Opinionista • Rebecca Hodes • 12 September 2013

‘Dibul’ ijuda/Shoot the Jew’ and the local architecture

of anti-Semitism

On 28 August a protest on Wits campus saw among the worst

instances of public anti-Semitism in the post-Apartheid era.
The incident has attracted little substantive analysis in the
South African media, despite what it reveals about the
architecture of local anti-Semitism.
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The protest was organized by Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) South Africa
and the Wits University Palestine Solidarity Committee and was held outside the
performance of an Israeli jazz quartet. As explained in a statement issued by BDS, its
purpose was to protest “against the racism of the South African Jewish Board of
Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation, and in solidarity with the
Palestinian people”. The statement included the rejoinder that the protest was to be
“non-violent and peaceful”. But passions ran high and at a certain point protestors
broke into the anti-Apartheid struggle song, “Dubul’ ibhunu” (“Shoot the Boer”), which
was banned by the Human Rights Commission on the basis of its incitement to
violence. In this version, the word “ibhunu” – Boer – was substituted with “ijuda” –
Jew.

I am fascinated by the moment in which this new version emerged. Did it arise
spontaneously, with one protestor turning to another, perhaps one whose voice was
especially loud, with the suggestion of these new lyrics? And did they take up the
chorus together, repeating it for a few rounds before others caught on and joined? Or
did it emerge years or decades back, as the expression of a deep-seated, collective
belief that Jews – like Boers – embody what is wrong with South African society, and
that this embodiment is so total that calls to shoot Jews are essentially demands for
the elimination of racism and oppression? The logic inherent in calls to violence as a
means of ending oppression and injustice is perverse, but it is nonetheless intact and
thriving in South Africa.
In theX days preceding the protest on 28 August, charges of racism against the Jewish
Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation stoked the fury of BDS supporters.
Allegations of racial profiling among concertgoers by its Jewish organisers were
translated into allegations of racism among Jewish communal leadership. What the
concert organisers had actually done was to block book tickets to try to ensure against
a disruption of the performance, but this was styled by protest organisers as a ban on
the admission of “non-Jews” to the concert. In this heady and confused conflation of
Jewishness, Zionism and racism, is it really surprising that anti-Semitism was the
result? The events on Wits campus were represented by the protest organisers as
microcosmic of the injustice and oppression that characterises South African society,
just as the Israel/Palestine conflict has become the exemplar of the injustice and
oppression wrought by global geopolitics.

When the symbolic stakes are high, and when Jews are implicated in oppression, anti-
Semitism often proliferates. History has shown that anti-Semitism is such a protean
ideology that the implication of just one Jew in an injustice (as in the case of Herschel
Grynszpan’s 1938 assassination in Paris of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath) is
sufficient to justify violence against all Jews (Kristallnacht). Moreover, the implication
need not be based on any actual events, as in the thousands of allegations of blood libel
and well-poisoning made against Jews since the first century and into the modern era,
which has been used as a pretext for mob violence against Jews in every century since.

The resilience of certain anti-Semitic myths is so fierce that they re-emerge

periodically in different parts of the globe, assuming whatever form has local
resonance. The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, for instance, is among the most
influential and generative artefacts of bigotry ever known. First published in Russia, by
the 1920s the Protocols were established to be a hoax, but by then had made their way
into Western Europe and the United States (where Henry Ford financed the
publication of half a million copies as part of his anti-Semitic series, “The International
Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem”). The Protocols were also the subject of a court
case held in 1934 in Grahamstown, in which the Reverend Abraham Levy charged
Greyshirt leaders with libel after they claimed to have found copies of the Protocols in
a Port Elizabeth synagogue, and that these were evidence of a Jewish conspiracy to
control South Africa. The Protocols have been given new life on the Internet, where
they are woven into conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination, including the
claim that the 9/11 attacks in the United States were orchestrated by war-mongering
Zionists.
In discussions
X about the Israel/Palestine conflict, I am no longer surprised when
condemnations of Israeli segue into allegations that Jews control the media, the banks,
American foreign policy and the global military industrial complex. Beliefs about
Jewish world-domination are so ingrained in popular consciousness that they are not
perceived as doctrinaire. The mythical spectre of Jewish world domination haunts
many local discussions about the Israel/Palestine conflict.

