OPEN LETTER: Should Friends Criticize Friends? Should Supporters of South Africa Speak Out on Corruption?
By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime of Our Time
Last night, I went to a dinner of a wonderful organization called SHARED INTEREST. Many of its leaders were involved during the fight against apartheid promoting corporate responsibility, reaching out to the business and investment community in America to support sanctions and corporate withdrawal to squeeze the apartheid system.
Working with church groups and economic elites, here and there, they played an important role challenging businesses profiting from apartheid.
When apartheid did fall, Shared Interest emerged in a let's help the new South Africa grow mode, seeking out investors and training opportunities for South Africa. They raised money from investors, networked with South Africans and played an exemplary role by organizing microfinance projects that have helped more than l.8 million people.
I support their work, and, having been to South Africa in the bad old days of apartheid, I marvel at the progress that has been made there with help from groups worldwide like Shared Interest and other NGOs.
But there are also serious problems we cannot overlook: deepening poverty and a growing gap between the white and black upper classes and the people trapped in poverty. The lives and livelihoods of many South Africans did not change much when the old system crumbled.
I think it is time for those of of us who worked so hard to support the movement for freedom in South Africa to become better friends with folks in South Africa by speaking out against some very deplorable trends now compromising South Africa's global reputation, marring its image, disaffecting iits supporters and, in some real ways, betraying the millions of people around the world who fought in South Africa, and in the global struggle, alongside South Africans, for their country's liberation.
South Africans did not end apartheid by themselves. They were supported by anti-apartheid movements the world over who organized, rallied, petitioned, marched and gave millions of dollars for the cause. They were supported by the nations of the world through the UN, and, in the end, even by companies who pulled out or would no longer roll over loans. On the battlefield, they had help from Cuba and underground assistance from activists who backed the African National Congress for decades.
They should listen to their friends now just as they welcomed their support then.
This month marks the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1961 which reminds us of the 69 martyrs that fought, bled and died to end apartheid
Out of respect for their memory, and to honor all the sacrifices by so many for so long, it's time for friends of South Africa to speak up and speak out critically, just as supporters of Israel are being asked to do as part of a larger fight for peace and justice. Many feel the best way to support Israel is encourage it to end its occupation and allow Palestinian self-determination.
Those of us who treasure and identify with South Africa's transformation have to be willing to do the same in order to remind them and ourselves about why we fought too.
I became involved in supporting the South Africa liberation movement in the early l960's, I went to South Africa first in l967 to play a small role in the fight there. Throughout the l970's and l980s I worked with the Africa Research Group and wrote article after article to expose complicity with apartheid. In l985, I helped create the Sun City song and video to advocate for sanctions.
At the end of the decade, I helped create and produce the South Africa Now TV series to fight censorship of the struggle. I later produced and directed six films with and about Nelson Mandela and the fight for freedom there. I also made media about the Aids disaster.
