If you can; circulate and share Friends of BDS Friends of Israel Apartheid Week Monday 10 March 2014 There are many ways of supporting BDS and Israel Apartheid Week. We are all part of a growing movement. In that regard I encourage you to buy the book Crimes, Victims and Witnesses – Apartheid in Palestine by former Swedish diplomat and photographer, Mats Svensson. Published by Real African Publishers, this book consists of more then 100 pictures and 23 essays describing ‘daily struggles: the constant deprivations and humiliations, the rapid encroachment and dispossession and destruction of entire communities, the theft of land; the gross violation of human rights – on a daily basis – of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank’. — Dr Essop G. Pahad Crimes, Victims and Witnesses is a book that penetrates the diplomatic theatre and the ongoing talks, and does not shy away from the obvious Apartheid of 2013. Svensson has, for many years now, been working with texts and pictures to show that the situation for the Palestinians is getting worse, day-by-day, and that today Palestinians are not only living under occupation, but also colonialism and apartheid. It is very late … we all have to act today … now. Apartheid was stupidity, but here one has sophisticated the stupidity. — Mavivi Myakayaka-Manzimi But sadly, I was not late in Palestine. In Palestine the occupation has been deepened, the colonialism is a fact on the ground and Palestinians are living under the most effective apartheid rule.This is not a book about hope, for you´d have to be blind to live in Palestine today and feel hope for the future. Feelings are short-lived, though, and not constant. The history of the oppressed tells us that occupation is just a temporary disease. Even the most brutal apartheid regime will not last forever; they are doomed to fall. This is, therefore, a book about a short time in history. For this will also pass. — Mats Svensson Breaking open a fascinating new dialogue on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, this personal account presents a South African perspective that is complemented by striking colour photographs. Author and photographer Mats Svensson began work in Jerusalem with Swedish development assistance and quickly realised that the world he had wandered into was far worse off than what he had read. Through the lens of his camera, and captured in his own words, he documents the daily horrors that he witnessed during long treks through occupied territory. This chronicle provides valuable depth to an issue that news articles abroad only scratch the surface of – what it is truly like to live amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. — Reedwaan Vally I invite you, therefore, to open your mind as you open this book and take an unbiased look at one man´s impressions. — Dr Essop G. Pahad Now available in South Africa at good bookstores countrywide. Now available internationally from amazon and ipgbook and barnesandnoble among others. Get the book. Tell your friends to read it. Discuss the book, but more importantly discuss the crimes that are taking place today. In one or another way, we are all part of it. It is time to shout ... to share and forward on the message. Finally: The book is not a tirade against the occupying power. Rather, it is a collection of impressions gathered by a man taking long walks along a very long and ugly wall. A man who watched and listened and documented exactly what he saw. So you and I can see, and hopefully feel, the sensation of lives that are so blighted by an illeagal colonial occupying power, Israel. This book is a reminder of our commitment as South Africans to support the struggle for the liberation of people everywhere, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, class or religion. —Dr Essop G. Pahad
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 07:55:02 +0000