Thinking about apartheid and the struggle for freedom
JVL Introduction
Making the connections is the theme of Tony Karon’s latest blogpost.
Connections between the liberation of South Africa, Germany’s apology for its first genocide, the centenary of the Tulsa massacre in the States, Israel’s move to oust Netanyahu and more.
What connects them is apartheid and its settler-colonial underpinnings.
What connects them is their origin myths: the US founded on a promise of liberty and equality for all, South Africa the outcome of a “war of independence” from Britain, Israel – well you know that story…
In each case, says Karon “struggles for democratic equality challenge not simply the government of the day, but the constitutional state, itself — because all three are/were ruled by constitutional systems from which the colonized were, by design, consciously excluded.”
Interesting times to come.
This article was originally published by Tony Karon's blog on Wed 2 Jun 2021. Read the original here.
Israel and the United States: Thinking about apartheid and the struggle for freedom
Like the South African system that coined the term ‘apartheid’, Israel and the USA originated as settler-democracies. We should discuss what that means for how to pursue democratic equality
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Shimon Peres, Israel’s defence minister in 1975, signed a contract with his South African counterpart PW Botha to supply nuclear weapons to the apartheid state. If this wasn’t a criminal attempt to perpetuate apartheid, what was it?