BACKGROUND
Artwork by Richard Mtlholland. Copyrighte 1990. Richard Milholland. Distributed by Los Angeles Tones Syndicate.
Mandela's Turning Against Jews
Leaves Questions Unanswered
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HELEN DAVIS
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For New Car Owners
ike millions of people
around the world, I was
profoundly moved
when the tall, dignified fig-
ure of Nelson Mandela
emerged into the light of
freedom from the Victor
Verster jail near Cape Town
last month.
I am not, I should say at
the outset, a South African,
but I have been deeply
immersed in the events of
that country for more than
20 years.
As the foreign correspon-
dent of a major London
newspaper, I was based just
across the border in Central
Africa for several years.
Both then and subsequently,
I have visited South Africa
many times.
I am, moreover, married to
a South African journalist
who was himself forced into
political exile shortly after
covering the Rivonia Trial in
the Pretoria Supreme Court,
where Mandela was
sentenced to life imprison-
ment in 1964.
So it was with a special in-
terest that I followed
Mandela's release and, last
week, his first journey
abroad for 30 years.
Appropriately, the trip
was to the Zambian capital
of Lusaka, where the exter-
nal headquarters of the
African National Congress
(ANC) are situated and
where the exiled ANC
leaders had laid on a hero's
welcome for the uncrowned
king of Africa.
I was disappointed, though
not entirely surprised, when
Mandela stepped on to Zam-
bian soil and into the
waiting arms of Yassir
Arafat. No gathering of the
worlds "freedom fighters,"
it seemed, could be complete
without the ubiquitous
presence of the PLO leader.
What did surprise me,
though, was that Mandela,
ostensibly a man of peace
and conciliation, chose to de-
scribe Arafat as "my com-
rade and friend." Surprise
turned to dismay when
Mandela later told a press
conference that he sincerely
believed "there are many
similarities between our
struggle and that of the
PLO" and that Israel, like
the apartheid regime of
South Africa, practiced "a
unique form of colonialism."
Dismay finally gave way
to disgust when Mandela,
asked if he was at all con-
cerned that such comments
might be offensive to South
African Jews, replied: "If the
truth alienates the powerful
Jewish community in South
Africa, that is too bad."
For South African Jews,
Mandela's perception of
"truth," coupled with his
gratuitous and contemp-
tuous regard for their sen-
sitivities, must have come as
a bitter blow.
If South Africa's 120,000
Jews can be termed
"powerful" in a political
sense it is because so many
were — and are — powerful
in support of Mandela's
cause. The roll-call of white
anti- apartheid activism is
virtually a roll-call of Jewish
names.
For that reason alone,
Mandela might have been
expected to treat the Jews of
South Africa with a degree
of respect; if only to meet
and talk with them before
insulting them.
It was not too naive to hope
that Mandela, a man of im-
mense stature and intel-
ligence, would have eschew-
ed the easy option of taking
a swing at Israel; it was in-
conceivable that he should
take a cheap shot at South
Africa's Jewish community.
After all, when Mandela
entered prison, both the
name of Yassir Arafat and
the very idea of Palestinian
nationalism were still
unknown to the world, while
the Jews of South Africa had
already established their
credentials in the struggle
against apartheid.
For complex and varied
reasons, Jews have always
been in the forefront of the
battle for civil rights. In the
South African context, these
impulses were finely honed
by the accession to power in
1947 of Afrikaner political
leaders who made no secret
of their anti-Semitism and
who openly supported Hitler
through World War IL Over
the years, Jewish unease
was sharpened by the pro-
mulgation of race laws
which rivalled only those of
the Third Reich.
It is not, of course, only
Jews who have opposed
apartheid, but it was un-
questionably the formidable
talents and the enormous