Apartheid – Gadija Davids

Today is Ahed Tamimi’s 17^th birthday. She spent it in an Israeli prison.

She is Palestinian.

And she has been kept in Israeli prison since mid-December. She’s in jail because she slapped an armed Israeli soldier who had trespassed onto her family property. Her mother Nariman is also due in court on Tuesday for filming the incident.

Ahed alleges that the occupation soldier had shot her cousin in the head with a rubber bullet about an hour before the altercation at her home in Nabi Saleh. She says she felt compelled to retaliate due to the constant harassment and violence perpetrated by the Israeli regime on her family and people. The Tamimi resilience to the Israeli occupation is awe-inspiring. For many, they have galvanized the Palestinian youth resistance.

Ahed and her mother are due in court on February 6, 2018 (my birthday). Ahed is 17. She is half my age. When I was 17, my biggest problems involved homework.

Tamimi Family at Radio 786 studios (Cape Town)

I met Ahed and her family last year when they visited South Africa as part of the Shamsaan (Two Suns) Project. You’d be forgiven for describing her as a sullen teenager, but the manner in which she took my phone for a selfie proved that while she recognized her duty to her people and her land, she was still a teenager who wants to be a soccer player and wear fashionable clothes.

But the Israeli occupation has taken away her dream of one day representing Palestine’s women’s soccer team in the World Cup. Instead, she has to contend with haphazard checkpoints instead of goalposts.

The Israeli skill of corralling, and restricting people’s movement is remarkable. Where else would you see the scale of checkpoints and military personnel, than in Israeli Occupied Palestine?

Continue reading “Resistance Starts at 4am”

Lesedi, our Uber driver, wants to name his son, ‘Gadija’. I explain to him that it’s a girl’s name. I also explain that I don’t know what it means, only that Khadija (let’s not get into the spelling discrepancies) was the wife of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and that’s what gives the name its significance.

He’s nonplussed; because ‘Lesedi’ is also a girl’s name. And he likes the rhythm of ‘Ga-dee-jah’. I decide not to argue.

Lesedi is taking us to the Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, Johannesburg. Its importance in the struggle against Apartheid is lost on me. I just know that it was a farm where many of the Anti-Apartheid guys used to meet. I know it has links to Nelson Mandela.

Now before you get at me for the gaping holes in my knowledge of South African history, I must clarify that the history textbooks at school focused on World Wars, and kings and queens. Nothing of the exciting, movie-like scenarios that played out in South Africa, as civilian men and women were forced to take up arms to fight against a racist and oppressive regime.

But a visit to Liliesleaf Farm Museum soon filled some of those gaps.

Walking through the entrance of the compound, there’s a tranquility that only a weekday visit to a museum can provide. A gently bubbling stream snakes around the many buildings that serve as portholes to the events that lead to the Rivonia Trial; while flowers, willowy trees, and quotes from notable freedom fighters ease visitors into their journey down South Africa’s liberation history.

Continue reading “Liliesleaf Farm – cultivating resistance”