2 May 2008

The One Democratic State Group calls on all Palestinian academics, activists and intellectuals to boycott the visit of the South Africa Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer to Ramllah and Jerusalem. Gordimer has been invited by the Jerusalem Writers’ Festival at a time when Israel is carrying out its genocidal war against the Gaza Strip and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. This festival, sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, is expected to take place this month, May, to coincide with the many events organized by the government of Israel to celebrate its “independence,” which materialized on the bodies of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of more than 550 villages and towns, and the dispossession and displacement of more than 750. 000 Palestinians in what came to be known in Palestinians collective consciousness as the “Nakba.”

In spite of tens of appeals sent to Nadine Gordimer from all over the world, she is adamant in defending her decision to attend the festival claiming it not to be sponsored by the Israeli government. To add insult to injury, she is planning to talk to “both sides,” as if visiting South Africa in the 70’s and 80’s and talking to the racist government of the time and Africans living in Bantustans, justified what sanctions busters did. Moreover, the dubious Konrad Adenauer foundation is known for its financing projects connected with Ariel Sharon and Israeli settlements in addition to its funding of many conferences at Israeli universities. This foundation is named after the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer who was known to be the most pro-Zionist prime minister in the post-war period and who defended the financing of the Israeli state in the early 1950s at the expense of tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.

Gordimer, an ex-fighter against apartheid and racism and a defender of a BDS campaign against Apartheid South Africa, is against the same non-violent method adopted by Palestinian Civil Society organizations. What boggles the mind is this kind of double standard hypocrisy when it comes to the state of Israel. In spit of her fight against the Bantustan system of her native country, she supports it in Palestine. By supporting a state based on ethno-religious identity, Gordimer not only has betrayed the universal principles of equality for all human beings regardless of religion and race, but also every thing she fought for in South Africa. Nelson Mandela once said: “Our freedom in South Africa is not complete as long as Palestinians are not free.”

Visiting our Bantustans in Palestine and meeting with some academics cannot and should not be used as a justification to whitewash crimes committed against our people. We, therefore, call on all Palestinians not to take part in this ploy and boycott all BDS busters, including Gordimer herself.

The One Democratic State Group