Das Österreichisch-Arabische
Kulturzentrum
Gusshausstrasse 14/3, 1040 Vienna
invites you to a book
presentation on
Wednesday, 30 June, at 6.30 pm.
Apartheid - Ancient, Past, and Present:
Systematic and Gross Human Rights Violations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, South
Africa, and Israel/Palestine, Wien: Gesellschaft für Phänomenologie und
kritische Anthropologie, 2010, 6th edition, (1st edition
2006)
http://media.manila.at/gesellschaft/gems/Apartheid6.pdf
The author, Dr. Anthony
LÃ∞â√ıÃ≠¶wstedt, worked and carried out research over twelve years on three continents
for this book, which is now appearing in a new, updated and considerably
extended edition on the web. In his Foreword to this edition, the Israeli
historian and editor of the forthcoming volume, Peoples Apart: Israel, South
Africa and the Apartheid Question (I.B. Tauris, 2010), Ilan Pappe,
writes:
"Although the association of
apartheid South Africa and the Palestine issue has been in the air for quite a
while, very few scholarly books tackled the comparison in a profound and
professional way. This book is one of the first serious attempts. . . It does
not confine the comparison to South Africa alone. After all, apartheid and
segregation accompanied other ... regimes and these case studies are equally
important for such a comparative study. The novelty here, however, is not
confined to extending the comparison geographically or chronologically. What the
author calls the 'wide sense' of apartheid exposes layers quite often hidden
from the public, and quite often the professional eye. These include the impact
of segregation polices in both societies on individual violence, family cohesion
and gender issues. . . The awareness that the story in one case, South Africa,
has come to an end and the terrible sense of worse to come in the other, in
Israel and Palestine, gives this book particular urgency and vitality. As the
author concludes: this state of affairs should be cautiously regarded as hopeful
for Palestine and the Palestinians. Despite the conflict and tension in
post-apartheid South Africa, the process of reconciliation and change has been
completed. Cynics would point to the continued role of capitalist global powers
in the process and highlight the less savoury aspects of the transition. But, as
this book makes abundantly clear, justice was nonetheless served when apartheid
fell. So it is not a super model, nor one that cannot be, or should not be,
improved. But it is inspiring to think that it would be possible for the South
African model of post-apartheid justice, as flawed as it is, to reappear in
Israel and Palestine."
