Iqbal Suleman
The Native American people have a saying about their white masters who became the founding fathers of American democracy as we know it today. “The white man speaks with forked tongue.”
It behoves people the world over to pay serious heed to this wisdom of the Sioux sages. The Sioux natives of America were willing to share the land and resources with the invading settler colonialists but instead were virtually wiped off the face of the Earth by their colonisers. The Sioux natives were honourable, spiritual, creative, free and loving, but they were opposed to imperialism and capitalism.
In the words of Crazy Horse, one of the greatest leaders of the Sioux Resistance to American Colonialism: “You cannot sell the earth upon which people walk”. The Sioux were a God-conscious people, in tune with the land that they inhabited and the Creator who created their souls. Hence, they believed that all of the land, which is God’s creation, should be shared by all of the people, whom God created equally.
A libertarian socialist economy if we are to use contemporary political language is what they believed in and lived by. They were massacred en masse by the white man and his forked tongue. In the haunting lyrics of “Pocahontas”, Neil Young captures this: “Paddles cut the water in a long and hurried flight. From the white man to the fields of green, and the homeland we’ve never seen. They killed us in our tepees and they cut our women down, they might have left some babies crying on the ground”
Crazy Horse and the Native Americans refused to surrender to the colonialist and instead of capitulation and collaboration chose the path of martyrdom and resistance. Though there was no military parity whatsoever between the native people and their oppressors, in such a situation they chose the route of Hussein, to fight and die for freedom, dignity, truth and justice rather than live as slaves to oppressors.
American democracy was founded on the victory of colonialism and capitalism over native libertarian socialism and a military defeat and annihilation of the native people. South African democracy was founded on the electoral victory of the national liberation movements of the native people of South Africa. While both the US and South Africa are electoral democracies, the ideological roots of our democracies are worlds apart to put it mildly.
South Africans with a progressive national consciousness stand in solidarity with all national liberation movements and the oppressed, native and first peoples the world over from Africa, Asia, America, Palestine, Canada, New Zealand and Australia etc. whose rights were violated by white settler colonialism.
In the current conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, people should not be surprised that the majority of South Africans stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. From the government to the ruling party the ANC as well as former national liberation movements like the PAC and Azapo, the Trade Union Movements and the biggest black and socialist opposition party, the EFF.
Today the institution of the “white man” that the native Americans warned us about is the institution of the White House. Not too long ago in order to justify the American Invasion of Iraq, the White House had the world believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the secular Iraqi Baathist government of Saddam Hussein worked in collaboration with al-Qaeda.
Everyone now knows that these were lies manufactured by the US administration to manufacture consent for the invasion of Iraq and an imperialist Islamophobic war. Since October 7 the US government has stood shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli Zionist government in its aggression, war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people, shamelessly parroting the line and lies coming from Tel Aviv. Today the White House would have us believe that Israel is defending itself.
There is currently some hullaballoo about a shift in direction in the language of the White House which some interpret as a change in the US policy and position. President Biden has recently said that too many Palestinian civilians have been killed.
Vice-president Kamala Harris said that the number of children killed is “devastating”. Has there been a change in policy and position? Is the White House concerned about Palestinian civilians and is it seeking to stop the Israeli slaughter of Palestinian children, or is it again another expression of the forked tongue of the White House?
The US is the world’s only superpower, but even the words it uses make is sound weaker than a limping NGO. The US and the UK present themselves as leading lights of democracy and human rights.
Feigning concern for Palestinians and struggling with a crocodile tear, UK foreign secretary David Cameron and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock penned a recent op-ed and began with the words, “As parents it breaks our hearts to see so many children killed or wounded. Each death of an innocent one since October 7 is a tragedy.”
Later the forked tongue, revealed itself: “But our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today… Let us be clear we do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate ceasefire hoping it somehow becomes permanent is the way forward.”
Their own words evidence their doublespeak. They express the love of a parent for a Palestinian child and at the same time give the green light to the IDF to continue killing Palestinian children and provide arms to Israel to kill Palestinians.
Human Rights Watch on December 12, through Yasmine Ahmed, reported: “The UK provides at least 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth bomb aircraft currently being used in Gaza. The Uk should follow its own laws and immediately suspend licences for arms and military equipment to Israel”.
Josh Paul, a staff member in the US State Department, resigned because of the US selling arms to Israel to commit war crimes in Gaza. “It is my opinion that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza right now”.
Bloomberg published a leaked pentagon document that the US has delivered 200 Hellfire missiles that can be launched from Apache helicopters as well as others including 36 000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition, 1 800 of the M141 requested bunker buster munitions and at least 3 500 night vision devices.
Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, told the senate: “We are flying security assistance to Israel at the speed of war.”
The US has used its veto to bully and threaten the other Security Council members into drafting a weak UN resolution in Israel’s favour. Oxfam’s Scott Paul derided the resolution and said: “There’s no point in bringing in flour if you can’t bake bread with it.”
Oxfam has called the failure to call for a ceasefire utterly callous and a profound dereliction of duty from an organisation established to uphold the UN Charter to make peace and protect lives. Amnesty International’s general secretary Agnes Callamard has called it “disgraceful that the US was able to stall and use the threat of its veto powers to force the UN Security Council to weaken the much-needed call for an immediate end to attacks by all parties”.
The resolution was further amended again to comply with the US demand to give Israel control over aid going into Gaza. Yes, the same Israel that has cut off food, water and electricity from Gaza and which according to Human Rights Watch has used starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
This genocide will be written in red, in the blood of the children of Gaza. It will indeed be a red reminder of a red reality that no one will forget.
This is the context where international humanitarian law has been cast to the wind by the most powerful governments of the world. It is against this background of hypocrisy and doublespeak which has given the genocidal green light that the South African government has led the way by referring the Israeli genocide to the International Court of Justice on the December 29. Stating that “Acts and Omissions by Israel are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
South Africa has asked the court to order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza which is necessary to “protect against further severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people. International Human Rights is being championed and advanced here in the global south while the Wild West has been exposed for talking human rights but walking genocide.”
Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria.
The Star