#Anti Apartheid Movement

[heritageposts]

Ask an older generation of white South Africans when they first felt the bite of anti-apartheid sanctions, and some point to the moment in 1968 when their prime minister, BJ Vorster, banned a tour by the England cricket team because it included a mixed-race player, Basil D’Oliveira. After that, South Africa was excluded from international cricket until Nelson Mandela walked free from prison 22 years later. The D’Oliveira affair, as it became known, proved a watershed in drumming up popular support for the sporting boycott that eventually saw the country excluded from most international competition including rugby, the great passion of the white Afrikaners who were the base of the ruling Nationalist party and who bitterly resented being cast out. For others, the moment of reckoning came years later, in 1985 when foreign banks called in South Africa’s loans. It was a clear sign that the country’s economy was going to pay an ever higher price for apartheid. Neither of those events was decisive in bringing down South Africa’s regime. Far more credit lies with the black schoolchildren who took to the streets of Soweto in 1976 and kicked off years of unrest and civil disobedience that made the country increasingly ungovernable until changing global politics, and the collapse of communism, played its part. But the rise of the popular anti-apartheid boycott over nearly 30 years made its mark on South Africans who were increasingly confronted by a repudiation of their system. Ordinary Europeans pressured supermarkets to stop selling South African products. British students forced Barclays Bank to pull out of the apartheid state. The refusal of a Dublin shop worker to ring up a Cape grapefruit led to a strike and then a total ban on South African imports by the Irish government. By the mid-1980s, one in four Britons said they were boycotting South African goods – a testament to the reach of the anti-apartheid campaign. . . . The musicians union blocked South African artists from playing on the BBC, and the cultural boycott saw most performers refusing to play in the apartheid state, although some, including Elton John and Queen, infamously put on concerts at Sun City in the Bophuthatswana homeland. The US didn’t have the same sporting or cultural ties, and imported far fewer South African products, but the mobilisation against apartheid in universities, churches and through local coalitions in the 1980s was instrumental in forcing the hand of American politicians and big business in favour of financial sanctions and divestment. By the time President FW de Klerk was ready to release Mandela and negotiate an end to apartheid, a big selling point for part of the white population was an end to boycotts and isolation. Twenty-seven years after the end of white rule, some see the boycott campaign against South Africa as a guide to mobilising popular support against what is increasingly condemned as Israel’s own brand of apartheid.

. . . continues at the guardian (21 May, 2021)

[baldwinheights]

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

[magic-can]

With HP being high priority on the BDS’s official boycott list, I suggest you buy your ink from a 3rd party if you have an HP printer. House of Toners is where I go for my remanufactured ink but there are plenty of businesses that sell remanufactured ink. Support these businesses, not a multibillion dollar corporation profiting off of genocide

[eiceocft]

" "When will it be day, comrade?" I always hear this question, that they asked each other, comrades, while an old cruiser in the harbour yelled at full blast: Revolution! "

[ QUAND FERA-T-IL JOUR CAMARADE // MIREIELLE MATHIEU]

WHEN DOES THE LEFT GO TOO FAR?

A video exhibiting all of the times the right wing/fascists have said that the left was "going too far"!

When somebody tells you your ideas are radical, communist, or "impossible" - remember that all of those things are true, within the capitalist imperialist framework. This system was not designed for the rights of the many. Those rights had to be hard fought for against the system, and each and every single time the people who fought for those rights were persecuted, were beaten down by law enforcement, and most of all - told that they were being radicals. That they were going too far.

Remember, "too far" is anything past what the current system allows. The system the powers of fascism uphold. If you find that the system has outlawed your rights, your safety, your friends and family, and you - advocating for your own life is going "too far" in their eyes. If the fascists start to sweat, and say that "you're going too far" - you are on the right path.

The fascists like having you afraid. They like making you feel isolated, small, helpless, and most of all they like to pretend that they are a big scary and unstoppable force. Thats why they hate when we organize, when we publicly show that we have the numbers and encourage people to join us - that we won't lie down, shut up, and take it - and we make ourselves stronger, more organized, and more well armed. Capitalists will fire you from your job youve dedicated your life to to save a cent, Imperialists will take your land to mine it for resources in the name of "national security" and kill your people, and the Fascists will erode your rights and hurt your family based off of ignorance. The common thread between all of these groups is they think you are prey and they are invulnerable predator.

