Morals or bags of cash?
A week or so ago, I had an interactive session with a member of the Palestine lobby group who was in Lilongwe to push for Malawi’s endorsement of a United Nations (UN) resolution to declare Israel an apartheid State. Doing so would attract sanctions detailed in its resolutions against apartheid.
See, apartheid, as you may recall from South Africa’s experience, when most blacks were ruthlessly dominated and segregated by minority whites, crammed into impoverished townships and denied many economic rights, among others, is not a bad system of governance. It ostensibly belongs to a by-gone era.
But get rid of your religious hat, you clearly see that apartheid is what is obtaining in the State of Israel today, particularly in its relationship with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians for years have been chased out of their homelands, forced to live within barbed wire and high walls, denied statehood and many attendant rights.
It’s a callous situation that has gone on for so long, partly due to the sad history of the Jews—namely Adolf Hilter’s Holocaust and the persecution they faced elsewhere—which precipitated the creation of the State of Israel, a welcome situation to many.
You add that the nexus of the Judeo-Christian faiths—particularly Christianity which is widely practised in the West and in many parts of the world—Israel easily gets sympathy, worse still, even when it’s an aggressor.
As a practising Christian myself, writing this made me a bit cringe. Yet, I know, as well, that the God I serve is a good and just God. He is a God of love. So bear with me those of you who believe in Christ, the resurrected Messiah, what is obtaining in the State of Israel today would make Christ, too, cringe. It’s atrocious. It’s human rights outrage.
And, we, as a country, have a right and duty, before God and man, to ensure that we support the right causes and denounce retrogressive ones. And we cannot run away from it.
Funny that we can’t in a multi-polar world, in a world where every State can go to the UN and vote on any important subjects, even we—small geographically, militarily, diplomatically and economically, count. We can render our voice to the cause of justice.
And it’s not that we have always done the right thing. Our history over such matters are chequered, to say the least.
When the blacks of South Africa were fighting for freedom against the oppressive whites, we were wining and dining with the apartheid regime. Why? Because as I learnt in international relations classes I took, every country acts in its own self interest. That self interest meant us getting a few rands from the repressive South African government to build our shiny Capital Hill. But South Africa emancipated itself, anyway, with or without our help and on the international front, particularly in the eyes of our neighbours, the egg has never left our face.
Now we have a right to avoid a repeat of that sad history. We have a choice to ensure that foreign policy is also shaped by ideals we believe in—equality of all races, good governance and human rights for all.
Of course, President Lazarus Chakwera—a Christian evangelical to bone—has already aggressively lobbied and courted Israel as a partner—to the point of announcing that Malawi will establish an embassy in disputed Jerusalem. But nothing is cast in stone and we can change course before making mistakes generations from now will regret.
If the President and his advisers needed any lessons on this, the recent stance by Sadc—which is now headed by our President—to deny Israel an observer State at the African Union should show our government how serious our regional partners take international relations. Our role in the world can’t simply be determined by the desire of whom we want to beg or interpretation of the Holy Bible.
