40
Friday, February 15, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
FOCUS
11•11111 ■ 111
A South African black woman rests with her grandchildren while seeking refuge.
The Shame
Of Apartheid
South Africa's scandal remains
an affront to outraged humanity.
BY ELIE WIESEL
Special To The Jewish News
Editor's Note: We are proud to
introduce the first of a series of
monthly columns to be written by Mr.
Wiesel exclusively for us. Of all his
titles, including writer, lecturer and
Holocaust survivor, he prefers to be
known as teacher.
Shame: it's what a white
man, a Jew like me, feels
while visiting Soweto in
South Africa. I remember: it
was ten years ago. I had
come on a lecture tour of
several cities. The organizers
did not hide their concern:
was I going to embarass
them by speaking out against
apartheid. "Don't forget,"
advised a well-known liberal,
"don't forget that after your
speech, you return home
while we stay here." In other
words: I was not going to suf-
fer the consequences. I pro-
mised him that I'd say noth-
ing until I had studied the
problem. That night was my
first lecture. I used the occa-
sion to relate everything: the
request of certain hosts and
my answer. And also my pro-
ject: to visit the blacks in
their ghetto. The students ap-
plauded. Certain parents
seemed troubled.
The next day I appeared at
Soweto, and what I dis-
covered there made me doubt
the human species. I felt
guilty, confronted by the
unspeakable suffering of the
oppressed men, the resigned
women, the children with
melancholy eyes. Because of
my color, and also my nation-
ality, I was supposed to be
superior to them. T belonged
to another social and ethnic
order, I belonged to another
humanity. And I wasn't proud
of it.
It's useless to repeat what
everyone already knows: the
racial laws of South Africa
are wrong, not only because
they result in collective and
individual oppression, but
also, and especially, because
they are laws. Racism itself is
dreadful, but when it pre-
tends to be legal, and there-
fore just, it becomes alto-
gether repugnant. Without
comparing apartheid to
Nazism and to its Final Solu-
tion — the latter defies all
comparisons — one cannot
but assign the two systems,
supposedly legal, to the same
camp.
Both have shown that laws
can be twisted and distorted
to the point of becoming in-