Address to the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, 15 Oct 2002

42nd Biennial Conference of the SAJBD Gauteng Council

KGALEMA MOTLANTHE, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

19 OCTOBER 2002

Hello, Shalom and thank you for inviting me to speak at this important occasion.

Both today and in future, we hope to further strengthen the warm relations that currently exist between the African National Congress and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.

In 1961, after the massacre at Sharpeville and the banning of ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli said:

“How easy it would have been in South Africa for the natural feelings of resentment at white domination to have been turned into feelings of hatred and a desire for revenge against the white community. Here, where every day in every aspect of life, every non-white comes up against the ubiquitous sign, “Europeans Only,” and the equally ubiquitous policeman to enforce it – here it could well be expected that a racialism equal to that of their oppressors would flourish to counter the white arrogance towards blacks.

That it has not done so is no accident. It is because, deliberately and advisedly, African leadership for the past 50 years, with the inspiration of the African National Congress which I had the honour to lead for the last decade or so until it was banned, had set itself steadfastly against racial vain-gloriousness.”

Luthuli was referring to the unwavering commitment of our movement to the principle of non-racialism. The actions of this movement to build non-racialism among our people has made our democracy possible. Our constitution affirms our belief, as a people, that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity”. This results directly from the fact that, in 1956, our people said that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”. In other words, these traditions of non-racialism were victorious in the end, because our movement and its leadership consciously nurtured them over decades of struggle.

Our non-racialism has many sources. First and foremost, it drew on our African traditions of humanism, which have remained strong despite centuries of brutality and dehumanisation. Indeed, through the concept of ‘ubuntu’, these traditions of African humanism have found their way into South Africa’s constitutional Jurisprudence. For example Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, of the Constitutional Court, judged that:

“Generally, ubuntu translates as humaneness. In its most fundamental sense, it translates as personhood and morality. Metaphorically, it expresses itself in umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu . . . While it envelops the key values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity, in its fundamental sense it denotes humanity and morality. Its spirit emphasises respect for human dignity, marking a shift from confrontation to conciliation.”

On this firm basis, our non-racial ethics were strengthened by the message of the Bible, transmitted through Christian missionaries. As the fabric of traditional African society was torn asunder by waves of violent colonialism, the missionaries continued to preach the biblical doctrines of the common humanity of all people. Clearly, when the pious are called upon to advance the cause of subjugation, contradictions between words and actions are bound to emerge. Nevertheless, many of the founders of the African National Congress owed their education to the schools established by these missionaries. Later on, patriots like Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo transformed these doctrines of Christian commitment into a radical vision of the possibility of an alternative society.

Non-racialism was also nurtured in the strong traditions of socialism that have grown along with our national liberation movement. Socialism preached the class solidarity of all workers, whether black or white. It regarded racial division among the working class as being opposed to their long term interests vis a vis the bourgeoisie. Over 70 years the words and actions of South African communists succeeded in convincing many workers of the correctness of non-racialism, not only as a theory, but also as an organisational practice.

Indeed the South African Communist Party was among the first organisations in our country to open its ranks to all South Africans. Nevertheless, it must be said that only a tiny minority of white people in South Africa chose to abandon the privileges of apartheid and cast their lot in with the struggle of the oppressed. But of these few brave heroes, a great number were Jewish. The names of these South African patriots, of Jewish descent, should be well known to all of us. Their lives should be the subject of study and reflection by all South Africans, especially the sons and daughters of the Jewish community:

Amongst many others, they include:

