Apartheid

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However, the option of aggressively pursuing a state policy of eradicating femicide
may be laden with traps. It has been observed with regard to FGM in African countries, where
impending criminalization may have led to an increase in frequency due to stiffening of
resistance, and the idea that a cultural tradition under fire necessitates the mutilation of as
many girls and women as possible ‘before it is too late’, i.e. before it is criminalized and
punished. There are currently an estimated 80 to 130 million girls and women worldwide who
have been forced to undergo FGM, and it is not going to be easy to put an end to this
exceptionally resilient cultural tradition. The Palestinian and South African forms of femicide
are much less frequently practiced than FGM, yet much more directly lethal, and therefore
perhaps not fit for anything but more aggressive criminalization. Nevertheless, as Hallie
Ludsin demonstrates elegantly with regard to South Africa, the rejection of customary law
(traditional culture) in favor of ‘common law’ – introduced by a foreign, conquering power –
can easily backfire. 293
Furthermore, as Amnesty International points out in a recent report on the oppression
of Palestinian women by Israelis and Palestinian men: ‘…due to the prevailing attitude within
society towards victims of rape or sexual abuse, in some cases prosecuting the perpetrator is
not an option which the victim is prepared to consider as the case would become known and
she would be stigmatized.’ 294 As soon as criminalization approaches, such stigmatization may
well start to intensify, and the criminals will be (even) harder to find and punish.
Perhaps only the Palestinians out of my three apartheid victim groups have the
opportunity of eradicating femicide unaided and without imposed interference. The influence
of international law, in this regard, could be both beneficial in strengthening the hand of antifemicide
activism, but it could also become counterproductive, if generally perceived as
imposed by foreigners. Yet, eradicating femicide in Palestine is apparently not going to be
something that a state or state-like entity will be able to do unaided. Civil society must be
involved, at all levels.
At the same time, there is imposed interference from the other direction: the
demographic warfare pursued by the state of Israel and by much of Israeli Jewish society. The
noble cause of eradicating femicide in Palestine must also target this warfare as a whole,
including apartheid and ethnicism, otherwise the struggle against femicide, again, seems
doomed to fail. Israeli rule is certainly not a solution to Palestinian femicide. It still goes on
among Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and, as we have seen, it goes on partly because of
Israeli apartheid and ethnicist discrimination in general.
The pessimistic conclusion that Palestinian femicide will prevail long after apartheid is
gone is easy to draw on the basis of the fact that femicide has survived previous apartheid
societies; in South Africa although it could be argued that economic, social and cultural
apartheid still exist there, but more obviously in Egypt. Graeco-Roman apartheid ended
almost one-and-a-half millennia ago, but female genital mutilation is still being practiced. In
fact, Egypt is the country with the largest incidence of FGM (in absolute numbers) today. Up
to 97 per cent of Egyptian women alive today have been victimized, and many who should
have been alive are not because the practice continues. 295 The oppressive minority rule of
Greeks and Romans is gone, and Egyptians must themselves take responsibility for ending
FGM in their country. However, there are many other factors responsible that go far beyond
the borders of the country. Global patriarchy and neocolonialism have been identified as
transnational factors carrying a high degree of responsibility for the perpetuation of FGM in
293 Mackie 2000; Ludsin: What South Africa’s Treatment of Witchcraft Says for the Future of Its Customary
Law, 2003: 62-110
294 Amnesty International: Israel and the Occupied Territories: Conflict, Occupation and Patriarchy – Women
Carry the Burden, 2005. (I find the use of the definite article in the title of this report both misleading and unfair,
due to the fact that so many Palestinian males are killed and wounded in the conflict with Israel.)
295 Heger Boyle, Songora & Foss: International Discourse and Local Politics: Anti-Female-Genital-Cutting Laws
in Egypt, Tanzania, and the United States, 2001: 524-544