www.anc1912.org.za Issue No.12, 3rd Quarter 2001 Contents Editorial Z Pallo Jordan 1. World Conference against Racism • Non-Racialism in Action, Submission to the World Conference against Racism NGO Forum • A New African Initiative, Executive Summary 2. Feature Debate • Reversing slavery's legacy By Dr Eddie Maloka • 'A complex web of oppression' By Thenjwe Mtintso • Zionism under focus By Iqbal D Jhazbhay • Racism and religion By Cedric Mayson 3. Historical writings on Racism and the National Question • 'The regeneration of Africa' By Pixley ka Seme • 'Africa and Freedom' By Chief Albert Luthuli • 'I am prepared to die' By Nelson Mandela • 'The role of Indian people in the South African revolution' By Dr Yusuf Dadoo • 'Class and Colour in South Africa' By Jack and Ray Simons • 'The Historical Injustice' By Thabo Mbeki • 'Racism, apartheid and the new world order' By Oliver Tambo • 'The South African working class and the National Democratic Revolution' By Joe Slovo • 'I am an African' By Thabo Mbeki 4. Background documents • Nation-formation and nation-building, the National Question in South Africa • 'A nation in dialogue' By Prof Jakes Gerwel • 'Beyond the bounds of humanity' By Prof Patricia J. Williams Editorial By Z. Pallo Jordan When we visited the cathedral in Madgeburg, Germany some of us were surprised to find there a statue of a pitch-black knight, in full armour, with a cross emblazoned across the chest of his tunic. This, it was explained, was a representation of St Morris, a Nubian Christian general who had fought alongside the German, French and English monarchs during the third crusade. St Morris was accepted as a worthy ally and fellow Christian by the European knights, some of whom immortalised him by erecting a statue in his memory in one of their places of worship. On the opposing side, among the Muslim troops led by Salahdin, there were also Arab, African and European Muslims, all allied as co-religionists in defense of what they collectively considered the sacred shrines of their faith. Though he was the most effective military leader of their enemies, the Christian monarchs and their knights considered Salahdin an honourable adversary. Indeed after the Crusades poets, balladeers and chroniclers throughout Medieval Europe portrayed Salahdin as the embodiment of chivalry and as the perfect knight, a tradition revived by Sir Walter Scott in his novel 'The Talisman', during the 19th century. African soldiers - from Cameroon, Tanganyika, Namibia, Burundi and Rwanda -had fought alongside German troops during the twentieth century as well. But any monuments to their memory are hard to find in present-day Germany. Their contribution to the German cause duringthe First World War remains largely unacknowledged. Those who were not fortunate enough to leave on time, met the same fate as others whom the Nazis considered 'untermenschen' after 1933. It is difficult to imagine any European journalist today eulogising an Arab Muslim general, let alone holding him up as a symbol of soldiery honour. Writing in 1907 Dr W.E.B Du Bois said the main problem of the twentieth century would be the colour line, underscoring the salience race and national origin had acquired in the ordering of human affairs since the Middle Ages. European expansion into the rest of the world during and after the 15th century entailed the conquest, colonization and enslavement of peoples of other races. By the end of the 17th century the leading maritime powers of Europe had established themselves along various points of the west African coast, at the Cape of Good Hope, in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bengal and at ports on the east African coast; in the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil and the Antilles in South America; at the mouth of the Hudson River, along the St Lawrence, and various other points of the Atlantic coast of North America. Literature once again offers us an insight into how Europeans had come to regard the strangers they encountered in these far-off lands. In his last play, 'The Tempest', William Shakespeare brings on stage the character Caliban, the native of a distant island ruled by a wicked witch, his mother. Shipwrecked on the island with his beautiful daughter, the European prince and magician, Prospero, liberates Caliban and the other inhabitants from the cruel domination of the witch. He takes Caliban, a sub-human creature, under his wing and tutors him. Though not quite human, Caliban shares with humans a host of emotions and even has dreams not unlike Prospero's. But, Caliban gets too big for his breeches and repays his benefactor by commiting the unpardonable sin of attempting to violate Prospero's beautiful daughter. In retribution Prospero condemns Caliban to servitude. Caliban is embittered by this turn of events and hatches every type of subversive plot to murder Prospero, but is held in check by his recognition of Prospero's