Mondli Makhanya - Acclaimed writer Alice Walker set the literary world abuzz last week when she refused to have her book The Color Purple re-published in Israel.
Lending her weight to the cultural boycott of Israel, the author delivered a blunt NO to a request by a publisher who wanted to do a new Hebrew translation. She told Yediot Books that Israel "is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people". She likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians to apartheid and discrimination against American blacks in the days of segregation.
"I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse," she wrote.
She added that South Africans who had attended the Russell Tribunal hearings in Cape Town last year, including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, "felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long".
She pointed out that she refused to have the film adaptation of her book shown in South Africa until apartheid was dead.
Walker has predictably drawn condemnation from pro-Israel chirpers, who turned the tables and accused her of discrimination. Freedom of expression adherents have also taken aim at her, saying that such an act is anti-intellectual.
By doing this, Walker joins a growing list of writers, academics, musicians and sports stars who are backing a cultural boycott of Israel. Last year Ladysmith Black Mambazo turned down an invitation.
The campaign mirrors the successful cultural boycott of South Africa during apartheid. Like the campaign did then, this cultural boycott is making ordinary Israelis sit up and ask questions about why the world is increasingly treating their country like a polecat. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they are beginning to realise that they cannot approve or be silent about obvious injustice. And that, in fact, their government is comparable to some of the worst brutes in the world.
Having visited Israel and Palestine a few years ago, I can nod to Walker's statements about that government's treatment of fellow human beings. I remember remarking to a fellow traveller that the "Nats had nothing on these guys".
The Israeli establishment's racist attitude to Palestinians is like a virus that has spread through the veins of society.
The current crackdown on African immigrants and the society's reaction to it is symptomatic of this.
For weeks now the Israeli government has moved to expel the estimated 60000 Africans, most of whom have fled conflicts and famine in Eritrea and the Sudans.
Egged on by extremist rhetoric from mainstream politicians, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai, civilian Israelis have launched their own crackdowns. Immigrant slums have been attacked and the Africans have been subjected to racist taunting.
The Israeli government's apologists argue that the country is merely dealing with a problem of illegal immigration as any country would. They also argue that xenophobia is a global phenomenon.
True. We South Africans are no angels in our treatment and attitude towards foreigners. Nor are those countries in Europe and North America which receive large numbers of immigrants.
But in none of these countries do officialdom and the political establishment incubate and promote an anti-immigrant ideology. Even conservative and centre-right parties are cautious in their language and immigration policies.
But in Israel there's even an official derogatory term for the immigrants. They call them "infiltrators". Both Yishai and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu use this term freely.
Other leaders call immigrants a "cancer" and the prevailing view from political power is that if the immigrants are allowed to grow in number they will dilute "the character" of Israel.
Blacks are immediately tarred with the "criminal" tag. A slum where they live is pejoratively known as Soweto.
Yishai has been at the forefront of the racist baiting, declaring that "most of the people arriving here are Muslims who think the country doesn't belong to us, the white man". He has vowed to wage his war "until not one infiltrator remains".
Many Israelis have been appalled by this and some have even warned that the climate is reminiscent of anti-Jewish sentiment in parts of Europe in the 1930s. They are speaking out against the horror and opening their wallets and food-baskets to the immigrants.
The New York Times quoted Orly Feldheim, a Tel Aviv resident who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, saying: "I feel I am in a movie in Germany, circa 1933 or 1936."
Some American Jews, among them staunch defenders of Israel, have been so disgusted they have launched a "not in my name" type of movement.
These voices, like Walker's, will hopefully be heard loudly so that Israel can learn to behave like a decent member of the human family.
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