The Ballot and The Bigot in a Genocidal World
On 01/06/2024 | 0 Comments
By Zaahied Sallie

Below the foothills of the iconic Table Mountain (ranked fifth of the seven natural wonders) lies the picturesque neighbourhoods of Vredehoek, Gardens and Oranjezicht.

These are postcard suburbs with a steep colonial history and a rank Zionist odour. Within its midst, juts out United Herzlia Schools. The school caters for all age groups of all backgrounds but on condition that they esteem their Zionist ethos. The admissions policy is simple: respect our Jewish and Zionist culture, and you’re welcome. My respect for the former is absolute, but I vehemently oppose the latter.

The school is a cauldron for Zionism, with many of its students having served or serving in the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces). A 2020 University of Cape Town report shows that Herzlia serves as a repository for 70-80% of Jewish learners in Cape Town and that 7.5% of its alumni, spanning a dataset from 1952 to 2019, reside in the three areas mentioned above. The report further reveals that 20% of Herzlia’s alumni of this dataset are now Israeli citizens. It is thus safe to say that the majority of these neighbourhoods and Cape Town’s Jewry support Zionism.

The Zionists, along with the non-Jewish majority “white” residents, also support and are deeply embedded with the DA (Democratic Alliance), the main opposition party to the governing ANC.  

So, it was in this setting, on election day, that an unyielding rage coursed through my veins and unleashed a fireworks display of Palestinian activism. The bigotry of a “white” woman spawned this fury within me when she attempted to have my children removed from outside a national elections voting venue in Vredehoek Road, Gardens.

Good Hope Seminary Junior School is a five-minute walk from our residence.

The day, albeit election day, was like any other when we, as a family, would go for our customary walk through the neighbourhood. And, as is usually the case, either one or all of us would don some Palestinian accessory.

We had great expectations and wanted to get to the polls early. So, after 7 am, we stepped out the door for the short trek. The plan was that my wife and I would vote, and the kids would wait outside. Once done, we would continue our morning walk in the area and back home. But this time, the kids would also fly the Palestinian flag while riding their skateboards.

We arrived at a snaking queue, basking in the first light of a summery autumn day. It was clear where the serpent’s political allegiance lay. Still, we bravely joined its tail, hoping to strike with our opposing vote.

My wife and I inched across the courtyard, silently protesting with our keffiyehs and “Free Palestine” armbands, whilst my three young children, donning their keffiyehs and scarves, stood outside the school fence, in conversation and passing the Palestinian flag between them.

At one point, I noticed a man, with only one arm, walking towards the exit of the school grounds. As the man passed me, I heard him saying to the person striding alongside him that he was “an agent of the Referendum Party.” My ears pricked up, and I immediately thought: white supremacist.

A few moments later, I noticed a “white” woman, accompanied by a police officer, making for the gate. Something in her eyes told me this was about my children.  

As she passed, my 11-year-old son, Suhaib, ran to us and said: ‘Dad, they’re trying to get us away.’ He later told me a disabled man had approached and argued with them and wanted them gone. It turned out to be the one-armed Referendum Party agent.

I darted from the queue and was quickly on their heels when I heard the woman complain to the officer that she felt intimidated by the Palestinian flag and its bearer, whom I guessed was the pre-adolescent herald now beside me.

I later learned from my children that the woman had exited the gate earlier and conspired with DA agents at their outside station. They surveyed and pointed at them before the woman returned to get the police.

I cut the two off at the gate. ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked. The plaintiff, addressing me in white privilege character, made a meek argument. I shut her down and turned to the officer, who, to my astonishment, entertained the woman’s demand. I argued the sheer mendacity of the complainant’s request and pointed to the fact that she stood ahead of us in the queue and was between 30-50 metres from the fence. It was certainly not a case of intimidation but a shameless display of “white privilege” and “playing the victim” to quash peaceful Palestinian solidarity. She, along with others, were the ones guilty of intimidating my children.

I decided to remove the flag from its staff and wear it instead.

‘If you don’t want it outside, I’ll take it inside,’ I said.

The verbal battle ensued as I made my way back to my spot. But instead of melding back into the queue like a good little taxpayer, I flew into a rage and addressed the large crowd whose gaze I began to feel on me.