superior power. Prospero's right to occupy and take power on a strange island is not only assumed but is justified by the cruelty of the previous ruler. The relationship Prospero establishes with Caliban is that of a mentor though their circumstances would suggest that it should be Caliban, a native familiar with the island's plant and animal life, its streams and forests, who would be tutoring Prospero. The portrayal of Prospero and Caliban anticipates the apologists of colonialism in virtually every respect, up to and including the ungrateful 'native' whose secret ambition is to have sex with the colonizer's daughter! After two centuries of vigorous contact with the rest of humanity, in the course of which the leading powers of Europe and their descendants in the America's and Africa had established huge trans- oceanic colonial empires, the dominant culture in Europe assumed the biological and moral superiority of Europeans and their White descendants. Rudyard Kipling, the poet laureate of imperialism in Victorian Britain, gave expression to this view in verse: Take up the White Man's burden, Send forth the best ye breed, Go bind your sons to exile, To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild, Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Kipling, writing at a time when western statesmen gloried in the title 'imperialist', celebrated the racial domination of others by the Whites of Europe. After the First World War, Japan, sitting as an ally among the victors of that war , was humiliated by the two 'Anglo-Saxon' powers, Britain and the United States of America, who shot down her proposal that ending racial discrimination be included among policy objectives of the war. A century of struggle waged by the oppressed peoples of the world has radically transformed both the political realities and the vocabulary we employ to describe them.'Imperialist' is considered a term of political abuse today. Equally, terms such as 'white supremacy', 'white domination', and even the euphemism, 'white leadership', are no longer embraced even by those who subscribe to them in practice. Despite these victories, racism and racist attitudes have not disappeared. Racism is a form of intolerance and oppression that is, regrettably, universal. It is not something that afflicts only Africans and people of African descent. It has been practiced against Asians, against the First Nations of the Americas, against the aboriginal peoples of Australasia and Oceania, against racial minorities in Europe, in Asia , Africa and elsewhere. It has targeted minorities and majorities. It plumbed the abyss of depravity when the Nazis in Europe employed industrial methods of mass murder to wipe out fully half of the world's Jewish population. That unspeakable crime was however the echo of similar acts of genocide perpetrated against a number of colonized peoples in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. The consequences of such racist policies still impact very directly on the lives and life chances of millions. Majorities and minorities who fell victim to racist practice still bear the stigma of their past status even after racist laws have been expunged from the statute books. Their ascribed status as 'inferior', 'not fully human', 'outsiders' haunts present generations in the shape of economic deprivation, exclusion from certain entitlements and even outright social ostracism. The defeat of Nazi regime in Europe created an environment in which the international community could define new, universal human rights standards and principles. Certain forms of oppressive policy were designated 'crimes against humanity'. New benchmarks, against which the actions of all governments and states would in future be judged, were established. Government by the consent of the governed also assumed a new significance and was effectively used by the colonized peoples as a rallying slogan to put an end to colonialism in the decades that followed. The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed the indivisibility of these rights and placed an obligation on all states to observe them. The issue of racial domination in South Africa was first placed on the international community's agenda in 1947, at the instance of India immediately after that country attained her independence. For the next ten to thirteen years the western powers, with Britain in the lead, blocked discussion of the issue on the pretext that it was an internal South African matter. It was only after the majority of African countries had achieved their independence, during the 1960's, that it became possible to invoke the generation of human rights associated with the defeat of Nazism to challenge the apartheid regime in South Africa. After years of agitation, inside and outside the United Nations Organisation (UN), in 1980 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to convene a World Conference Against Racism and Apartheid.