TUESDAY, 5:30PM:
The concept of a wealth tax to correct past economic imbalances received strong support on Tuesday from South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris, who told the truth commission that a number of Jewish businessmen supported the idea.
He said he would throw his weight behind the proposals as well. “I really feel that the religious community has to endorse practical programmes for redistribution,” he said.
Appearing before the truth commission’s special hearing into the role of the churches during apartheid, Harris also offered an apology on behalf of South Africa’s Jews for their failure to protest more loudly against apartheid.
Fear had been the major reason for the silence of the broader Jewish community in the face of apartheid, he said. As part of the worldwide post-Holocaust generation, Jews in South Africa had a “hyper-sensitivity” towards survival. “They want to survive at all costs… There was a fear of anti-semitism. Before World War Two the government banned Jews from South Africa.”
At the same time, he noted that many Jews had played a key role in the struggle against apartheid and had been outspoken in their condemnation of the system.
TUESDAY, 1:00PM:
Muslim theologian Dr Faried Esack, a former national co-ordinator of the Call of Islam, told the truth commission on Tuesday that Muslim leaders betrayed and marginalised the anti-apartheid struggle.
At a special hearing in East London into the role of the churches, he said there had been “a denial of space for all those who opposed apartheid and who were part of the anti-apartheid struggle”.
The leadership had been silent when, in 1979, Imam Abdullah Haroon died in detention although more than 25 000 people attended his funeral. “Not a single voice in the Muslim community was raised about the nature of his death and the injuries on his body. This silence held for seven years… at mosque level and Muslim publication level. Now it has come out that he was murdered.”
Esack said progressive Muslims had succeeded in publicly marginalising the Muslim leadership, but in internal religious circles they had been marginalised.