Surveying the legacy of apartheid in South Africa, Ramzy Baroud* contemplates the universality of the struggle for justice I stand at the southernmost tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. The grand mountains behind infuse a moment of spiritual reflection filled with depth and meaning. Before me is an awe- inspiring scene: here the Atlantic's wintry waters gently meet the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. They meet but don't collide. The harmony is seamless; the greatness of this view is humbling. I was invited to South Africa to deliver a keynote speech at the "Al-Nakba" conference, held in Cape Town. The journey led me to other cities. Many speeches, presentations, media interviews later, I sit with a borrowed computer and scattered thoughts. How can one reflect on all of this? I ought to try. "Where are the black Africans?" was the first question to come to mind as a friend's car escorted me from the Cape Town International Airport to my destination. I saw very few indications affirming that I was indeed in Africa as I gazed at the exaggeratedly beautiful surroundings of my point of arrival. My friend needed not respond, however, as we soon zoomed by a "squatters' camp" comparable to no slum and no refugee camp. Innumerable people crammed in the tiniest and crudest looking "homes" made of whatever those poor people could find laying around. These are not "temporary" accommodations, but permanent dwellings. Here they live; marry, raise children and die. It takes no brilliant mind to realise that Apartheid South Africa is still, in some ways, alive. A lot has been done on the road to equal rights since the Africa National Congress (ANC) along with freedom fighters and civil society activists combined forces to defeat a legacy of 350 years of oppression, colonialism and -- from 1948 -- an officially sanctioned system of apartheid; a system instilled by a white minority government to ethnically confine and subdue the overwhelmingly black majority. True, the hundreds of Bantustans or "homelands" in which the blacks were locked, only allowed to enter or leave white areas as servants with a special pass, are no longer officially recognised. The "presidents" of those Bantustans -- puppet rulers handpicked by white authorities -- are long discredited. Now, South Africans, of all colours, ethnicities and religions select their own leaders in democratic elections that are, more or less, reflective of the overall desires of the populace. But it takes much more than 13 years and countless promises to reconcile the calculated inequality of centuries. Despite a hectic schedule of two weeks, I made it a goal to visit as many squatters' camps as I could. I followed the path of ethnic cleansing that took place in District Six in Cape Town. It was a trail of tears, of sorts, a Palestinian catastrophe. My grandparents, mother and father, were dragged from their homes under similar circumstances in 1948 in Palestine. They too were not suitable to live within the same "geographic radius" as those who had deemed themselves superior. Those who were forcibly removed from District Six have finally won back their land. Palestinians are still refugees. My grandparents are long dead, and so is my mother. My father, a very ill and old man, is waiting in our old home in a refugee camp in Gaza to return. He refuses to yield, to capitulate. I spoke at a technical college that was erected for whites only on the exact same spot where thousands of coloured and blacks were uprooted and thrown somewhere else, somewhere more discreet, more acceptable to the taste of apartheid administrators. I paid tribute to those resilient people who refused to embrace their inferior status, fought and died to regain their freedom and dignity. I saluted my people, who stood in solidarity with the fighters of South Africa. In our Gaza camps, we mourned for South Africa and we celebrated when Nelson Mandela was set free. My father handed out candy to the neighbourhood kids. When Bishop Desmond Tutu visited Palestine, Israeli settlers greeted him with racist graffiti and chants across the West Bank. For Palestinians, this was a personal insult. Tutu is ours, just as Che Guevara, Martin Luther, Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, Ahmed Yassin and Yasser Arafat were and still are. On Robin Island, where Mandela and hundreds of his comrades were held for many years, I touched the decaying walls of the prison. Food in the prison was rationed on the basis of skin colour. Blacks always received the least. But prisoners defied the prison system nonetheless. They created a collective in which all the food received would be shared equally amongst them. I tore a piece of my Palestinian scarf and left it in Mandela's cell; its chipped, albeit fortified walls, its thin floor mattress still stand witness to the injustice perpetrated by some and the undying faith in one's principles embraced by others. I visited every cell in Section A and B, touched every wall, read every name of every inmate: Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Bantus were all kept here, fought, died and finally won their freedom together. They referred to each other as comrades. Injustice is colour-blind. So is true camaraderie. I have never felt the sense of solidarity and acceptance that I felt in South Africa. There is an unparalleled lesson to be learned in this amazing place. There is a lot to be sorted out: a true equality to be realised, but a lot has also been done. A veteran ANC fighter thanked me for the arms and money supplied to his unit, and many other units, by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the 1970s and 80s; he said he still has his PLO uniform, tucked away somewhere in his little decrepit "home" in one of the squatters' camps dotting the city. It was a poignant reminder that the fight is not yet over. Amongst the many things scribbled on the fenced wall at the helm of the Cape of Good Hope, someone took the time to write "Palestine". In the Apartheid Wall erected by Israel on Palestinian land in the West Bank, the South African parallel is expressed in more ways than one. The relationship cannot be any more obvious. The fight for justice is one, and shall always be. * The writer is an Arab-American journalist.
