Israel-Palestine
An astute reader [well, okay, my editor Casey at New Pages, who better be an astute reader since he seems to think the stuff I write is okay :-)] pointed out that Archbishop Tutu thinks "apartheid" is an appropriate term to use for the Israel-Palestine situation. And I would agree that that situation can be seen as analogous, historically, to the kind of barriers and spatial segregation that the South African government erected--with similar religious, political, and ethnic justification going on. And I'm not sure that Palestinians are less bloody in their reaction than South Africans were. After all, Nelson Mandela led an armed revolt. The difference was that Umkhonto we Sizwe (the armed wing of the ANC) targeted military and government infrastructure--never ordinary citizens or government officials, that is, never people.
posted by Jessica Somewhere in the States at 7:21 PM
1 Comments:
That's something I'd have to think about for awhile. Of course, just because a state has both ethnic and religious violence does not mean that its power is structured so that it rules through those means, like South Africa under apartheid rule. I would definitely put Israel on that list, because I do think Israel (like S. Africa) uses ethnicity and religion as actual tools of power or at least for the way society is divided and, thus, ruled. But I'd have to think about it for awhile before I put together a list.
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