Organize. Stand your ground. Be loud, be proud. Make fascists afraid again.

This video reminds us of some of the times that the left "went too far". Such as, in order of appearance:

Protests standing with Palestine

Protesting climate change

Protesting oil pipelines being built over Indigenous clean water zones

Occupy Wallstreet / protesting wealth inequality

Womens Suffrage / gender equality

Stonewall protest for LGBTQ rights

Anti war [Iraq/Vietnam/Cuba] protests

Nuclear weapon de-proliferation protests

Civil rights / Black rights in america

Black panthers defending communities

Ending apartheid in South Africa

Minority groups legally arming themselves

Establishing an Anti-Fascist group and counter-protesting fascists

Thomas Sankara protecting Burkina Faso from outside imperialism, and Ibrahim Traore picking up the torch

Dr. Fidel Castro defending Cuba from the Bay of Pigs American invasion

Dr. Mohammad Najibullah and Babrak Karmal, leaders of Afghanistan during the communist era that gave women equality, industrialized the country, and brought equity to all

The Soviet Union defending itself from the Siege of Leningrad by the Nazis

The USSR pushing back the Third Reich into Berlin

The Red Army liberating the Auschwitz concentration camp

Taking thousands of Nazi officers prisoner

The Soviets destroying symbols of Nazism

Not a single one of these things was done by insisting on working together with the fascists in a system of their design. This is why they get angry and afraid when you want to change that system. They have reacted the same to all of the aforementioned events. Do not let that discourage you, because despite those reactions, all of the aforementioned things happened anyway.

Not a single one of our civil rights or strides into progress was made through asking our oppressors. When the road ahead seems dark, think of all the achievements listed; and remember they all happened in approximately the last 125 years. All of that change in the span of less than two lifetimes.

Can you imagine what the world will look like in another two lifetimes from now?

With hard work, it will look like something beautiful for everybody.

[commiepinkofag]

Untitled, Keith Haring, 1988

This poster was part of the stage backdrop used in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Concert in London.

[workersolidarity]

Univ. of Illinois conspired against Palestinians, federal complaint alleges | The Electronic Intifada

Six Palestinian students and one Jewish student at the University of Illinois Chicago have filed a Federal Complaint against the school for alleged discrimination against Palestinian students.

According to the complaint, which was filed by members of Students For Justice in Palestine, allege that during a video conference in January about an upcoming University-arranged trip to Israel, students who intended to bring up concerns they had with the racial profiling policies in Israeli Airports and how that might affect Palestinian and other Arab students who may want to attend the trip.

The Palestinian students allege they were denied entry to the video conference held on Zoom until they changed their Profile names to reflect Western sounding names, and were then admitted to conference call.

After finally being admitted, the students allege University staff shut them down the moment they raised their objections and asked their questions. They claim University staff dismissed their concerns, acted disrespectfully towards the Palestinian students, and muted them when they brought up Apartheid policies in Israel.

The Jewish student who has joined the Federal complaint against UIC Staff was permitted entry to the video call immediately, and claims she witnessed the racial profiling and harassment of her friends and decided to join in the complaint.

In the Zoom call arranged by UIC Staff, students with Western sounding names were permitted entry, while the Palestinian students were relegated to a waiting room indefinitely. Finally, after some time, the students decided to try changing their Profile names to reflect Western sounding names like "Hayley" and "Rebecca Goldstein", and they were almost immediately allowed entry into the video call.

After finally being granted admission into the call, Jenin Alharithi, who had changed her profile name to Hayley, told Electronic Intifada that she immediately raided her concerns with UIC Staff:

The complaint alleges UIC Staff subsequently dismissed their concerns and told the students their questions were inappropriate before threatening to eject the students from the call and portraying their questions as somehow aggressive and violent.

Another Palestinian student by the name of Soha Khatib did not change her name and was denied entry to the video conference. After the call ended, she emailed UIC Staff and arranged for a meeting with Kyle Rausch, Executive Director of UIC's study abroad program that was arranging the Israel trip.

During her meeting with Rausch, held a few days after the information session video call, Khatib asked Rausch, without mentioning her Palestinian heritage and instead focusing on her African heritage, what the school was going to do to protect her rights should she attend the trip, considering the racial profiling policies of the Israeli regime against Ethiopians and others of African descent trying to enter Israel.

