Earlier this month, I went with my 18-year-old daughter to see South African singer Thandiswa Mazwai perform with her band at a music festival in Manhattan.
Many of my fellow South African expatriates were also in the audience. As we took our seats, her daughter Rosa noticed a concertgoer waving a South African flag. Such displays are rarely seen outside of political or sporting events, but since our government filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for its actions in Gaza, many South Africans have become self-centered. We seem to be having a moment of assertiveness and patriotism. , solidifying its place on the world stage in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The night before the hearing, a friend sent me a message from Cape Town. “It feels a little like Christmas Eve or something here. Or the night before a big final.”Due to the time difference, I arrived at the office on January 11, the first day of the two-day hearing. I watched the recorded version. By then, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, had already sent a message to “The ruthless attacks that were carried out against them will continue to remain.” Define the image of our time. Whatever happens now, history will remain. ”
As a black South African who grew up in the national liberation struggle and came of age watching the birth of democracy in South Africa, Albanese's words resonated with me. Regardless of Friday's outcome, so too will the case, and the court is expected to announce a decision on whether to order interim measures.
The South Africans in court that day represented the country that many of us had imagined as we were trying to think beyond apartheid and into a new country. The lawyers' surnames (Hashim, Nukukaitobi, Dugard, Du Plessis) evoke many of the country's demographic groups, including Indian South Africans, Cossas, English-speaking whites, and Afrikaners. The tribunal had Judge Dikgun Moseneke (parties to a dispute at the International Court of Justice can appoint judges to hear cases). As a teenager, he was imprisoned on Robben Island, where he met and befriended Nelson Mandela, and after the advent of democracy, was elevated to the South African Constitutional Court, the country's highest judicial body.
In all its diversity, this Hague group represents a country whose national identity is the product of collective struggle and which rejected the ethno-nationalist, blood-and-soil politics that South Africa left behind when it defeated legal apartheid. I was there. For many of us, such politics seemed to define Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. The African National Congress, which currently rules the country, has long championed a common cause with the Palestinians. In international courts, these South Africans simultaneously fought for and helped us imagine a nation built on common struggles and ideals, rather than collective identities.
After the end of apartheid, there was a sense that South Africa, with its history of struggle and progressive constitution, would meaningfully transform the old racial order and become the moral conscience of the world. Except for a hopeful brief period under President Nelson Mandela, the country has largely failed to live up to its ideals.
There were some things that we couldn't do anything about. The politics of non-alignment – the ideal to which many developing countries held themselves during the independence era – all but disappeared by the 1990s. Washington's consensus on free markets and trade, the urgency of financial markets, and the failure of political imagination further limited South Africa's hopes for economic transformation and forging a new path. The ideals of the national liberation movement faced a complex world of compromise and accommodation. Last month, we got a glimpse of some of that old hope.
The court case firmly aligned South Africa with what was once known as the Third World and is now known as the Global South, and attracted other allies. A lawyer from Ireland, another country that has experienced colonialism and colonial violence, also joined the South Africans in the courtroom. Survivors of the Bosnian genocide have also petitioned the court in support of international action to protect Palestinians.
When the case began, South African lawyers spoke of our country's experience, and of our country's experience, in an uncompromisingly principled manner. The lawyers said out loud what seems obvious to many South Africans but is often suppressed in public discussions about Israel and Palestine in Western countries. They said the word “apartheid.” They said the word “Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic and refers to the expulsion of Palestinians from their land when Israel became a state in 1948. That same year, South Africa established legal apartheid, which contributed to the process of forcing black South Africans, including my father and his family, from their land and homes. Israeli representatives forcefully rejected the charges the next day.
Ahead of the hearing, some international and South African critics suggested that the members of the legal team, who face tough re-election battles this year, were a political ploy to benefit the ANC. There is widespread public support for the Palestinian cause among South Africans. Of course, some in the South African government and political establishment actually appear to be opportunistically supporting this event. But domestically, the same lawyers in The Hague have long been in troublesome positions with government officials, taking on the South African state over its obligations to redistribute land, support public education and health care, and fight corruption, and oppose opposition parties. is the representative of parties etc.
A few days after the hearing, I realized that this was another hopeful moment that might be followed by a complex and depressing reality. In many cases, the best solutions that can be expected from international justice institutions are watered-down solutions of little importance to the perpetrators.
At the same time, by taking these institutions at their word and forcing the International Court of Justice to act, South Africa is staining global civil society. South Africa strengthened. It showed what we can be and how groups that have faced oppression and violence can confidently stand up for each other on the world stage. What the lawyers were saying was, “Get used to hearing our voices.''
Sean Jacobs is an associate professor of international affairs at the New School and the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country.
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