Apartheid

36
USA and South Africa than in any other country. 29 In both countries, millions of Blacks were
systematically excluded from privileges as well as from the exercise of basic human rights.
The US laws of segregation between Blacks and Whites, the non-violent struggle against them
and the violent white backlash and reaction to that struggle in themselves also manifest strong
parallels to South African developments, especially as many formative events in this regard
took place around the same time – in the 1950s and ‘60s – partly in interaction with each
other, partly inspired by decolonialization efforts and achievements around the world, and to a
large extent spontaneously. 30
The parallels are also compelling with regard to the organizations of resistance and
their leading personalities. The deeply religious and Christian ANC leader, Albert Luthuli
(recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960), and the anti-apartheid activist and Anglican
Archbishop, Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize in 1984), could indeed be compared to the
American, deeply religious and Baptist Christian civil rights movement leader, Martin Luther
King Jr. (Nobel Peace Prize in 1964). On the other hand, the more militant South African
liberation fighters, Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko, along with at least one of their
Palestinian counterparts, Marwan Barghouthi 31 , and Nelson Mandela (who received the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1993 despite or rather because he had been the head of the militant, armed
wing of a major anti-racist political resistance movement) could all be usefully likened with
the Black American resistance activist, Malcolm X – the latter five at least with regard to
strategies of resistance against racist oppression. The harsh incarcerations and/or violent
deaths of all of these freedom fighters are also worth noting.
The stark visual contrast between the light-skinned (so-called ‘white’) oppressors and
the dark-skinned (‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘red’ and ‘yellow’) victims was more similar in the USA
to South Africa than to either of my other two prime examples of apartheid. Graeco-Roman
Egypt was also a society where Europeans oppressed Africans, but the latter belonged to the
northernmost Africans, whereas the former were some of the southernmost Europeans.
Apartheid in Egypt was in this regard closer to present-day apartheid in areas under Israeli
rule: it is not easy to tell from a distance if someone is or is not a member of the privileged
group. Nevertheless, in the last resort, when it comes down to, for instance, random shootings
of the usual suspects – i.e. members of the oppressed ethnic group – in the streets, geographic
location (e.g. with regard to a military or police roadblock) and clothes are probably a great
deal more important than skin color or any other aspects of a person’s purely natural
appearance for the purposes of ethnic identification, even in South Africa and the USA. In the
end, skin color remains much more important to the upholders of apartheid (and of genocide
and other kinds of racism) than to anyone else, and more for ideological reasons than for
29 Cell: The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in Southern Africa and the
American South, 1982. I believe this distinction can be explained with the absolute and relative wealth of the
USA from 1877 and of South Africa from 1948. But Israel and other contemporary examples of rich apartheid or
otherwise ethnicist states lack petty apartheid because (apparently) they do not wish to be accused of racist
segregation or apartheid, which is now a crime against humanity under international law. See, however, Chapter
II.6.3 below on some less systematic and less extensive examples of Israeli petty apartheid.
30 Borstelmann: Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle: The United States and South Africa in the Early Cold War, 1992;
Bullard, Grigsby III, & Lee (Eds.): Residential Apartheid: The American Legacy, 1994
31 See Barghouthi, M.: Marwan Barghouthi v. Israel: Fatah Leader Presents Charge Sheet Against His Captors,
2002, in which the Palestinian politician and activist, himself under prosecution by the State of Israel for
allegedly planning terrorist acts, defiantly charges the State of Israel back on 54 counts of crimes against
Palestinians, including the ‘creation of separate reserves and Bantustans’, ‘torture’, ‘exploitation of labor’,
‘colonialism’, ‘apartheid’, and ‘genocide’, i.e. fully in line with the results of my investigation. Much like Robert
Sobukwe, who was probably considered the most dangerous anti-apartheid leader by South African authorities
during the tumultuous 1960s, and who died after having been held by apartheid ‘justice’ for many years in
isolation, Barghouti in early 2004 faced at least six months added to an already served full year in isolation. See
N.N.: Uprising Leader to Remain Isolated in Israel Jail, January 26, 2004. His trial finally ended on May 20 of
that year, when he was sentenced to life in jail after being found guilty by Israel of masterminding five Israeli
civilian deaths. Williams: Israel Court Convicts Palestinian Uprising Leader, 2004