Amy Thornton,
Arthur Goldreich,
Barney Simon,
Barry Feinberg,
Ben Turok,
Bob Hepple,
David Rabkin and Sue Rabkin,
Dennis Goldberg,
Eli, Violet and Sheila Weinberg,
Esther Barsel,
Gill Marcus,
Harold Wolpe,
Hilda Watts,
Isaiah Israelstam,
Issy Wolfson,
Jackie Arenstein,
Jock Isacowitz,
Joe Slovo,
Joel Joffe,
Leon Levy,
Lionel Foreman,
Louis, Julius and Beryl Baker
Max and Audrey Coleman,
Michael Harmel,
Molly Walton,
Norman Levy,
Ray Alexander,
Ray Edwards,
Ray Harmel,
Raymond Suttner,
Rica Hodgson,
Ronald Segal,
Ronnie Kasrils,
Ronnie Press,
Rowley Arendstein,
Rusty Bernstein,
Ruth First,
Sadie Forman
Sam Kahn,
Solly and Albie Sachs,
Sonia Bunting,
Trudy Gelb,
Wolfie Kodesh.

In our movement there is a song that says, “When they call the names of the heroes of our people, will my name be called?” The roll-call of ‘amaqawe’ from the Jewish community is indeed long. I do not believe that it is an accident. That people of Jewish descent should be so prominent in the liberation movement says something fundamental about the compassion of Judaism. Many Jewish immigrants who arrived in our shores in abject poverty, laying claim to little but their rich commitment to humanitarian and egalitarian ideals. These commitments were sometimes rooted in traditional Jewish teaching. They sometimes emerged from traditions of socialism.

Whatever the case, Jewish compassion is the fruit of empathy, rather than sympathy. It is the fruit of struggle over many millennia, against racism and persecution. Against confinement to ghettos and the daily humiliations of life as an oppressed people. Rabbi Cyril Harris acknowledged as much when, at the funeral of comrade Joe Slovo, he said:

“[Slovo] was proud to acknowledge the Jewish roots of his compassion. Brought up as a child in a Lithuanian ghetto, he experienced at first hand the degradation and misery of being unfairly treated for no proper reason. So in the South Africa he grew to love, he determined that no one should be singled out for unfair treatment for no proper reason. It was not enough to avoid harming others ­ positively and purposefully one had to strive to ameliorate widespread poverty and hardship, to build a society based on harmony and equality, in which every single individual would be respected,”

The disproportionate representation Jews amongst the minority of whites that chose to cast their lot in with the oppressed did not go unnoticed by the racist regime. The architects of apartheid had, after all, drawn many of their political convictions directly from Nazism. The Apartheid State felt threatened by white dissent because it questioned their racist logic. To thwart white dissent it deployed anti-Semitism: racism against Jews. The regime depicted Jews as being natural troublemakers. They said ‘these Jews are not really South Africans’.

As such, those brave few, who stood and resisted oppression were not only pioneers of the general notion of non-racialism, which has now become the common creed of all South Africans. More specifically they also stood the helm of those struggled to defeat anti-Semitism in South Africa. This is so for two reasons. On the one hand they stood up resolutely in the face of Hitler’s ideological offspring. On the other hand they realised that the victory of non-racialism in South Africa would strike a blow against anti-Semitism throughout the world.

Unfortunately, they did not receive much encouragement from many amongst the Jewish community. Louis Rabinowitz, Chief Rabbi from 1945 to 1961, poignantly asked:

“What do we do to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bonds of oppression? . . . There are some Jews in the community who do attempt to do something . . . and when, as a result, they fall foul of the powers that be the defence put up by the Jewish community is to prove that these are Jews only by name, that they do not belong to any synagogue . . Have Jewish ethics ever descended to a more shameful nadir?”

These are not simply matters of history. They reverberate in the present. If South Africa today is a reliable base for all those who oppose oppression, racism and anti-Semitism, it is because these patriots struggled to make it so. If the Jewish community is safe in the knowledge that its religious beliefs and communal practices are fully protected by the constitution, then it is because of the sacrifices made by them.

Today our task is to consolidate and advance our non-racialism in a rapidly globalising world, a world where ethnic conflicts and religious intolerance appear to grow day by day. We must remain committed to non-racialism, not only because we are determined to build a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa. We must also do so because we owe it to the whole world to show that racial conflict need not descend into a spiral of devastation. .

