Dissident Veteran For Peace

One of the first questions that popped into my mind after watching "Fatty Boom Boom" is what the hell was that? I came across the South African group Die Antwoord while trying to dig deeper into Neill Blomkamp's Elysium. It turns out that Die Antwoord's frontman, Ninja, was Blomkamp's first choice for the role played by Matt Damon. I learned this via a review by Steve Sailer that I read after I watched the film.

Sailer claims the "American culturati's hive mind" has got Blomkamp, who also directed and co-wrote District 9, all wrong. According to Sailer, Blomkamp is a "young Boer refugee" and his new movie is "about the horrors of mass immigration and nonwhite overpopulation". It is, like District 9, "another Malthusian tale" by Blomkamp, "a gun-loving Afrikaner whose movies are based around his fear that the rapid breeding of Third Worlders threatens to bring down civilization". I'm not sure if Sailer is right about Blomkamp or his cinematic intentions but he makes a compelling case and his review put the film in a different light for me.

Sailer also opines that "Elysium would have been more interesting with either" Eminem or Ninja in the lead and refers to Die Antwoord as "a satirical Afrikaner duo who are always on the verge of getting denounced as racist." I'd never heard of Die Antwoord before and was intrigued. Below is Die Antwoord's "Fatty Boom Boom" video. Following that is their response to some comments on the video by YouTube users (you can also watch a 'making of' video here).

The last video is an illuminating video essay by Chris English entitled "Wat Kyk Jy: Die Antwoord and the Appropriation of Jane Alexander's Butcher Boys". Jane Alexander is a South African sculptor whose 1985/86 work, The Butcher Boys, is widely recognized as an artistic critique of South African apartheid.

Labels: art and literature, film & television, music, South Africa, video

Last December, F. W. de Klerk, the last president of South Africa under the system of White supremacist rule known as apartheid, confirmed what every informed, thinking person already knew: The so-called two-state solution to the conflict in Palestine is about locking in a Jewish supremacist apartheid solution in Palestine. De Klerk told the BBC program Today: "What I supported as a younger politician [in South Africa] was exactly what the whole world now supports for Israel and Palestine; namely, separate nation-states ..." In South Africa, the Black "nation-states" were derisively called bantustans.De Klerk's statement can be heard at about 2:27 in the 13-minute interview.

Labels: apartheid, Israel, South Africa

Dear Erykah Badu,

I salute you for your courageous and well-intentioned remarks in Tel Aviv last January. But please know that the Palestinian people, with whom you identify, have a called for an international boycott of the Jewish apartheid state of Israel. I hope you will not only honor that call but do your part to promote it. In the 1980s, the artists listed below wouldn't "play Sun City" in White apartheid South Africa and I hope you won't play Tel Aviv again until Israeli apartheid is smashed and gone. For your information, at the bottom of this post is the text of the Call for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

• Steven Van Zandt
• Miles Davis
• Kool DJ Herc
• Grandmaster Melle Mel
• Ruben Blades
• Bob Dylan
• Herbie Hancock
• Ringo Starr
• Zak Starkey
• Lou Reed
• Run DMC
• Peter Gabriel
• David Ruffin
• Eddie Kendricks
• Darlene Love
• Bobby Womack
• Afrika Bambaataa
• Kurtis Blow
• Jackson Browne
• Darryl Hannah
• U2
• George Clinton
• Keith Richards
• Ron Wood
• Bonnie Raitt
• Hall & Oates
• Jimmy Cliff
• Big Youth
• Michael Monroe
• Peter Garrett
• Ron Carter
• Ray Barretto
• Gil-Scott Heron
• Nona Hendryx
• Pat Benatar
• Joey Ramone

Whereas Israel’s colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, which is based on Zionist ideology, comprises the following:

· Denial of its responsibility for the Nakba -- in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem -- and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced stipulated in and protected by international law;

· Military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions;

· The entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa;

Since Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled) and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either contributed directly to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying the above forms of oppression, or have been complicit in them through their silence,

Given that all forms of international intervention have until now failed to force Israel to comply with international law or to end its repression of the Palestinians, which has manifested itself in many forms, including siege, indiscriminate killing, wanton destruction and the racist colonial wall,

In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community of scholars and intellectuals have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott,

Recognizing that the growing international boycott movement against Israel has expressed the need for a Palestinian frame of reference outlining guiding principles,

In the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,

We, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon our colleagues in the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid, by applying the following:

Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;

Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;

Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;

Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;

Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

Endorsed by:

Labels: apartheid, boycott, Erykah Badu, Israel, music, Palestine, resistance, South Africa, video, Zionism

Here are some excerpts from "Avocados, Diamonds at Core of Anti-Israel Trade Campaign" by Moyiga Nduru:

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (IPS) - A call from a South African trade unionist for national supermarket chains to stop importing avocado from Israel could ultimately lead to the banning of all imports from the Jewish state, if unions and human rights activists have their way.

Katishi Masemola, secretary general of the Food and Allied Workers' Union (FAWU), told South Africa's supermarket chains earlier this week that Israel produces avocado under "slave-type conditions". He says the International Labour Organisation (ILO) forbids the use of child labour which, he claims, Israel is employing on avocado farms.

IPS contacted the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, for comment. It did not return IPS's call.

Masemola told IPS in an interview: "Israel is occupying parts of Palestine and it's frustrating its moving towards statehood. In those occupied territories, avocados are produced under harsh slave-type conditions. Israeli farmers hire Palestinian children and pay them peanuts." ...

When IPS began making inquiries, it found that the fruit debate was only the tip of the iceberg. "It's not only avocado. The main item that concerns us is diamond. Israel imports diamond from South Africa; polishes it and cuts it before selling it back to South Africa at almost ten times its original value. It does the same with gold," Mohamed told IPS by phone from Cape Town.

"Israel imports diamond worth three billion rand (about 430 million dollars) from South Africa a year. Israel doesn't produce a single diamond. Yet 30 percent of its GDP (gross domestic product) comes from diamond. The diamond could be polished and cut in South Africa to provide jobs for the estimated 40 percent unemployed South Africans," he said. ...

Slowly, the anti-Israeli coalition is growing in South Africa. "We haven't made the call to impose sanctions against Israel yet. We know Israel commits atrocities against Palestinians. But we are moving there. It's just a matter of months," Masemola said.

"We are making a call to mobilise South African workers. We want to all diamonds from Israel to be treated as conflict diamonds. We urge people not to buy diamonds from Israel," said Mohamed.

An international campaign targeting Israeli crafted diamonds is planned for February in South Africa, Britain, Canada, Australia and Ireland. ...

The South African government, which has not imposed sanctions, nor introduced boycott regulations, on Israeli goods, is perceived to be pro-Palestine, given the history between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The former apartheid regime worked closely with the Jewish state.

See also: "Blood Diamonds"--the Israeli Connection

Labels: apartheid, bds, boycott, diamonds, Israel, South Africa