According to Khatib, Rausch sensed a political agenda and suspected her Palestinian heritage, asking her why she wanted to attend the trip if she felt would be poorly treated by Israeli authorities and began asking if she'd ever been there before.

Further, the complaint states that the Administrator then made a comment about his LGBT sexual orientation and how he wouldn't want to go to Saudi Arabia because of how he might be treated there.

Further, at a later event in February, the complaint alleges the students attended a UIC Study Abroad Expo, a campus event about upcoming University trips abroad.

During that interaction, SJP Students asked administrators about their exclusion and treatment during the video conference in January. The students claim that during the event, Salaam Khater, another SJP student who attended the conference call, asked Rausch about their treatment on that day. Khater says the administrator dismissed her assertion that students had been discriminated against and mistreated by staff, and that the students "were lying".

The Federal complaint goes on to describe a further escalation when the SJP students began publicizing their interactions with UIC Staff online and with flyers inside a campus building housing the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition on February 13th. The flyers highlighted the Administration's whitewashing of Israeli Apartheid and the instances of racial profiling by staff.

When the students ran into two Professors as they were putting up the flyers, the staff members took down the flyers and threatened them with police action.

UIC Administrators even went a step further, the study abroad program's Executive Director emailed Khater shortly after the incident, demanding she take down Instagram posts depicting their complaints and mistreatment at the hands of Administrators, or face legal action from the school.

The Office of the Dean of Students escalated further: announcing in March the SJP students would face disciplinary charges from the school for flyering without appropriate permission, which SJP students claim is being selectively enforced against minority students with causes unpopular with staff.

But the students didn't stop there, filing complaints with the school's Office For Access and Equity (probably the most State Dept driven name for a University office in history) where they demanded the agency investigate the Palestinian students' mistreatment by the study abroad program's staff.

In July, the school gave the students their response: they would close their review into the mistreatment of Palestinian students without conducting any kind of internal investigation.

[documenting-apartheid]

FEBRUARY 7 2017- "On Thursday morning Israeli forces detained Palestinian teachers and students from Qurtuba school for over two hours at Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) without reason and despite the fact that students and teachers always have to pass the checkpoint to reach school. Israeli forces have again denied students their right to education by preventing students as well as teachers from reaching their classes."

Qurtuba school is located in the H2 neighborhood of occupied al-Khalil, under full Israeli military control. All students and teachers coming from the H1-area, supposedly under full Palestinian control, are forced to pass both the Shuhada checkpoint and another checkpoint just a few meters down the street, in order to reach their school. 

Israeli forces deny entry to Palestinian students, teachers, and 3 officials from Save the Children through Shuhada check point on their way to Qurtuba school.

The group was kept waiting inside the checkpoint box, as Israeli forces tried to force them to pass through the metal detector, even though there’s an official decision that teachers and students on their way to school do not have to pass through the metal detector. After the group pointed out this agreement–insisting that the soldiers respect it–Israeli forces closed the checkpoint to all other civilian Palestinians, telling everyone that no one would be allowed to pass as long as the teachers were ‘making trouble’.

After some time the teachers were allowed to pass and hurried to school. Because of this harassment, they arrived at class more than half an hour late. The director stayed outside the checkpoint, waiting for her students and was told by a soldier, ‘if you’re students want an education, then they have to pass the metal detector’. The soldiers insisted that they can’t depend on a ‘precedent’, even though there’s an official agreement that students and teachers don’t have to pass the checkpoint.  They kept pretending that they ‘knew the law’, which they clearly didn’t. A group of 3 Palestinian officials from ‘Save the Children’ were denied to pass the checkpoint by the Israeli forces. In the end, after more than two hours of co-ordination with officials, Israeli forces finally allowed the 3 students, standing outside in the freezing cold, to pass and reach their school – in accordance with the official agreement in which they do not have to pass the metal detector.

Israeli soldier checking ID and searching the bag of a Palestinian woman, who was forced to wait a few meters away from the checkpoint in the freezing cold with her three children

Earlier that day, when internationals attempted to pass the same checkpoint in the morning, Israeli forces were already adjusting the law according to their whim. First, they let the internationals pass. Just a few minutes later, they ran after the internationals up a hill, demanding their passports. Israeli soldiers are not allowed to physically take and photograph international passports. The soldiers, though, insisted. When reminded of the law he just replied ‘It’s my checkpoint, I do whatever I want”. In the end, they let the internationals go, but not without promising them that the next time they will not allow them to pass.