There is no doubt that the greatest challenge to the victory of this vision of a non-racial world is the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Not only does it result in the senseless destruction of human life in the region itself, it also threatens to inflame unnecessary tensions in many other parts of the world. Everyday this heinous conflict sends a message South Africa is an island of hope in sea of global despair. It sends a message that racial intolerance, ethnic hatred and religious arrogance are the natural condition of humanity.

I have spoken about the empathy of Jewish South Africans with black South African. Today, in similar vein, the majority of our people cannot but feel empathy at the devastating and illogical loss of human life and dignity that occurs in the Middle East on a daily basis.

This is why we condemn, in unequivocal terms, the senseless acts of terror against ordinary citizens of Israel that occur week by week. These acts violate our common humanity and undermine our own struggle to build non-racialism.

It is also true that the African National Congress continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Palestine, in their struggle for national self-determination. This is not the consequence of a successful propaganda campaign on the part of any group of conspirators. It reflects the genuine empathy of a people who have known the sting of teargas in the eyes of children, who have heard the whistle of live ammunition as it cuts through a civilian crowd. I think President Mbeki put it well when he said:

“During our struggle, the forces of repression attributed the rebellion of our people to ‘agitators and terrorists’. They did not want to recognise the reality that the people had risen against servitude because they were no longer willing to be oppressed. They refused to understand that the people had nothing to lose but their servitude.

The youth, in particular, were ready to march against tanks and armoured vehicles because it was not longer possible for them to live as slaves. To shoot them only served as justification of the justice of their cause.

The rulers of Israel are repeating the costly mistakes made by the captains of apartheid in our country. Everything that has happened in the Palestinian territories in almost two years say, in action that the Palestinians, and especially the youth, are ready to march against tanks and armoured cars because it is no longer possible for them to live as a dispossessed people. To shoot them only serves to emphasis the justice of their cause and their actions.

Their martyrdom gives meaning to their existence as human beings. The attempt to search and destroy so-called agitators and terrorists in their midst, in the belief that these are the instigators of rebellion, without whom rebellion would cease, is to live in worse than a fool’s paradise.

To attempt to impose on them leaders approved by those they consider their enemies, is to invite not less but more conflict. It is also to create a situation of greater violent anarchy, of the expression of extreme anger by those who have nothing to lose, in a situation where they have not leaders they respect, because these have been destroyed by the enemy they hate”

Our position remains clear: The resolution of the conflict in the Middle East requires the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians have as much right to this state as any other people in the world. No amount of military engagement will deter them from struggling for its achievement. At the same time, we unreservedly recognise the right of the Israelis to live in their own state within secure borders. We believe, furthermore, that the clear basis for a solution exists in international law, and that the majority of Israelis and the majority of Palestinians do yearn for peace.

And, certainly, the majority of South Africans, whether they be Jewish or Muslim or anything else, do desire peace in the Middle East. And as South Africans we have a special responsibility to contribute toward this process. Part of our contribution will be to build non-racial unity in action amongst ourselves.

As the ANC we will, therefore, continue to build upon our cordial relations with you. Over the last year, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies has met with us on a number of occasions to raise concerns of relevance to the Jewish community. These interactions have convinced us that the Board, and the broader South African Jewish community, will continue to be a defender and proponent of the applicability of South African solutions to the problems of the Middle East. We are sure that you will continue to build bridges amongst South Africans of all faiths, and contribute towards our steady advance to a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa, where all men and women live in peace and mutual respect.

I wish you well in your deliberations and look forward to hearing the outcomes of your meeting. As the ANC approaches its 51st Congress later this year, I wish to extend an invitation to the Jewish Board of Deputies to attend this Congress, and also to continue to meet and communicate with us on all matters of concern, both in our country and in our world.

I thank you.