Palestinians, Schmalestinians - Who Cares?

We were in Babas Khaya the other evening. There on the TV they said that Israel was using fighter jets to destroy Gaza City, including some major buildings. The piles of rubble were enormous.

“Geez”, I said. “And we complained about apartheid? I don’t remember them going at us like that. Maybe these Palestinians have a point.”

Bongi agreed, “It’s true, they mostly just used rubber bullets and teargas, except in Angola, but they certainly never destroyed buildings wholesale like that. Mind you, they probably never had such big buildings, and that’s probably why.”

Then Pendulwa piped up, as always: “Why do you talk about that? No one talks about the Palestinians. No one cares. I mean, not a peep out of our Government. Not a peep out of any other, except the Americans, and they have offered moral support to the Israelis. I think we should do what everyone else is doing, and look the other way. Don’t watch when they show these atrocities.”

At least a minute of silence ensued. We were struck dumb. Never had we heard such absolute wisdom, such logic, such no nonsense truth, from the mouth of Pendulwa. For a moment I was aroused, and I hoped the ensuing embarrassment was not evident on my face. But I was safe. Bongi and the others were still trying to swallow this Pendulwa bombshell.

UdocTswala considers himself a bit of an academic, so he can always be relied on to break in when a conversation gets to high brow for the rest of us. “Yes, good point Pendulwa. But imagine if the world had treated us that way during the Apartheid years? Imagine if the rest of the world had ignored us, and if they had actually even supported the Apartheid regime, as they do the Israelis? Where would we be today? We’d still be an occupied nation, as they are, except a lot more of us dead. And all poor. I wonder why they would have supported us, but not the Palestinians? What did we have that the Palestinians do not have? The situations seem so similar.”

That got us all thinking. What is the difference? There seems none, except the obvious differences between the individuals themselves. I mean that your average Palestinian is a Muslim, has got lighter skin than us, and longer hair, and speak a different language. And that is all!

It seems kind of random, none of those differences really stand out. We must have argued and fought for three hours and 5 beers. Each. And those are quarts. I changed my mind 3 times, starting thinking it must be the religion, then the language, then the skin colour. Finally we decided to fight it out, and the winner would be the answer. We randomly selected a paper from a cup, each of which had the difference on that we would be fighting for. I selected "longer hair". I reckoned that was as good as the others, and took a long swig in preparation to win.

Then uDocTswala saved the day again. He pointed out that if we fought, he would lose, and either Pendulwa or Bongi would win. So the answer turned out to be either skin colour or being a Muslim. As we staggered home, I thanked the Almighty that we in Africa are all black and not Palestinian brown, and I am a Christian and not a Muslim...

 

There are many other great  reasons to be African and not anything else: https://siphodlamini.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/now-we-wish-we-were-african/