26 oct 2019
Nelson Mandela’s church, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, this month endorsed Palestine’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).
At a recent conference in Cape Town, the church denounced “Israel’s ongoing ill-treatment and oppression of Palestinian people, and the historic prophetic role played by the church and international community in fighting Apartheid, and any form of discrimination and injustice.”
The church also has communities in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique – some two million congregants altogether.
Announcing the monumental decision, BDS South Africa pointed out the historic links of the country’s Methodist church to their country’s liberation struggle giant and first democratically-elected president, Nelson Mandela.
Mandela was brought up by a deeply religious Christian mother, and attended a series of Methodist schools throughout his youth.
In his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela recounted the often contradictory nature of being brought up in a colonial education aimed at “natives”, such as himself.
“The educated Englishman was our model,” he narrated, “what we aspired to be were ‘black Englishmen,’ as we were sometimes derisively called. We were taught – and believed – that the best ideas were English ideas, the best government was English government, and the best men were Englishmen.”
But, like many religious traditions tied up with colonial empires, the legacy of Methodism in southern Africa contained varying, and sometimes contradictory, tendencies.
As well as these colonial impulses, South African churches were also venues for the liberation struggle.
The most famous figure in this regard is, of course, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Anglican church’s most titanic anti-apartheid veteran is also a vocal critic of the Israeli apartheid against the indigenous Palestinians, which he has described as being even worse than South African apartheid.
But the Methodist church too had its own figures of progress, and the church has long opposed apartheid.
Seth Mokitimi, one of Mandela’s teachers, later became the first black president of a major South African denomination – a move that required courage during the height of the apartheid regime in 1964.
Mandela’s religious convictions stayed with him beyond his childhood. In his memoir, he also recounts being “proselytised” (a tellingly religious term) for communism by “my first white friend,” Nat Bregman.
During Mandela’s early twenties, he and Bregman worked together in Johannesburg at a law firm run by a liberal Jewish sympathiser with the African National Congress (ANC) (whose armed wing Mandela would of course later go on to found).
All his life, and especially during the Cold War, Mandela famously denied being a communist, including during the ‘Treason Trial’ he was subjected to in the 1960s.
But after his death in 2013, both the ANC and the South African Communist Party confirmed (or revealed, depending on your point of view) that he had actually been a member. Indeed, the party stated “Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our Party’s Central Committee.”
Be that as it may, Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom, wrote that Bregman’s entreaties towards joining the party didn’t win him over at the time, and that one of the reasons he did not join was because of his Christianity: “I was also quite religious, and the party’s antipathy to religion put me off.”
The adoption by Mandela’s church, of the BDS movement, then is hugely symbolic.
It is a recognition of how the BDS movement was explicitly modelled on the South African anti-apartheid boycott movement. More than that, it shows, once again, the leading role that South African activists are playing in the global movement for justice in Palestine.
They recognise apartheid when they see it.
The Methodist Church of Southern Africa’s policy on the boycott of Israel is a particularly good one. It instructs Methodists to boycott “all businesses that benefit the Israeli economy,” as BDS South Africa explained.
The church has also called for a “boycott of all Israeli pilgrimage operators and tours” and is urging Christians visiting the Holy Land to instead “deliberately seek out tours that offer an alternative Palestinian perspective.”
These are principled and practical measures that can have an impact on Israel. Slowly, but surely, BDS is making its mark.
Israel now dedicates untold millions of dollars towards fighting BDS – a sign that the strategy is having an effect.
South African churches’ BDS policies are something for us to emulate, and work towards in the West.
Amandla! Awethu!
At a recent conference in Cape Town, the church denounced “Israel’s ongoing ill-treatment and oppression of Palestinian people, and the historic prophetic role played by the church and international community in fighting Apartheid, and any form of discrimination and injustice.”
The church also has communities in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique – some two million congregants altogether.
Announcing the monumental decision, BDS South Africa pointed out the historic links of the country’s Methodist church to their country’s liberation struggle giant and first democratically-elected president, Nelson Mandela.
Mandela was brought up by a deeply religious Christian mother, and attended a series of Methodist schools throughout his youth.
In his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela recounted the often contradictory nature of being brought up in a colonial education aimed at “natives”, such as himself.
“The educated Englishman was our model,” he narrated, “what we aspired to be were ‘black Englishmen,’ as we were sometimes derisively called. We were taught – and believed – that the best ideas were English ideas, the best government was English government, and the best men were Englishmen.”
But, like many religious traditions tied up with colonial empires, the legacy of Methodism in southern Africa contained varying, and sometimes contradictory, tendencies.
As well as these colonial impulses, South African churches were also venues for the liberation struggle.
The most famous figure in this regard is, of course, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Anglican church’s most titanic anti-apartheid veteran is also a vocal critic of the Israeli apartheid against the indigenous Palestinians, which he has described as being even worse than South African apartheid.
But the Methodist church too had its own figures of progress, and the church has long opposed apartheid.
Seth Mokitimi, one of Mandela’s teachers, later became the first black president of a major South African denomination – a move that required courage during the height of the apartheid regime in 1964.
