Shame on my country!

20 October 2004, 5 Ramadan 1425

Some of you might have gathered from my previous posts that I have been somewhat obsessing over the past few days about the disgusting fact that my country and my government would be (and, as of this morning, are) hosting Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert the racist, illegal settler, and supporter of ethnic cleansing. The same.

So… I just got back to my office from a protest at the Sandton Convention Centre where he was due to address a South Africa-Israel Business Seminar today. In about 30 minutes he will be signing a ‘protection of investment’ treaty with South Africa’s Trade and Industry minister, Mandisi Mpahlwa. We are angry, upset, disappointed, enraged, outraged! This is supposed to be the post-apartheid South African government. And at this time! With what’s happening in Gaza, with the ongoing building of the apartheid wall…

But it’s not only the Palestine solidarity movement here that is upset. South Africa’s largest trade union federation, Cosatu, has come out in support of our position and in support of the protests. As has the South African National NGO Coalition, the Landless Peoples Movement, Anti-Privatisation Forum, etc. And over 100 Palestinian and solidarity organisations from around the world endorsed the call for the visit to be cancelled. We marched, we met with the Department of Foreign Affairs… and he’s here. An embarrassment and shame to my country.

Anyway, despite the fact that it was an illegal protest (and more on the way until he leaves on Saturday) we all got away without being arrested; just a little shoving by the cops.

Sorry about imposing this on you. I needed to vent on this Ramadan afternoon. Else I wouldn’t have been able to properly teach my class which comes up in 20 minutes. Which class I’m going to be teaching through iftaar. Which means I’m not going to have iftaar with my kids today. Now that sucks! Makes me almost as unhappy as having that racist thug in my city.