May 2 to 8 2008

Will Gordimer explain?

This is an open letter to Nadine Gordimer, in reaction to her decision to take part in the ‘Israel at 60” celebrations.

Dear Ms Gordimer,

I am a Palestinian lecturer in cultural studies living in Gaza but with South African citizenship. I spent more than five years in Johannesburg, earning my PhD there and lecturing at white and black and white universities.

At Vista in Soweto I taught My Son’s Story, July’s People and The Late Bourgeois World. I have been teaching the same novels to my Palestinian students at Gaza’s al-Aqsa University as part of a course called ‘Resistance, Anti-Racism and ­Xenophobia”.

I chose your novels because you defied racial stereotypes by calling for resistance against all forms of oppression, racial or religious.

So your participation in the ‘Israel at 60” celebrations comes as a painful surprise to the students and citizens of Gaza and is a case of double standards.

My students, psychologically and emotionally traumatised and showing early signs of malnutrition as a result of Israel’s genocidal policies, demand an explanation.

They wonder whether you have missed Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s contention that conditions in Israeli-occupied Palestine are worse than those under apartheid.

They ask how you can ignore John Dugard’s report on the dismal state of human rights in the Occupied Territories. Are you aware of what Ronnie Kasrils wrote after his latest visit to Gaza and the West Bank? Like you, these South Africans were also active in the fight against apartheid.

Dugard describes conditions in the Occupied Territories as ‘intolerable, appalling and tragic for ordinary Palestinians ”. He says: ‘Many aspects of Israel’s occupation surpass those of the apartheid regime.

Israel’s large-scale destruction of Palestinian homes, levelling of agricultural lands, military incursions and targeted assassinations of Palestinians far exceed any similar practices in apartheid South Africa.”

You are no doubt aware of Israel’s strong ties with apartheid South Africa and that it supplied hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons in breach of the international arms embargo.

How did you relate to Israel then and what was your position regarding countries and individuals that flouted the policy of isolating apartheid South Africa?

You were surely critical of the infamous policy of ‘constructive engagement” led by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan at the height of the struggle in the 1980s? Yet today, inexplicably, you have joined the sanctions-busters.

Edward Said, who gave you his friendship and considered you a model of ‘oppositional intellectuals”, would have been dismayed by your decision.

One group of students believes you will reconsider your participation in a festival designed to cele­brate the annihilation of Palestine and Palestinians. Another believes you have already crossed over to the oppressor, negating every word you have ever written. We await your next move. — Haidar Eid, Gaza, Palestine

Conviction rate can be raised
”Closer to equal rights” (April 3) claims that ‘only 3% of cases of sexual abuse involving people with mental disabilities go to court”.

This is not true of the Western Cape. Cape Mental Health Society (CMHS) research indicates that 28% of the perpetrators of such abuse are convicted and sentenced — higher than the general 25% conviction rate cited by the South African Law Commission.

The success with securing access to justice for the intellectually disabled is due to the CMHS’s Sexual Abuse Victim Empowerment (Save) programme. The National Prosecuting Authority will not prosecute such cases unless victims have been assessed and supported by personnel of the Save programme in the Western Cape.

The irony, though, is that the justice department does not support the programme financially. The CMHS, an NGO, has raised funds for the programme since its inception in 1990.

In the Save programme complainants are assessed by a psychologist to determine if they are competent to act as witnesses; provided with court preparation, support, counselling and sex education; and assisted by a psychologist as an expert witness in court.

The programme also raises awareness and trains public prosecutors and police dealing with complainants.

Save seeks to extend the programme by training and giving technical support to mental health societies, clinical psychologists and related professionals across South Africa. — Carol Bosch, Save programme, Cape Mental Health Society

A champion of the oppressed?
Andile Mngxitama (April 25) comes across as someone who writes about a ‘lived experience” rather than a mere observer. He is a true champion of the oppressed and marginalised.

We should set up an independent think tank for thinkers like him called the ‘Committee for the Radicalisation of African Discourse” or ‘Committee for the Reclamation of African Dignity”.

Progressive universities, the government and the private sector can help by organising speaking tours in all the nine provinces where Mngxitama and other leading thinkers can go around speaking and instilling pride and confidence in the minds of our people.

Real freedom begins with national pride and self-confidence, leading to the eradication of all traces of inferiority complex on the part of the oppressed. — Vusumzi Nobadula, Cape Town

I feel ill done by having spent money to read Mngxitama’s racist drivel.

I felt that his article was a South African version of Ionesco’s The Lesson with Mngxitama as the deranged professor and I the obtuse pupil failing to understand the impossible. Is his argument that blacks are incapable of racism? And that if they are guilty of racism they cannot be held responsible for their bias?