‘This woman took the police to remove my 10-year-old Palestine flag-waving son who’s standing outside the premises because she felt intimidated’, I boomed.

I said this while holding the Palestinian flag in my hand. I then shouted, ‘There’s a genocide in Gaza going on! There’s a genocide in Gaza going on! Free Palestine! Free Palestine!’

I took the flag and defiantly tied it around my neck while a bewildered crowd looked on.

In righteous indignation, I realised I got my son’s age wrong by a year.

‘Standing thirty metres away from the flag bearer, surrounded by so many people, and feeling intimidated is nothing but “white privilege” and “playing the victim,”‘ I shouted at the woman.

A man tried to calm me down, but I recognised he only wanted to quell the rebellion, and I would have none of it.

I continued my monologue, ‘Palestine has removed the mask from those still romanticising South Africa’s Apartheid past. I can see Apartheid. I know it. I’ve lived through it.’

A young coloured man condescendingly tried to get me back in line and shouted, ‘Are you high.’ I replied, ‘Yes, high on life and death.’ The latter, I said in reference to the genocide in Gaza. My wife, Nurah, recognised he wanted to bait me and calmly ushered me back to the queue.

At this point, two more policemen arrived on the scene and wanted to remove me from the premises, but a white woman intervened and stopped them. She apologised to me for the behaviour of the troublemaker and said that she was wrong to have done what she did.

Suddenly, someone behind me shouted, ‘Shame on you, lady, shame on you!’ I turned and saw the voice belonged to a man wearing a keffiyeh.

I remembered my children and fetched them. As I returned with the three in tow, a Muslim man from the school cafe’s management approached and offered to watch over them in the cafe while my wife and I voted. I thanked him and made for the queue when I saw the admonisher with the keffiyeh walking towards me. We met in the centre of the grounds in full view of the crowd.

We made introductions, and he asked for more context. My tale further roused his ire, and seeing the Palestinian flag turned neckerchief, he saw the opportunity for further protest. He untied the flag and was about to drape it over himself but changed his mind and tied it like a cape around my neck.

Suited up like a Palestinian superhero before a pro-Israeli crowd, thanks to my newfound comrade, Ikram, had sent surges of courage and defiance through me.

We boldly stood there, our resistance pegged, like Hoerikwaggo—Sea Mountain, the indigenous name for the world’s fifth natural wonder. We breathed it all in, and then my comrade turned and walked over to the man who tried to silence me. The man had wanted to shut him up, too. My comrade sniped at him before turning to the crowd, exclaiming, ‘I will shout it from the rooftops, “Free Palestine!”‘

Nurah joined in with chants of “Stop the Genocide!” and “Free Palestine!” while my comrade walked away triumphantly.

With my Palestine cape billowing behind me, I returned to my wife, a superhero.

A few moments later, more police hurriedly arrived on the scene. They stepped from their vehicle, and the presiding officers stationed at the school pointed me out to them. They approached and asked me to step away from the line. It was a swift interrogation but one that vindicated my family and me. The sergeant and his superior officer stated that the plaintiff was guilty and asked me to identify her. She was removed from the line and interrogated in earshot of me. Her story changed from being intimidated to feeling that the flag would sway voter opinion. I tuned out to her hasbara drivel and engaged my wife in conversation.

After her questioning, she came to apologise to me. Sergeant Pillay and his superior seemed to have stripped the “white privilege” from her. But all she got was my back and a face full of the Palestinian flag.

And so did all those queueing behind and alongside me. It was a small victory, but the feeling was deeply satisfying.

After Nurah and I cast our ballots, we fetched our little activist warriors, who were being tended to and fed by the cafe’s staff.

A kind woman with a big heart and fine “koesiestes” plated some for us to eat. Sunday morning breakfast had come early, thanks to our gracious benefactor.

While drinking our coffee and tea and wolfing the delicious treats, she gleefully shared how she wasn’t sure if it was “Free Palestine” that she heard shouted and was startled by the possibility. ‘Such language and attitudes are absent here’, she said. But when it rang out for the second time, she knew it was true, and from her heart, she praised God, ‘Alhamdulillah!’

 

Zaahied Sallie

Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme

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