Israeli Forces harassing international activists, taking pictures of them with his private phone.

[e11-6ix]

I fucking love hearing how people say that fighting for freedom is useless and any revolution is bad. (because people die wow) (and without revolution everything would've been sooooooo good) (white supremacy moment I guess)

[lets-make-light-now]

Keep boycotting. No redemption from Genocide.

They also are using brands that must be boycotted as well, coca cola, Heinz ketchup, Thomy Mayonnaise and many more

[fairuzfan]

What to boycott NOW to help stop Israel’s unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza

Reminder that boycotting DOES work, there is historic proof! Don't let anyone discourage you otherwise!

The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, the Indian anti-colonial struggle, among others worldwide.

We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. Companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling such huge, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”

[themassespress]

Richmond Protest Escalates; Bystander Arrested, Charged, and Released

Press release by the United Anti-Apartheid Movement On Friday, September 13th, officers from the Richmond Police Department tackled and arrested Madeline Rotunda over a quarter-mile away from the location where a march against the genocide in Palestine ended. Police allege Rotunda participated in the march against the Virginia Israeli Advisory Board, a tax-payer funded institution that provides…

[mantra4ia]

Comments about the Harris Walz rally against pro-peace, Pro-palestinian protesters at the Michigan rally:

It's ridiculous to think that Kamala should allow her rally, her speech, should be hijacked by two to three people. It was irresponsible of those protesters...

She has a right to stand up for herself.

If she allowed them to keep talking it would have made her look weak, especially as a female candidate.

Me: She's doing a *campaign speech,* that's literally the definition of standing up for yourself. That doesn't mean you're exempt from critique or demand while you do it. If her rally can be hijacked by two to three people, she has bigger problems. Kamala Harris let her fluster and frustration get the better of her, shouted down voters (in Michigan!), and it came across as extemporaneous and elitist. More pertinent, this gives people room to worry if her stance on checking the Israeli government — withdrawing or caveating support — is weak.

I have no interest in validating fellow Democratic voters in the k-Hive with debate on the import or "etiquette" of interrupting a 1) nominal campaign speech 2) of a coronated candidate and a seasoned politician / current VP 3) if they fail to acknowledge the import of the ongoing nakba, and the monumental lack of "etiquette" which is just cause for disruption.

Palestinians suffering Genocide (famine, disease, destruction, and death) > "Kamala, Kamala you can't hide."

We are speaking. We see you. We can't hear rally cries over the sound of bombs, screams of torture, cries of hunger.

All this is to say I would like for sensible heads to prevail, and for Harris to learn from this, because I want sanity and peace to win and for Kamala to level up. "I'm with her" blue-wave Harris proponents should be interested in her showing substantive strength instead of just campaigning gusto. People's lives are worth more than political vibes.

[akajustmerry]

I think one element of Israeli propaganda that a lot people are unintentionally aligning themselves with is the idea of Gaza as the main target of Israeli violence. During the "truce" even, so many people talking about how it was a "pause" even though people in the West Bank, Damascus, and Lebanon were still being killed by Israeli forces because the "truce" was only negotiated for Gaza (where it was also not adhered to). But as a Lebanese person with family in Lebanon and Palestinian loved ones, I need people to remember that Gaza is not a state. Gaza isn't a country. Israel won't destroy Gaza and call it a day as if Gaza is their main goal because it's not. It's "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" because the free Palestine movement is about ending Israeli occupation of all Palestine and surrounding countries. It's not a reform movement about getting Israel to behave. It's an anti-colonial movement that aims to give ALL of Palestine back to Palestinians. Of course, the extreme violence Israel is enacting on Palestinians in Gaza is horrific. it's also obvious Israel is relying on the horror it's caused in Gaza to distract people from holding them to account for their ongoing violence in the rest of Palestine, as well as Lebanon, Syria and the Congo. Israel divided Palestine up so the world would forget it, don't be party to that. Talk about Gaza, the West Bank, Jenin, Hebron because it's all Palestine and all of it must be free. End the occupation. End the apartheid state of Israel.

