Apartheid

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relatively unnatural ones by the elites, as we shall see presently.) That is why violence is the
only theme of apartheid that is talked about as a gross human rights violation at all by so
many members of the oppressive minority, its allies, and its descendants.
The other themes are subtly and cleverly repressed, unless of course there is dehumanizing
content in the thought of the resistance with regard to the oppressors, in which
case the victims of apartheid are again accused, somewhat perversely, but still very cleverly,
of ethnicism and racism. For example, a Macedonian during the second century BCE
complained in a letter to the authorities that an Egyptian employee had mistreated him at
Alexandria’s Serapeum, the greatest temple at the time, dedicated to a god that had been
created as a syncretism of Egyptian and Greek gods. The reason behind the mistreatment,
according to the Macedonian, whose name was Ptolemy (though he may not have been related
to the royal family), was that he was Greek. The letter of complaint was addressed to
Dionysios, the Greek strategos, the powerful military administrator of the region. In any case,
says one present-day commentator, Ptolemy would certainly not have mentioned the reason
unless he was sure that it would have an effect on Dionysios. 302
Although the violent crimes committed by the invaders are both fundamentally and
ultimately unprovoked as well as overwhelming with regard to numbers – numbers of both
crimes and victims – effective propaganda, made possible to a large extent by wealth
exploited and stolen from apartheid victims, can thus rally world opinion, or at least elite
world opinion, around the cause of the invaders. This is what is happening today with regard
to Israel and many of its supporters, who have been very successful in relating Palestinian
thought to Nazi thought and Nazi misdeeds, i.e. in confusing victimized with victimizing
thought, although they are in reality essentially opposites of one another. 303
Unfortunately, due to the shortage of time and funds made available by the initial
conditions and political pressures leading up to the South African TRC’s formation, it was not
given a chance to investigate such aspects of apartheid comprehensively. There was also
widespread, systematic shredding of potentially incriminating documents by security forces
personnel and others during the years of negotiations leading up to the first democratic
elections in 1994. If that had not happened, we might very well have been in a better position
not only to prosecute apartheid crimes in South Africa, but also to improve the country under
post-apartheid conditions, and additionally maybe even to understand and counteract Israeli
oppression of Palestinians in a more effective way, and thus to save lives. 304
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
The Ugandan military ruler, Idi Amin, was behind the very first TRC in 1974. He had
been moved to set it up because of pressures from abroad and from human rights groups
within Uganda. Upon completion of the final report, however, Amin would not let it be
published nor bring about any of its recommendations.
Since then, TRCs have been a great deal more successful. The Chilean Truth
Commission’s report became, among other things, the foundation for the Spanish judge
Balthasar Garzon’s arrest warrant and the subsequent detention of General Augusto Pinochet
in Britain in 1998. The former military dictator and subsequent ‘Senator for Life’, was
eventually released from Britain and returned to Chile, and although he has not yet been
charged, Pinochet has now lost his grip on power in Chile. He was inconvenienced and
publicly defamed by the incident, abroad as well as at home. Indeed, it seems as if the only
thing that has saved him from prosecution in Chile so far is his lawyers’ claim that Pinochet is
302 Huß 2001: 589f
303 Said: Low Point of Powerlessness, 2002. See also Chapter II.9.3.
304 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report, 1998: Volume 1, Chapter 8, The Destruction of
Records, 1998; Harris: “They Should Have Destroyed More”: The Destruction of Public Records by the South
African State in the Final Years of Apartheid, 1990-1994, 1999.