Apartheid

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made on the curious premise that Africans did not naturally like bread,
which was a more sophisticated or ‘Western’ taste. The diet for white
detainees was far superior to that of Africans. So color-conscious were
the authorities that even the type of sugar and bread supplied to whites
and nonwhites differed: white prisoners received white sugar and
white bread, while Coloured and Indian prisoners were given brown
sugar and brown bread. 125
Apartheid laws started being repealed in the 1980s amid growing international
pressure as well as continuous internal unrest and violence. At the same time, however, the
apartheid-induced wars in neighboring Angola and Mozambique intensified. Then, suddenly
and fully beyond the control and input by southern African players, the Cold War ended in
1989. Henceforth, South Africa’s main perceived usefulness for NATO, as a southern front
against the communist-led former Portuguese colonies, evaporated. In 1990, Nelson Mandela
was released from prison. In 1991, the remaining racist laws were scrapped. Three years later,
Mandela’s political party, the ANC, won the country’s first democratic elections and led the
design of South Africa’s new, non-racist Constitution, which has become one of the most
liberal and inclusive ones in the world.
Yet, formidable problems still plague South Africa. The country remains deeply
divided between rich and poor, between white and non-white. Black poverty, rampant crime
and high unemployment levels appear to be persistent after-effects of apartheid. For instance,
96 per cent of the share value at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and 87 per cent of the land
was still in white owners’ hands in November 2002, over eight years after ‘liberation’. Hardly
any of the Whites responsible for apartheid had been punished or sanctioned for their crimes
in any way. At this stage, the white population in the country amounted to only 10.7 per cent
of the total population. 126
3. Israel
The Israeli occupation of Palestine, even though it is still not generally regarded as a
system of apartheid, very closely resembles the white racist practices against the non-Whites
of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, with the Israeli government playing the role of the
white South African government, the non-Jews corresponding to the non-Whites and the
Palestinians corresponding to the Blacks. The South African liberation movement and
currently ruling party, the ANC, condemned Israeli apartheid in 2001 (see Conclusions,
Chapter III.2, below). The former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has admitted practicing
apartheid, though not in public. Abdel Rahman, special envoy of the Palestinian president
Yasser Arafat, to South Africa, once stated: ‘...The Palestinian people have much in common
with South Africans’ anti-apartheid movement...but [they] are still under a colonial apartheid
system.’ 127 The immediate historical background to this system is succinctly summarized by
125 Mandela 1995 (1994): 244. This degree of idiocy is unlikely to ever have occurred in other apartheid
societies. It remains, however, a mere matter of degree. It is also idiotic to heap privileges on one atheist because
he is considered a Jew, and deny them all to another atheist, who grew up around the corner from the first one,
because he is considered an Arab. However, as a ‘prize’ for the imbecility of white South African racial
classification practices as described here by Mandela, one might say, this form of oppression – apartheid –
warrants and deserves being given an Afrikaans name.
126 Commey: South Africa – Land: A Ticking Time Bomb, 2002: 12-16. Some of the white shareholders, as
during the reign of political apartheid, were Europeans and Americans.
127 N.N.: Arafat Aide Asks South Africa to Promote Mideast Peace, February 9, 1998. Of course modern Israel
was never a colonial power in the traditional sense. Yet, the predominance of European and North American
Jews in Israel and its close ties with NATO and with individual NATO member countries have in many ways
made it an outpost of a North Atlantic-led global hegemonic system. See Chomsky Fateful Triangle: The United
States, Israel and the Palestinians, 2 1999. There are also efforts being made to bring Israel into the European
Union. In May 2003, the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, confirmed that Israel was in fact pursuing this
goal. See N.N.: Radical Deputies Urge EU Membership for Israel, January 30, 2001; N.N.: Israel Considers