Apartheid im Heiligen Land / Apartheid in the Holy Land
Bischof Tutu in einem Kommentar für den "Guardian" / By Desmond Tutu (The Guardian)
Am 29. April veröffentlichte der britische "Guardian" einen Kommentar des bekannten südafrikanischen Bischofs und Friedensnobelpreisträgers Desmond Tutu. Tutu gehörte zu den entschiedensten Gegnern des südafrikanischen weißen Apartheidregimes und unterstützte den Kampf seines Freundes Nelson Mandela und des ANC. Weltweite Anerkennung wurde ihm schließlich auch zuteil durch seine Arbeit an der Spitze der "Wahrheits"- und "Versöhnungs"-Kommission".
Im Guardian-Artikel weist Tutu einleitend darauf hin, dass die jüdische Bevölkerung in Südafrika stets gegen das Apartheidregime gekämpft habe. Er selbst sei den Juden immer solidarisch verbunden gewesen und sei selbstverständlich immer für sichere Grenzen Israels eingetreten. Er ist außerdem Schirmherr eines südafrikanischen Holocaust-Zentrums. Aus all diesen Gründen verstehe er nicht, wie Israel nun einem anderen Volk antut, was es selbst in seiner Geschichte erfahren musste. Die Lage der Palästinenser sei ähnlich der Situation der Schwarzen in Südafrika unter der Apartheid-Regierung. "Mein Besuch im Heiligen Land hat mich tief erschüttert", weil es ihn "so stark an das erinnert, was mit uns Schwarzen in Südafrika geschehen ist. Ich habe die Demütigung der Palästinenser an den Kontrollpunkten und den Straßenblockaden erlebt - sie litten wie wir, wenn junge weiße
Polizisten uns daran hinderten, uns von einem Ort zum andern zu bewegen."
Israel werde niemals sicher sein, solange es ein anderes Volk
unterdrückt. "Haben unsere jüdischen Brüder und Schwestern ihre eigene Demütigung vergessen? Haben sie nach so kurzer Zeit schon die kollektive Bestrafung, die Zerstörung ihrer Häuser in ihrer
eigenen Geschichte vergessen?"
Im Folgenden dokumentieren wir den Artikel aus dem Guardian im Wortlaut:
Apartheid in the Holy Land
By Desmond Tutu*
In our struggle against apartheid,
the great supporters were
Jewish people. They almost
instinctively had to be on the side of
the disenfranchised, of the
voiceless ones, fighting injustice,
oppression and evil. I have
continued to feel strongly with the
Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust
centre in South Africa. I believe
Israel has a right to secure
borders.
What is not so understandable, not
justified, is what it did to
another people to guarantee its
existence. I've been very deeply
distressed in my visit to the Holy
Land; it reminded me so much
of what happened to us black people
in South Africa. I have
seen the humiliation of the
Palestinians at checkpoints and
roadblocks, suffering like us when
young white police officers
prevented us from moving about.
On one of my visits to the Holy Land
I drove to a church with the
Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I
could hear tears in his voice as
he pointed to Jewish settlements. I
thought of the desire of
Israelis for security. But what of
the Palestinians who have lost
their land and homes?
I have experienced Palestinians
pointing to what were their
homes, now occupied by Jewish
Israelis. I was walking with
Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the
Sabeel Ecumenical Centre)
in Jerusalem. He pointed and said:
"Our home was over there.
We were driven out of our home; it
is now occupied by Israeli
Jews."
My heart aches. I say why are our
memories so short. Have our
Jewish sisters and brothers
forgotten their humiliation? Have
they forgotten the collective
punishment, the home demolitions,
in their own history so soon? Have
they turned their backs on
their profound and noble religious
traditions? Have they forgotten
that God cares deeply about the
downtrodden?
Israel will never get true security
and safety through oppressing
another people. A true peace can
ultimately be built only on
justice. We condemn the violence of
suicide bombers, and we
condemn the corruption of young
minds taught hatred; but we
also condemn the violence of
military incursions in the occupied
lands, and the inhumanity that won't
let ambulances reach the
injured.
The military action of recent days,
I predict with certainty, will
not provide the security and peace
Israelis want; it will only
intensify the hatred.
Israel has three options: revert to
the previous stalemated
situation; exterminate all
Palestinians; or - I hope - to strive for
peace based on justice, based on
withdrawal from all the
occupied territories, and the
establishment of a viable
Palestinian state on those
territories side by side with Israel,
both with secure borders.
We in South Africa had a relatively
peaceful transition. If our
madness could end as it did, it must
be possible to do the same
everywhere else in the world. If
peace could come to South
Africa, surely it can come to the
Holy Land?
My brother Naim Ateek has said what
we used to say: "I am not
pro- this people or that. I am
pro-justice, pro-freedom. I am anti-
injustice, anti-oppression."
But you know as well as I do that,
somehow, the Israeli
government is placed on a pedestal
[in the US], and to criticise
it is to be immediately dubbed
anti-semitic, as if the
Palestinians were not semitic. I am
not even anti-white, despite
the madness of that group. And how
did it come about that
Israel was collaborating with the
apartheid government on
security measures?
People are scared in this country
[the US], to say wrong is
wrong because the Jewish lobby is
powerful - very powerful.
Well, so what? For goodness sake,
this is God's world! We live
in a moral universe. The apartheid
government was very
powerful, but today it no longer
exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin,
Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin
were all powerful, but in the
end they bit the dust.
Injustice and oppression will never
prevail. Those who are
powerful have to remember the litmus
test that God gives to the
powerful: what is your treatment of
the poor, the hungry, the
voiceless? And on the basis of that,
God passes judgment.
We should put out a clarion call to
the government of the people
of Israel, to the Palestinian people
and say: peace is possible,
peace based on justice is possible.
We will do all we can to
assist you to achieve this peace,
because it is God's dream,
and you will be able to live
amicably together as sisters and
brothers.
* Desmond Tutu is the former
Archbishop of Cape Town and
chairman of South Africa's truth and
reconciliation commission.
This address was given at a
conference on Ending the
Occupation held in Boston,
Massachusetts, earlier this month.
Guardian, Monday April 29, 2002
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