Ntsiki Mazwai’s “Moyo Space” claims to be ‘a social cohesion space’, and yet it is anything but safe when it comes to Jews.
Yesterday, she blocked me from attending her sessions, the latest has as its starting point the Film & Publications Board (FPB) refusal to certify a propaganda film that repeats a number of anti-Semitic tropes. The FPB has reclassified ‘Hebrews to Negroes‘, on the grounds that it ‘propagated racist stereotypes against Jewish people’.
A wikipedia articles makes the Anti-Semitic messaging clear. The attribution is accurate given its reach into a contemporary smear campaign falsely claiming ‘Jewish identity is a nullity’, since ‘Jews have stolen their identity’, in this case, from black people.
The result is Jewface, in which persons such as Mazwai express fake outrage, with no basis in fact nor reality. Doing this is hurtful to authentic black Jews such as the Jews of Ogoniland, the Jews of Honeywell, Gqeberha, and all Jews of Color, often referred to as Mizrahi Jews, as well as my own family.
After ranting online about the SAJBD, falsely accusing the organizations of banning the work (SAJBD has no locus standi to deliver a unilateral banning order, and cannot act in that capacity), her video promo for ‘Can the SA Jewish board CENSOR African content?’ found itself on my timeline. I engaged Mazwai by pointing out that the FPB is a statutory body tasked with certifying broadcast material, with PG and age related restrictions and upholding our constitution which has prohibitions on hate speech.
I am fairly certain a similar piece of white supremacist propaganda reiterating manifest destiny and the basis for the old Republic Flag would also be found to be unsuitable for public display?
Today I eventually found the recorded Moyo Spaces session, after Mazwai had not bothered to provide so much as a hash-tag, nor invite which may have allowed me to attend. Several other prominent Jewish tweeters either declined or were not invited. “We need to have a conversation about the Jews”, began Mazwai, despite my previous attempts to correct her framing of the story.
First speaker up is a Roman Catholic co-host, @Rahul_AJ_1990_SA who proceeded to outline his objections to ‘any religion that conflates ethnicity’. I guess one could similarly criticise Catholicism for conflating Empire and religion, and take issue with the Romans for taking Judeans as slaves, but this isn’t the point here. What Mazwai has done is create a safe space for Anti-Semites, those who like German scholar Wilhelm Marr (who coined the term AntiSemitismus) seek to sanitise their hatred, by removing the religious basis for discrimination against Jews, by instead focusing on our ethnicity.
Attributing race to Jews for the purposes of making a false analogy with apartheid, meets definitions of Anti-Semitism under both the IHRA definitions, and Jerusalem Declaration. I could also ask why it is that Mazwai is upset about the certification of a clearly problematic documentary, but not concerned in the slightest by the suppression and destruction of black Jazz history?
Is it because the author of the material (myself), is Jewish?