Mandela’s religious convictions stayed with him beyond his childhood. In his memoir, he also recounts being “proselytised” (a tellingly religious term) for communism by “my first white friend,” Nat Bregman.
During Mandela’s early twenties, he and Bregman worked together in Johannesburg at a law firm run by a liberal Jewish sympathiser with the African National Congress (ANC) (whose armed wing Mandela would of course later go on to found).
All his life, and especially during the Cold War, Mandela famously denied being a communist, including during the ‘Treason Trial’ he was subjected to in the 1960s.
But after his death in 2013, both the ANC and the South African Communist Party confirmed (or revealed, depending on your point of view) that he had actually been a member. Indeed, the party stated “Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our Party’s Central Committee.”
Be that as it may, Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom, wrote that Bregman’s entreaties towards joining the party didn’t win him over at the time, and that one of the reasons he did not join was because of his Christianity: “I was also quite religious, and the party’s antipathy to religion put me off.”
The adoption by Mandela’s church, of the BDS movement, then is hugely symbolic.
It is a recognition of how the BDS movement was explicitly modelled on the South African anti-apartheid boycott movement. More than that, it shows, once again, the leading role that South African activists are playing in the global movement for justice in Palestine.
They recognise apartheid when they see it.
The Methodist Church of Southern Africa’s policy on the boycott of Israel is a particularly good one. It instructs Methodists to boycott “all businesses that benefit the Israeli economy,” as BDS South Africa explained.
The church has also called for a “boycott of all Israeli pilgrimage operators and tours” and is urging Christians visiting the Holy Land to instead “deliberately seek out tours that offer an alternative Palestinian perspective.”
These are principled and practical measures that can have an impact on Israel. Slowly, but surely, BDS is making its mark.
Israel now dedicates untold millions of dollars towards fighting BDS – a sign that the strategy is having an effect.
South African churches’ BDS policies are something for us to emulate, and work towards in the West.
Amandla! Awethu!
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
Saturday, October 26, human rights activists and sports fans will protest at PUMA retail outlets, offices and matches of PUMA-sponsored teams in 20 countries under the slogan #BoycottPuma.
Actions in more than 50 locations are planned as part of a coordinated initiative to protest PUMA’s sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA). The IFA includes football teams based in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Over 200 Palestinian sports teams have urged PUMA to end its sponsorship of the IFA “due to its deep complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights”.
Israeli settlements are illegal and considered war crimes under international law.
Campaigners are calling on PUMA to end its support for Israel’s decades-old military occupation by terminating its sponsorship contract with the IFA.
On Wednesday, cars on London’s Underground were filled with “Boycott PUMA” subvertisements, naming PUMA as “proud sponsor of Israeli apartheid.”
More than 20 protest actions are planned across the UK.
In New York, human rights activists will protest at PUMA’s new Fifth Avenue flagship store.
At a match this Saturday, fans of Belfast’s Cliftonville Football Club will be calling on the team to end its sponsorship deal with PUMA. Last week, the Donegal Celtic Football Club in Belfast posed with Boycott PUMA signs in support of the call from Palestinian teams.
In Malaysia, a solidarity football match at the public university USIM will raise awareness on PUMA’s complicity in Israel’s military rule over Palestinians.
A dozen cities across France will join the day of action, with calls for Olympique de Marseille Football Club to drop PUMA.
In New Zealand, human rights activists are calling on the Silver Ferns, the Women’s National Netball Team, to show the “character and values” they are known for by dropping PUMA as a sponsor.
Groups in Manchester and Girona are calling on City Football Group, owners of Manchester City and Girona Football Club, to end the group’s sponsorship deal with PUMA.
On social media, supporters are posting images of PUMA clothing, shoes and bags with “Boycott” written over the logo, using the hashtag #RebrandPUMA.
Stephanie Adam, of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), said:
PUMA’s sponsorship of the Israel Football Association gives legitimacy to Israel’s expanding illegal settlement regime. Israel’s settlements are nothing more than illegal land grabs that force indigenous Palestinian families from their land. PUMA’s claim of a “devotion to universal equality” is a slap in the face of Palestinian families subjected to Israel’s home demolitions, military checkpoints and Apartheid Wall.
If PUMA wants to show real devotion to “universal equality, sports fans and supporters of Palestinian human rights around the world insist, it should end its support for Israel’s violations of international law and assaults on Palestinian families.
The Israel Football Association has refused to take measures to end its complicity in Israel’s settlement enterprise, despite condemnation by a UN advisor, more than 150 elected officials, including members of European Parliament, Swiss Parliament, Danish Parliament and the British House of Commons, civil society and human rights groups representing millions, and prominent public figures.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was initiated in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. PACBI advocates for the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, given their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law. Visit PACBI at https://bdsmovement.net/pacbi and follow us on Twitter @PACBI
Saturday, October 26, human rights activists and sports fans will protest at PUMA retail outlets, offices and matches of PUMA-sponsored teams in 20 countries under the slogan #BoycottPuma.