In 2008, South Africa’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Fatima Hajaig, made the
following statement at a meeting to demonstrate against Israel’s invasion of Gaza:
“Jews control [the United States], no matter which government comes into power,
whether Republican or Democratic, whether Barrack Obama or George Bush … Their
control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of
Jewish money and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect
anything.” Hajaig was taken to task for the comments, and eventually issued a
qualified apology. She said she was sorry that her statement “may have caused hurt
and pain”, but never apologised for the substance of her comments.

Back in 2009, much of the news coverage of Hajaig’s anti-Semitic outburst focused on
her qualified apology. The same has been the case with news coverage about the BDS
response to the singing of “Dibul’ ijuda” at Wits. In the opening sentence of an article
(http://mg.co.za/article/2013-09-02-shoot-the-jew-song-slammed) about the protest
published by the Mail and Guardian, Verashni Pillay wrote: “A new spin on the
controversial struggle song, “Dubul’ ibhunu”, this time calling for Jews to be shot
instead of “Boers”, has been criticised from all corners.” In fact, the first responses of
the BDS co-ordinator reported in the media were not condemnation and apology.
Speaking to a journalist from the Wits Vuvuzela, Muhammed Desai stated: “Just like
you would say “kill the Boer” at a funeral during the eighties; it wasn’t about killing
white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the Apartheid regime.” Desai
added that: “The whole idea of anti-Semitism is blown out of proportion.”

Desai’s response was thus to emphasise the symbolic value of the song. Perhaps his
intention was not to attenuate the anti-Semitic nature of its lyrics, but this was the
effect of his explanation. Farid Esack, speaking on behalf of the board of BDS South
Africa, acknowledged, “as a sound bite it muddied the waters”. Whether Desai’s
remarks about anti-Semitism in the same interview were meant only in relation to the
South African context, or with a broader view of history, I have been unable to
ascertain. Esack explained, “We [the BDS board] believe that he was taken out of
context”. After Desai’s apparent bungling of the BDS media response, the board
stepped in to apologise, to condemn the song and to streamline the organisation’s
response to public interest in the protest.
But asX with Desai’s remarks about the exaggerated nature of anti-Semitism, the
statement issued by BDS about the singing of “Dubul’ ijuda” including the following
proviso: “It is unfortunate but not unexpected that supporters of Israel will focus on
the singing of this song”. As with the media coverage of Hajaig’s anti-Semitic diatribe,
the finger is pointed back at the “supporters of Israel” for making all of the fuss. And
while this allegation is aimed at Zionists, the slippage between “supporters of Israel”
and “Jews” is a likely and unfortunate consequence of the public life of these remarks.
In this instance, the age-old notion that Jews overplay their victimhood would provide
a ready peg for anti-Semitic interpretations.

Most of the articles about the Wits protest featured in the local media focused on the
condemnation of the song. IOL’s article was entitled “Group condemns ‘Shoot the Jew’
song”, and the Mail and Guardian’s headline was “‘Shoot the Jew’ song slammed”.
While perhaps well intentioned, the effect of framing the incident in this way is to
negate its anti-Semitic affront. Between condemnation and apology, reference to
Israel’s aggression and recourse to exaggerations of anti-Semitism, there is little room
left for objection. The story is packaged as a dismissal of anti-Semitism, when it should
have investigated the initial fact of its occurrence.

Some opponents of Israel, including BDS advocates in South Africa, have worked very
hard to draw a distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. But in the
aftermath of the Wits protest, most organizational affiliates of BDS have remained
silent about the anti-Semitism displayed at the protest. As the singing of “Dibul’ ijuda”
has shown, popular associations between Zionism and Judaism seem too strongly
associated in our collective consciousness to bear sustained separation. DM

Rebecca Hodes is a historian based at the University of Cape Town.

Rebecca Hodes

 Follow  Save  More (https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/rebeccahodes/)

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