Apartheid

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South Africa and the Palestinian territories under Israeli rule. We then discussed the issues
further and decided to jointly write an academic article on the subject. In the meantime, much
due to the teaching assignments in political science and history that I had taken over, my
research interests were slowly drifting away from philosophy and more into politics,
sociology, and history. In 1999 we were not very far into the apartheid project, when the
opportunity arose to present a paper at an academic conference on the South African Truth
and Reconciliation Commission. We put together as much as we could in order to meet a tight
deadline, and ended up with a 28-page paper, which we presented at the conference in
Johannesburg, which carries the same title as this investigation, and which is available on the
Internet. I have left many of her and my passages from that paper unaltered here. Ms. Bathish
and I also worked together on the IPI Intifada Report, a media freedom violations report on
attacks and intentional obstacles against media coverage of the Palestinian Uprising that
began in 2000, published by the International Press Institute, a global press freedom
organization with which I worked between 1994 and 2005, and where she absolved an
internship in late 2000. We both also felt that apartheid as a major form of oppression and
war, and as exemplified by Israel and Graeco-Roman Egypt as well as South Africa, were
issues that needed more in-depth research and theoretical work. 1 Ms. Bathish then became
more involved with her dominant interests, film and media, and started to work as a producer
for Reuters Television in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In 2003, she started
to work more generally with the Middle East, also covering the US-led war in Iraq, and
she has unfortunately not had the time or inclination to be the co-author of this book. It was
understandably more important for her to witness the ongoing invasions, occupations, and
uprisings in the region first-hand and to record them accurately. But she continued to
contribute to the project sporadically and remained one my main sources of assistance to the
manuscript throughout its long gestation period. For this, as well as for the important part Ms.
Bathish played for the impetus to the project, I am very grateful.
Aside from the great literature, reports, and investigations which came before this
book and from which I have learned so much, I am indebted to the Core Faculty Research and
Service Project Review Panel at Webster University in Vienna for a research grant awarded
for this project. My gratitude also goes to the Austrian Ministry of Science and Traffic
(Österreichisches Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Verkehr, Michaela Lindinger) and
to Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagen-bau GmbH., Linz, for grants sponsoring the presentation of
Ms. Bathish’s and my paper at the Johannesburg conference in 1999.
For their invaluable initiatives and assistance with the Webster Vienna and Wits South
Africa/Austria course study trips and student exchange programs from 1997 to 1999, without
which this investigation would not have come about, I would like to thank my colleagues at
Webster University in Vienna, in particular Dr. William Fulton, Professor Sam Hocking, Dr.
Arthur Hirsh, Dr. Elizabeth Orthner-Chopin, and all the students in the Ethnicity and
Ethnicism seminars at Webster in the springs of 2004 and 2006; and at Wits: especially
Professor Katherine Munro, whose untiring enthusiasm and wealth of initiatives were
essential in getting me and the Webster exchange students to South Africa in the first place,
and also all the Webster and Wits exchange students, as well as Candice Perlman, Patrick
Phelane, Sibusiso Mazibuko, Abel Baloyi; elsewhere in Johannesburg: Keith, Huntley and
Kim Munro, Raymond and Jean Louw, Nokwazi Gumbi, Miriam Makeba, and Angie
Kapelianis; at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC): Terry February, Faizal
Randera, Hugh Lewin, Thulani Grenville-Grey, Lavinia Browne, and Desmond Tutu;
1 See Bathish, N. & Löwstedt: Apartheid – Ancient, Past and Present, 1999; Bathish, N. et al: IPI Intifada Report:
Press Freedom Violations in Israel and Palestine, September 29, 2000 - September 28, 2004, 5 October 19, 2004.
Website addresses of these and all other available online sources are provided in the bibliography along with full
bibliographical details.