I HAVE always had a certain level of antipathy towards Israel, a country associated with the Hebrew bible, referenced in the Koran, and ancient Roman history. Unlike South Africa, it is not my homeland, but rather the homeland of my relatives. Living as a Jew in the diaspora and being a Pan Africanist, never inspired me sufficiently into conducting an “Aliyah” pilgrimage to the holy land, another continent.
Though growing up within a mixed religious environment, both sets of parents, and grandparents were secular — there was never any hint of support for government as a theocracy, quite the opposite. The Anglicans and Protestants in my family wanted freedom from clerical authority, the Orthodox Jews in my family wanted the right to privacy and freedom from the religious views of others.
In short, there was no desire to replace religion and the political views of our neighbors with that of our own. The prevailing wisdom was that it was ‘best to stay out of politics’. The price for my participation in the anti-apartheid struggle, the ‘sent-down’ white youth of 1986 and 87, was a rejection of the liberal views of my family in favour of a leftist concern with changing society — an outlook that pivoted on a militant wish to tell others how to run their lives.
The anti-apartheid struggle was anything but a cakewalk. Yet the outcome, which I refer to as Mandela’s blueprint for a ‘great society’ was most definitely a “We the People” constitution. A foundation document which makes it abundantly clear that when it came to the law, God has no bigger role to play than the author of any other text. The status of religious texts when it comes to our country is one of blessings, fairy tales and motivational books. Gone are the restrictive clerical canons of the Nationalist Party.
Pro-Hezbollah Sermon
It is thus I take issue with Makhanya’s latest pro-Hezbollah sermon published by City Press, a publication which like every other Naspers/Media24 outlet has not only banned my writing, but has gone so far as to destroy my photography and interviews with jazz legends (and their families) associated with the history of our country. Yes our High Court could not find the wherewithal to defend my right to representation in a related matter affecting the TRC Report (the failure of Naspers to participate) (Lewis v Min of Justice & Another, 2015 Equality Court) in which your principal was a respondent. The court delivering its jaundiced, 1994-denialist decision (Lewis v LASA, 2018) to the effect ‘the report may be ignored since it would take a long time to read’, torpedoed any hope of resolution — so much for the Preamble to our Constitution and the very basis of your column.
When I read headlines: Mondli Makhanya | The blackmail of anti-Semitism used to pummel the truth to death and Mondli Makhanya | SA’s Jews must draw a red line on Israel’s ‘war crimes’, I am forced to turn to SA Jewish Report to observe what your critics are saying, because you write behind a paywall. The latest: Jewish voices being stifled, is a sad indictment knowing that your publication will not grant a right to reply nor acknowledge such person’s exist.
Let me report on words Mondli may find within the paragraphs of those whom he clearly does not read, nor care to quote: “Calling out a single population group and demanding that it changes its political or conscientious standpoint is blatantly bigoted,” writes Karen Milner, “It’s akin to saying that only Jews whom the writer deems palatable are acceptable in South Africa, and, in this Heritage Month, deeply endangers the fabric of our multiracial society.”
I note here that not only has Makhanya previously deployed the term ‘black’ as a pejorative (as in blackmail) with which to smear the targets of his bile, but he refers to “SAs Jews” as if we are some kind of monolithic bloc, worse, we are mere simulacra with no human agency other than that we are objects representing other objects in the Middle East, things to be lectured at, not humans with the right to respond, or speak up for ourselves.
I therefore register my objection to this obvious patronage, lack of support for press freedom, and condemn the column as needlessly counterfeit and corrupt.
UPDATE: As I wrote this, reports of the death of Hezbollah chief Nasrullah were beginning to emerge, followed by condemnation by the SA government who seems to think “God’s Army” as it is known, is somehow the moral equivalent of the ANC in exile. The Pretoria government’s handlers in Tehran must be pleased.