[gingerswagfreckles]

I think people need to understand that when someone says the situation in Israel/Palestine is complicated they are not necessarily saying that the discussion of who the oppressor vs oppressed is complicated. The Israeli government has been oppressing the Palestinians for a very long time, that is clear, and it is not complicated to understand that at least since the 80s they have had dramatically more financial and military power to keep control of the territory in the way they like.

However, it is reductive and dismissive to insist that there is no complexity in the potential ways to move forward to bring peace to the region. Despite what people on tumblr.edu like to believe, "Israel should never have been created" is not a practical solution to an incredibly heated geopolitical situation in the present day. Israel was created and it does exist. 10 million people live there. 74% of the population is native born and the country has existed for 75 years. Hand waving these fact away with the opinion that "they should move back to where they came from" may make you feel good about being a Radical Leftist, but it does not give anyone a road map for how exactly millions of people without dual citizenship are supposed to just up and evaporate. Nor does it acknowledge the reality that 21% of Israelis are Arabs, the very people you are claiming to want to give the land back to.

Insisting that there's nothing complicated about expecting an entire country's population to willingly dissappear with no consequences is not a productive way to think about this conflict. It ignores the many massive superpowers that have an interest in proping up different states in the region, the power dynamics involved in any land back movements, and the inevitably negative consequences of totally dissolving an established state without a plan. It is also completely and almost comically unrealistic, so much so that it makes it hard to believe that anyone who's opinion starts and ends with this idea really gives a shit about anyone who lives in the area as much as they care about their online leftist clout.

There's nothing complicated in understanding that the Israeli government is and has been maintaining an oppressive apartheid state for decades. It is, however, very complicated to come up with a realistic way to resolve some of the most intricately entangled land disputes on the planet without plunging the region into total chaos. Not everyone has to be deeply educated on every geopolitical situation, but it is very hard to take people seriously when they know nothing about the politics or history of a region and yet insist that there is nothing complicated about it at all.

There's a lot of people on this website who are getting dangerously smug about their own ignorance, and are starting to go down Qanon type anti-intellectual paths in the name of being sufficiently radical. Not knowing the details of a very convoluted land dispute isn't something to brag about online as you call for intentionally reductive solutions. You can support the Palestinian cause and be aware of the oppression they have faced while also holding off on calling people trying to do real analysis and de-escalation work bootlickers. We need to get control of the urge to fit every global issue into a simplistic YA novel narrative structure that appeals to Western revolutionary fantasies.

[tepkunset]

Marvel Studios is an American film and television production company. Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher.

As of the current date, the official BDS Movement has called for a Boycott of Marvel Studios upcoming Captain America film that features a zionist Israeli character who supports apartheid. There has been zero mention of Marvel Comics - or anything else Marvel - in either of their two statements I can currently find mentioning "Marvel" on their website, unless something is missing from that tag.

April 27, 2023: "Palestinians call for widespread boycotts of Marvel’s 2024 film, Captain America: New World Order, unless it drops Sabra/Ruth Bat-Seraph, its “superhero” that personifies the apartheid state of Israel. ... We encourage creative, peaceful protests to challenge Marvel Studios’ – and its owner Disney’s – complicity in anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and the glorification of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous people. ... We urge conscientious audiences worldwide to join us in boycotting Captain America: New World Order, and standing up for freedom, justice and equality."

November 23, 2023: "Marvel’s next Captain America film features Sabra/Ruth Bat-Seraph, a “superhero” personifying apartheid Israel. The character’s backstory includes working for the genocidal Israeli government and its occupation forces. By reviving this racist character in any form, Marvel is promoting Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. It is complicit in anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and glorifying settler-colonial violence. Tell Marvel you won’t buy its toys, clothes or accessories."

It is my understanding that the only way a boycott will work is if it's organized and targeted - thus the reason for BDS in the first place. The demand was that Marvel Studios remove the Israeli character from the film. Since the demand has not been met, then the boycott remains in place. But boycotting some random comic book writer's work and some comic book shop that makes pennies, with nothing to do with the MCU, is not what is being organized at this time.

The character in question hasn't even been featured in comics in 10 years - though of course she never should have been created in the first place. But Marvel Studios is choosing to pull her out of nowhere, when they have thousands and thousands of characters they could adapt instead. Please boycott Captain America: Brave New World (formerly titled New World Order) set to come out February, 2025, even if you're a Sam Wilson fan.