historian might apply political lenses in discussion for segregation’s establishment or set social ones to analyze how Apartheid changed people’s values and institutions’ structure in South Africa. The regime led almost all countries to poverty, thus the historical event can be revised through the economic changes and implications.
The research studied South African Apartheid’s social narrative as the addressed issues were the protests of the affected people and the regime’s consequences based on the societal changes. The resistance movement significantly impacted the regime’s regulation and forced its abolishment in the early 1990s (Ndhlovu, 2017).
If political lenses are applied to the research, the narrative will change as the reasons to establish Apartheid and governmental structure will be necessary to discuss instead of the problems segregation caused to the citizens. Moreover, the resistance will be perceived differently as its representatives broke the laws and might be described as the regime’s adverse outcomes.
South African Apartheid is a historical event that significantly affected all aspects of the country’s economy to its citizens’ life values and can be assessed via multiple lenses. Primary sources like Nussey’s article “After Apartheid, hope, and decay,” written for the Washington Post in November 1995, reveal that although the regime has just abolished, the forecasting consequences are severe (Nussey, 1995).
Current problems of South Africa, such as poverty, the lack of social life, and high crime rates, have Apartheid as the root cause. The research showed that history is not the sequence of events to memorize for erudition, but the vital educational source that everyone must conduct daily.
The Value of Studying History
Every individual must study history to increase the chances of developing a thriving society and eliminating the issues that have roots in past events. Moreover, awareness of historical lessons is necessary to prevent severe occasions from repeating. South African Apartheid is an event full of consequences and notations to learn due to its significant impact on a country’s structure and citizens.
The research viewed segregation through the social lenses, thus contemporary issues like inequity and poverty can benefit from applying the lessons South Africans learned the hard way. Injustice, based on the Apartheid’s example, is also hidden in a society’s past and needs to be addressed and eliminated on the legislative level to allow the minority groups to get the life they deserve (Musavengane & Leonard, 2019). Poverty needs to be perceived as a social problem because discovering the reason for citizens’ lack of motivation to improve the circumstances might be more helpful than financial support programs.
History does repeat itself, and humanity is responsible for preventing the mistakes from appearing. The research about South African Apartheid studied social protests against segregation. Although there is no racial discrimination established on the modern world’s legislative level, the resistance groups still appear. A bright example of protesting chapter of Apartheid’s history’s repetition is the Black Lives Matter movement. Society needs to analyze the reasons for the continuous discriminative actions against people of color and promote equity and diversity for future generations.
It is a civic obligation for each person to analyze the issues that modern society experiences, and exploring the historical causes of them are one of the most effective strategies. People could be better at their duties like respect to the rights, opinions, and beliefs if they were aware of the history behind them.
Well-informed society members can prevent serious issues from appearing or better address the existing ones, and historical events can be an excellent place to gather knowledge. Moreover, globalization allows humanity to share their experiences, and people’s lives can be improved if the lessons of other countries’ past are applied in combination with native culture.
References
Musavengane, R., & Leonard, L. (2019). When race and social equity matters in nature conservation in post-apartheid South Africa. Conservation & Society, 17(2), 135-146. Web.