People from all walks of life converged in their thousands on the tiny suburb of Salt River to call for the end of oppression of the Palestinian people and the occupation of their land. While marching, #SliceofGasant columnist Gasant Abarder was reminded about his personal manifesto as a writer to be relentless in shining a light on injustice.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here.
South Africans hate a bully and this certainly holds true in the two neighbouring areas where I grew up – Salt River and Woodstock. So, it came as no surprise that protesters came out in their thousands in the little suburb on Sunday to march for a free Palestine and the end of the occupation by the Israeli government.
Dr Allan Boesak was there. Mandla and Raabia Mandela were there. Activist and journalist Jimi Matthews was there. A group of bikers with Palestinian flags and matching clothing revved their bikes in support.
Activist and cleric Imam Rashid Omar and his brothers Lutfi, Anwar and Zaid and their families along with the Salt River Heritage Society, led from the front.
I wasn’t going to write about Palestine again because I felt my views were clear about it from previous columns. But my friend Adile Cook really prickled my consciousness. In all honesty, we had a falling out when he asked me last week why I hadn’t written about Palestine.
Adile is one of my best friends, who I have mad love for and I’m not sure my varsity years would’ve been the awesome experience it was without him. He is also one of South Africa’s foremost video journalists and so hearing this from him stung.
But Adile was right. I can never stop writing about injustice, especially the slaughter playing out in front of our very eyes – live and direct – even if the Western media puts its own slant on what is really happening in Palestine.
I guess I wanted to be free from the burden of being a black writer for a bit – always writing about oppression and injustice. Why, can’t I, for example, write about meadows of Spring flowers, unicorn poop and rainbows? This was also the lament of my late friend Eusebius McKaiser.
The truth is, I can’t. Not while innocent women and children are being butchered and thousands are denied access to water by an apartheid state like the one we fought so hard against. Israel is being propped up by the so-called civilised world and being given a free ride by the UN, the media and all those who claim to be the guardians of human rights, free speech and democracy.
But footballers are being cancelled by their clubs for speaking out against Israel’s atrocities. Media houses, like Al-Jazeera, of the few who tell it like it is, are being threatened with censorship. And folks are losing their livelihoods for the mere act of protest and standing up to the genocide.
I see a lot of messages to boycott South Africa and multinationals with South African subsidiaries. I always have mixed feelings about this because they employ hundreds of thousands of the very people who are opposed to the illegal occupation of Palestine. As consumers though we are free to make choices and spend our cash elsewhere and not those companies who are known to support the Israeli government.
Even more than that, is the misconception that what is happening is about Jews and Muslims when it is about injustice, the protection of human rights and opposing an apartheid state. Had you been part of the thousands who marched you would have seen Jewish, white, black, Christian, Muslim, EFF, ANC and PAC – all united in a common cause. Just like the Palestinians who comprise people of all faiths and denominations.
This is also not about Hamas either because it would be a mistake to conflate its actions with the Palestinian cause. I don’t condone the actions of anyone responsible for the taking of lives of innocent civilians. When I saw Mandla Mandela at the protest I was reminded by his grandfather uTata Madiba’s own belief that violence was not the answer but there came a time when taking up arms was the only way.
Even then, the ANC’s military wing uMkhonto we Sizwe never deliberately targeted civilians. It was always about the strategic targeting of apartheid state facilities.
The world sure is a crazy place. The king and queen of the Netherlands were here at the weekend to look at our two countries’ supposedly shared history.
Outside, indigenous people protested for reparations. How can it be a shared history when they are the children of the oppressor and we are the children of slaves and those whose land was stolen?
SA beat England twice in the cricket and then the rugby world cup but they still hold on to stolen riches that belong to us under the guise of a long-defunct British Empire.
When it comes to Palestine, you can’t be a fence-sitter. You’re either on the right side of history or you’re not. I’m glad for friends like Adile Cook who care enough to bring me back in line. As long as there are bullies in this world, I have no business writing about fields of Spring flowers, unicorn poop and rainbows.
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Picture: Gasant Abarder
Video: Quaniet Richards