How about the widespread xenophobia in the townships? -­ Samantha Jane Martin, Bedfordview, Johannesburg

Mngxitama thinks that without black racism white privilege must persist.

Isn’t it obvious that the behaviour of the Forum of Black Journalists and white members of the Reitz residence at the University of the Free State are victims of the same form of retarded nationalism, with the same pathological sense of inferiority and fear of integration? — Oliver Price

Dockers will be remembered
The South African workers who refused to unload the An Yue Jiang deserve enormous credit for such a brave and noble act.

In my country the Boston Tea Party spawned the revolution against Britain and Rosa Parks’s refusal to go to the back of the bus propelled our civil rights movement.

When Zimbabwe is free and healthy again, these dockers will be remembered. — William E Cooper, University of Richmond, United States

To the people of Durban and South Africa, congratulations on your stance on the shipment of arms from China to Zimbabwe.

Across our newspapers we have seen pictures of your people with wonderful banners. No doubt, these contributed to the high court decision to stop the Chinese ship from delivering its cargo.

Your people had courage and took a stand for a better world and a better future for Zimbabwe. The whole world is looking to South Africa to help lead Zimbabwe out of its impasse.

With admiration and respect, Claudine Ferland-Muirhead, Oxforshire, England

Your brothers and sisters across the border would like to say thank you to those who refused to allow the Chinese ship to dock. Peace and courage. — MD, Harare

While sitting in South Africa, feeling powerless as our ­politicians seem to be paralysed over the Zimbabwe crisis, a tiny group of workers took a simple moral stand and showed us the way.

It was one of those wonderful moments in history when a small group of people sets the moral standard for us all, shaming our leaders.

Those dock workers have made me proud to be South African. — Philip Tetley

As South Africans we should collectively be doing more to help our neighbour. But the moral path that many South Africans — particularly our unions and dock workers — have taken, has made me unassailably proud! — Heidi-Jane Esakov

Academic freedoms and language
Saleem Badat (April 11) claims that ‘engaged and critical scholarship can be the handmaiden of our common future”.

In using a gendered term he demonstrates his conditioning and alerts women in universities to the almost invisible barriers that challenge their success in the academic setting.

‘Handmaiden” means ‘a person or thing that serves a subordinate purpose”. It alludes to centuries of female servitude.

Fortunately for Badat, and the women in his own institution, there are creative ways to address these challenges:

to womb it may:
handmaiden of our common purpose
i will bring what i have brought all along:
my belly
my ankles
my tongue
every finger, with traces of ­geranium
and ash.

you may speak me metaphorically
and I will ooze irritatingly between
the toes of the feet that have walked
many miles
in. my. shoes.
while i have learnt to tiptoe naked.

but i will not lower the eyes
of my curiosity and care.
i will become you
with a curtsy.

— Corinne Knowles, Rhodes University

Hospital mess
The goverment is talking about spending R2,82-billion this year to ‘revitalise” 47 hospitals.

This boils down to R60-million per hospital, which will go some way if it is properly managed. But it is not a lot if you think of everything that needs to be done at each institution.

It is a shame that our public health system is in such a shambles. I have been to many hospitals over the years and the degeneration of facilities is a haunting fact.

The problem is not just lack of funds. It is one of poor management and a critical drop in quality in all personnel, especially medical personnel. — Ulrich Henn

In brief
Contrary to your editorial of April 25, the court action by Bishop Rubin Phillip to prevent the An Yue Jiang from offloading its cargo was not brought by the South African Litigation Centre. It was brought by a team of lawyers in Durban: Malcolm Wallis SC, instructed by JP Purshotam and assisted by Angus Stewart and Max du Plessis. All praise to them for outstanding work at short notice. — P Kearney

What is the point of having Zapiro as a cartoonist if is he is always on leave? There have been more ‘on leave” reruns this year than originals in the Sunday Times, Independent newspapers and Mail & Guardian. This is disappointing, considering he is one of the main reasons I buy these newspapers. — Simon

This idea of the Chinese suing CNN and Cafferty over a few remarks is complete nonsense. How can they claim to have been damaged by a verbal attack to the tune of a billion dollars when they effectively fund the murder of people in North Korea, Darfur, Zimbabwe and Tibet? Are they saying their national pride is more important than the people they have killed? — Stephen Chisadza, Pretoria

May I suggest that Rob (Letters April 25) provides some leadership in improving the energy consciousness of his fellows at Rhodes University? We need everybody to work together to lead the uninformed around us in changing their wasteful habits. — Margaux Newdigate, Cape Town