Guest post by Jonny Paul
When South Africa’s trade union federation issued two statements damning of Israel on the same day of the Marikana incident, in which South African police opened fire on striking mine workers killing 34 and injuring 78, an Irish trade unionist took issue.
Dublin-based Tom Carew wrote to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) asking why it had not questioned the ongoing violence in Syria or called for the South African police to face due process.
The statements – one calling for the isolation of Israel as an “apartheid state”, the other calling on the South African government to discourage trips to “apartheid Israel” – were picked up by Carew, former president of the Public Service Executive Union and secretary-treasurer of the Post Office Trade Union.
“I was a committed member of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and all my life I was a very active trade unionist, and I cannot recall anything like that Marikana Massacre since the Sharpeville massacre in 1960,” he wrote.
“I also cannot recall either 36 Arab (or Jewish) workers ever being slaughtered like that by any Israeli police but the whole world knows that the Assad regime has slaughtered over 20,000 of their own citizens. Can you kindly send me any COSATU statement denouncing the ongoing Assad massacres? Has COSATU demanded the immediate suspension from duty, arrest and prosecution of the police commanders involved in the Marikana Massacre?”
One would expect the email to be ignored or at most a standard reply from COSATU. What he did not expect was a response accusing him of “diverting attention from Israel stealing of Palestinian land” and calling him a “liar.”
“Stop colonialism and apartheid and stealing of Palestinian land and stop diverting attention from that. In one month, you massacred 1,400 Gazans to colonise and enforce your apartheid,” COSATU’s International Relations Secretary Bongani Masuku told him.
As his letter stated, Carew was active in the anti-apartheid movement. Back in his student days he was the international vice president of the Union of Students in Ireland.
Masuku however was not having any of this: “You are lying that you were in the anti-apartheid movement, with you garbage ideas, you obviously supported apartheid, you liar,” he declared.
I’ve always tried to take a rationalist approach to journalism so I employed a system of doubt and rejected what my senses told me in the response to Carew. I contacted Masuku and in a polite email asked him if he did indeed say what was attributed to him.
“Can you please confirm that was the response you gave to Mr Carew,” I asked him. “Was it your personal view or that of COSATU?”
This was his response: “Write what you want. We have more serious issues to attend to than petty quibbling to divert attention. We are on the ground on the Miners deaths and you are grandstanding and busy with your cheap point-scoring and doing nothing for the miners, but that doesn’t justify that we must then be blackmailed into silence about other equally suffering people as your Mossad creations, posing as independents.”
Wow, maybe I caught him at the wrong time, but what the hell is a “Mossad creation posing as independents”?! I’m baffled. Answers on a postcard please.
He went on: “On why I am still speaking, its cose [sic] am still the International Secretary of COSATU and COSATU shall not be dictated to by Mossad, who must say what, when? Just mind your affairs and end colonialism and apartheid in Palestine, give back to original LANDOWNERS what belongs to them. Now you pose as a journalist. Shame on you,” he added.
Meanwhile while he was still speaking, COSATU has come under sharp rebuke for refusing to blame the government for the Marikana shooting.
“We have refused to apportion blame at this moment, to seek to score cheap political points and refused to drive sentiment against the government or anyone without knowing the full facts,” the Federation said in a statement.
Alas also I don’t pose as a journalist, I openly practice my profession and as a journalist I hope he will not be blackmailed into silence about speaking up for “other equally suffering people”. I hope he will highlight injustices and the plight of oppressed people around the globe. This is a journalist’s oxygen, highlighting atrocities helps journalists with their work. In fact he was asked for his views on the suffering currently endured by the Syrian people after 18 months of civil war in which around 18,000 people have been killed.
The South African Human Rights Commission highlighted an injustice in 2009 when it found Masuku guilty of using inflammatory, threatening and insulting statements against the South African Jewish community. According to the charges, Masuku made threats against Jewish businesses and supporters of Israel and pronouncements declaring that Jews who support Israel must leave the country.
He said that COSATU would target Jewish supporters of Israel and “make their lives hell” and urged that “every Zionist must be made to drink the bitter medicine they are feeding our brothers and sisters in Palestine.”
“You can leave this country. We will defeat the racists, I don’t care whether it is anti-Semitic. Anyone who handles goods to or from Israel…Beware! Your life will be hell.
“COSATU has got members here even on this campus; we can make sure that for that side it will be hell…anyone who does not support equality and dignity, who does not support the rights of other people must face the consequences even if it means that we will do something that may necessarily cause what is regarded as harm,” Masuku allegedly said.
The South African Human Rights Commission in their ruling said: “The comments and statements made are of an extreme nature that advocate and imply that the Jewish and Israeli community are to be despised, scorned, ridiculed and thus subjecting them to ill-treatment on the basis of their religious affiliation. A prima facie case of hate speech is clearly established as the statements and comments by Mr. Masuku are offensive and unpalatable to society.”
A few weeks after the ruling, Masuku was the guest of the University College Union (UCU), the UK’s largest trade union for academic staff. He was a guest speaker at a forum discussing the academic boycott against Israel. He then took part in a UK university campus tour calling for sanctions and boycotts against Israel.
Asked if it was acceptable, in light of the findings, to give a platform to Masuku, the UCU suggesting the allegations against Masuku were unsubstantiated and speculative rumours circulating on the internet. Engage, the campaign group, questioned how the UCU allowed itself to sacrifice its anti-racist commitment.
“We don’t comment on stuff doing the rounds on the internet and in the blogosphere and never will,” the UCU said even after the SAHRC’s ruling was sent to them.
Gene adds: See also this post by Eric Lee.
