With apologies to Louis Armstrong for mangling the title of his incredible song for this headline, Gasant Abarder is incredulous at the double standards at play by the media and how threatened authority and government figures feel by a Palestinian flag. So he’s going to eat lots of watermelon this summer, he writes in his latest #SliceofGasant column.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here.
I see peculiar reactions to how the simple yet iconic red, green, black and white flag of Palestine is evoking anger among those who support apartheid Israel – a nation free to operate with impunity that gives the UN and international law a regular up-yours with its continued human rights atrocities.
My 11-year-old daughter and I probably saw the most peculiar reaction at a football match on Friday night at the Cape Town Stadium. During a PSL match between Cape Town City and Royal AM, not one, not two but three fans invaded the pitch on separate occasions while the action was underway. The match stewards just let them be and when they were done having their jollies, they were gently taken back to their seats and treated like folk heroes.
Yet, after the match, with the players from opposing teams safely out of the way and having a chat, a young man waving a Palestinian flag took to the field and ran the length of the pitch. He was quickly cornered by four burly match stewards. I have the video to prove it.
Video:
This flag makes people see red as if it was a banned ANC flag from the 80s. I can understand if it was an old South African flag, a Vierkleur or Nazi symbols or flags. But when millions are waving Palestinian flags to say stop genocide, the illegal occupation of land and for Israel to observe global human rights, then surely it is a flag peace-loving people can all get behind?
But it is banned in some places. At Anfield, Liverpool Football Club stewards ask people with Palestine flags to put them away as if they’re AK-47s. At my beloved Manchester United’s home ground, Old Trafford, two Palestinian flag-bearing fans were asked to leave and copped bans. Players like Karim Benzima have been berated by the French national coach for speaking out against Israel.
Fans everywhere are asked to observe those who died in a war fought a hundred years ago and it is good. But we’re asked to turn a blind eye to the thousands of innocent Palestinian lives lost in Gaza for decades now.
At home, the silence of our Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Premier Alan Winde has been deafening. They didn’t hesitate to drape the City Hall in Ukrainian blue and yellow and later Union Jack colours, when Prince Phillip died. Their party, the DA, only issued a statement when Hamas bombed Israeli areas recently.
Further afield, the major news networks are largely ignoring the marches across the world where hundreds of thousands are turning out – like the one in Cape Town on Saturday.
On Sunday, the police chose to fire stun grenades at protesters, which included women and children. I wonder if the mayor or premier will condemn the police or if they will condemn Israel for its bloody retaliation. Probably not, because the party that boasts about being open and transparent won’t tell us who funds them. I’m prepared to guess…
Perhaps it’s that chap who owns Cape Union Mart and sells K-Way jackets and openly supports apartheid Israel. Or that CEO of Dischem – where I wouldn’t buy a COVID vaccine if it were the last one in the world – who is proudly behind Israel too. Who knows.
And it doesn’t matter if CNN, the BBC, Sky, and that toe rag of a channel, Fox News, don’t cover the significant marches for human rights and peace. I’ve seen millions around the world march in big cities on social media. And this proves that social media has made these captured news networks irrelevant.
Flags don’t kill innocent people indiscriminately. Militarised apartheid rogue states do. So, the watermelon has creatively become the symbol of the flag because it has a green peel, red flesh, and black pips. I’ve yet to meet anyone who hates watermelon.
It’s summer, it’s watermelon season and it just happens to be the tastiest fruit on the planet. Let’s go crazy with watermelons on t-shirts, and bumper stickers on our cars and post ourselves eating slices of watermelon (not sourced from Israel) on social media.
They can take our Palestinian flags, but they will never take our watermelons!
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Picture: Madelize van Der Merwe