Actions in more than 50 locations are planned as part of a coordinated initiative to protest PUMA’s sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA). The IFA includes football teams based in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Over 200 Palestinian sports teams have urged PUMA to end its sponsorship of the IFA “due to its deep complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights”.
Israeli settlements are illegal and considered war crimes under international law.
Campaigners are calling on PUMA to end its support for Israel’s decades-old military occupation by terminating its sponsorship contract with the IFA.
On Wednesday, cars on London’s Underground were filled with “Boycott PUMA” subvertisements, naming PUMA as “proud sponsor of Israeli apartheid.”
More than 20 protest actions are planned across the UK.
In New York, human rights activists will protest at PUMA’s new Fifth Avenue flagship store.
At a match this Saturday, fans of Belfast’s Cliftonville Football Club will be calling on the team to end its sponsorship deal with PUMA. Last week, the Donegal Celtic Football Club in Belfast posed with Boycott PUMA signs in support of the call from Palestinian teams.
In Malaysia, a solidarity football match at the public university USIM will raise awareness on PUMA’s complicity in Israel’s military rule over Palestinians.
A dozen cities across France will join the day of action, with calls for Olympique de Marseille Football Club to drop PUMA.
In New Zealand, human rights activists are calling on the Silver Ferns, the Women’s National Netball Team, to show the “character and values” they are known for by dropping PUMA as a sponsor.
Groups in Manchester and Girona are calling on City Football Group, owners of Manchester City and Girona Football Club, to end the group’s sponsorship deal with PUMA.
On social media, supporters are posting images of PUMA clothing, shoes and bags with “Boycott” written over the logo, using the hashtag #RebrandPUMA.
Stephanie Adam, of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), said:
PUMA’s sponsorship of the Israel Football Association gives legitimacy to Israel’s expanding illegal settlement regime. Israel’s settlements are nothing more than illegal land grabs that force indigenous Palestinian families from their land. PUMA’s claim of a “devotion to universal equality” is a slap in the face of Palestinian families subjected to Israel’s home demolitions, military checkpoints and Apartheid Wall.
If PUMA wants to show real devotion to “universal equality, sports fans and supporters of Palestinian human rights around the world insist, it should end its support for Israel’s violations of international law and assaults on Palestinian families.
The Israel Football Association has refused to take measures to end its complicity in Israel’s settlement enterprise, despite condemnation by a UN advisor, more than 150 elected officials, including members of European Parliament, Swiss Parliament, Danish Parliament and the British House of Commons, civil society and human rights groups representing millions, and prominent public figures.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was initiated in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. PACBI advocates for the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, given their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law. Visit PACBI at https://bdsmovement.net/pacbi and follow us on Twitter @PACBI
Special rapporteur of the United Nations Organization on human rights in Palestine Michael Lynk condemned Israel for preventing him Thursday from traveling to the Palestinian territories, violating thus established procedures and protocols.
At a press conference in New York, the official said:
“This is a violation of the procedures and protocols because, as part of my work, I must go and see the situation on the ground firsthand”.
In addition, he said that Israel’s mission in Geneva does not respond to the requests to visit Palestinian territories.
Lynk travels every year to meet with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and with civilians from the territories that are illegally occupied by Israel. On Wednesday, the expert sent a report to the U.N. General Assembly stating the Israeli occupation in Palestine is the longest occupation one in the world.
The U.N. rapporteur recalled that Israel also violates several resolutions of the international organization, which calls for an end to the occupation and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories.
The #UnitedNations has slammed #Israel’s 52-year hold on #Palestine as the ‘longest belligerent occupation in the modern world’. #UN special rapporteur in #Palestine Michael Lynk said Israel is violating the international law.
Indus News Live
— Indus News (@indusdotnews) October 24, 2019
Lynk said at a U.N. General Assembly:
“Israel has occupied the Palestinian territory for more than 52 years, the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world”.
He also condemned the international community that has been unwilling to take action against the Jewish state for its lasting occupation and severe violations of international law.
At a press conference in New York, the official said:
“This is a violation of the procedures and protocols because, as part of my work, I must go and see the situation on the ground firsthand”.
In addition, he said that Israel’s mission in Geneva does not respond to the requests to visit Palestinian territories.
Lynk travels every year to meet with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and with civilians from the territories that are illegally occupied by Israel. On Wednesday, the expert sent a report to the U.N. General Assembly stating the Israeli occupation in Palestine is the longest occupation one in the world.
The U.N. rapporteur recalled that Israel also violates several resolutions of the international organization, which calls for an end to the occupation and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories.
The #UnitedNations has slammed #Israel’s 52-year hold on #Palestine as the ‘longest belligerent occupation in the modern world’. #UN special rapporteur in #Palestine Michael Lynk said Israel is violating the international law.
Indus News Live
— Indus News (@indusdotnews) October 24, 2019
Lynk said at a U.N. General Assembly:
“Israel has occupied the Palestinian territory for more than 52 years, the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world”.
He also condemned the international community that has been unwilling to take action against the Jewish state for its lasting occupation and severe violations of international law.
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