My agnostic friend, Cara, attended a pro-Palestine march in Cape Town last year. Although she was excited about it, she ended up leaving after 15 minutes.
She turned out to be one of 10 non-Muslims present, among mostly Muslim speakers and militant protesters, shouting and calling on Israel to stop the oppression of Muslims. She felt excluded, she said, but was dealing with it, until she saw a man dressed as a suicide bomber. That was the last straw.
Cara is one of many South Africans who want to support the anti-occupation movement, but do not attend marches and events for fear of being excluded or feeling uneasy.
A large percentage of South Africans are not even aware of the truths of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, because they see it as a religious war between Muslims and Jews that will never be resolved. And though this is a false and detrimental outlook for the cause, South African Muslims have, whether deliberately or not, turned the secular Palestinian cause into a religious issue.
This is a fundamental mistake, especially at a time when events in Gaza have put the world’s eyes on Palestine. But there is a window of opportunity to enlighten the public not on the emotive, but on the true historical and political facts of the situation.
Many people seem to overlook the fact that not all Palestinians are Muslim.
The Zionist movement, contrary to popular belief, is purely secular and separate from Judaism. It was established by Theodor Herzl as a response to anti-Semitism across Europe and the term was used to describe Jewish nationalism. Zionism is, in fact, in direct conflict with numerous fundamental principles in the Torah.
But there are a number of Jewish individuals worldwide who recognise the fallacy and have spoken out against the occupation as a fundamentally political, non-religious transgression of human rights.
A political disadvantage to associating any cause with a religion is that, when one is portrayed negatively in the media, the other suffers alongside. Islam is particularly volatile in terms of world outlook. Although this is changing for the better, various events continue to keep the non-Muslim world at a safe distance and uphold the unfortunate terrorist associations with Islam.
Human lives, land and freedom have nothing to do with religion, but with basic human rights. By bringing religion into the argument it is allowing a platform for Jews who equate Judaism and Zionism with their claim that the land of Israel was promised to them.
This religious approach also excludes many potential activists. During my time in Palestine few of the activists I met were religiously inclined. This is because the situation is portrayed internationally for what it is: a racist violation of human rights. Furthermore, by upholding this approach, non-religious human rights organisations might have less chance of including the Palestinian issue on their agenda. The reason so many pro-Palestine events in South Africa are mostly attended by Muslims is because Muslims keep it that way. The cause has the potential to attract so many more people than it already has if only it were depicted correctly.
If Muslims are concerned about Palestine because of its majority Muslim population and holy sites, they have a lot to think about. This past week has brought Muslims together in excited solidarity and Gaza has taken up a great proportion of airtime on Muslim radio nationally. Why not put the same amount of energy and passion into protesting against violence in Darfur, where Muslim attackers have violated mostly Muslim victims? What about Morocco’s occupation of the majority Muslim Western Sahara since 1975, which also violates United Nations Security Council resolutions? This occupation has been funded by the United States. And yet no uproar.
People are people and oppression is oppression, regardless. We should not fight for freedom for the sake of holy sites or religious pride, but rather for the sake of freedom. By continuing to portray Palestine as a Muslim issue, we are doing Palestine a great disservice.