On January 30, PV Forum hosted its first 2025 event in Toronto. “Reflections and Lessons from Anti-Apartheid Organizing in Canada” featured a discussion among three panelists: Domenic Bellissimo, a veteran of the South African anti-apartheid struggle in Canada; Enver Domingo, a native South African and member of the ANC during South African apartheid; and Pamela Arancibia, a coordinator at Labour for Palestine. For this article, the first in a three-part series, PV forum organizer Peter Saczkowski sat down with the panelist members for a follow up conversation about the South African and Palestinian liberation struggles and current organizing strategies, including coalition building and international solidarity.
Peter Saczkowski: To start – and this is, admittedly, a broad question – could you talk about the differences and similarities between South Africa and Palestine, these two liberation movements that have used BDS.
Domenic Bellissimo: Well, let me start with just two things that jump out at me. First, reflections on South African apartheid are NOT identical to Israeli apartheid so we can’t mechanically reproduce the tactics. This struggle is a marathon and not a sprint, with ebbs and flows in the level of activism.
It’s a multi-decade struggle. Yes, we can use similar tactics – boycott, divestment and sanction – but we should expect that those are long-term tactics, with strategies changing at times depending on the balance of forces.
What do I mean by that? As we broaden the support for a free Palestine, things will rapidly start to change. Already, we’ve seen a much greater awareness of the struggle in Palestine and what the occupation has done. More and more people, I think, are aware now than they ever were about what Israel’s real intention has been.
The war has been brutal, but it has also brought out tens of thousands – hundreds of thousands – of new activists who perhaps were not as motivated to march about Palestine before.
Enver Domingo: In terms of similarities, it’s interesting. I’m going back to 1948, when you had the newly created Israel – already a settler-colonial project, sanctioned by settler-colonialists like South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
In terms of a long-term strategy, as far as the African National Congress (ANC) was concerned, international solidarity was one of our four main pillars, along with mass mobilization, armed operations and underground organization.
International solidarity required the active participation from those of us who were in exile. The role of the external missions was to develop relations with activists and groups sympathetic to our struggle in order to build mass support. They ranged from politicians of different political parties, trade unionists, church groups, teachers, healthcare workers and others.
Taking into account the political and philosophical differences amongst these activists and groups, these relationships ranged from critical to fully supportive. The Congress Alliance, headed by the ANC, included South African Indian Congress, South African Congress of Trade Unions, the Coloured People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the South African Communist Party.
Of course, our armed struggle caused concern within some of these groups. However, no one could deny our just struggle for freedom, equal rights and the right to determine our own democratic constitution. And we, painstakingly, achieved this.
One advantage we had was that the ANC had already established itself as the leading liberation movement, so there was no confusion when our supporters would ask, Who is your leadership?
Unfortunately – and I don’t want to speak on behalf of the Palestinians – but there seems to be a diversity of different groups, and no one can point to clear leadership in the Palestinian liberation struggle.
BDS is long-term, and it’s not easy. Educating the populace takes time. In my time as a South African in exile, we never encountered the kind of anti-Palestinian racism we see today.
We had anti-Black racism, yes – we were accused of trying to drive the whites into the sea or similar outlandish things. But to see Western governments enacting legislation that makes it a crime to talk about Palestinian freedom or to speak about genocide – that is something we never, ever experienced. That level of vitriol is absolutely unprecedented.
Pamela Arancibia: I think that with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, it was clearly internationalist – and that was its driving spirit. But in more recent years, we’ve moved away from internationalist politics.
We’ve been consumed by liberal identity politics – which keep us fighting each other, focusing on our own niche, our own identity, or our own part of the world. And I think that has been super destructive for the left movement.
But now, I think we’re seeing a return – we’re starting to reject those liberal identity politics. Not soon enough – but at least, we’re rejecting them. And I think we’re moving back toward an internationalist model.
That, I believe, is one of the positives of all this – or at least, I hope it is. I think it’s something necessary for Palestine to truly be free, because none of us are in a position to fight Western imperialism on our own. We need allies from all over the world to bring down this beast.
DB: That’s a good point, Pam. If I could build on that – it’s almost like we went through a phase where there was a ranking of oppressions, and we stayed in our silos. People were struggling with very particular, very real issues. They were valid, but people didn’t see a broader internationalist link and perspective.
I think the one thing that’s the largest difference between the South African and Palestinian struggle, is that antisemitism was not a factor with South Africa. The weaponization and the way that antisemitism has been used, perceived, weaponized and misused has caused genuine allies to fall away. Some feel that supporting Israel is part of their identity as Jews.
All of those factors, I think, have made it even more difficult – up until a year ago – to really say, take a look at what’s happening in Palestine and who’s doing it.
It is a more polarized movement, I find, and that’s another difference. I could have allies with me – comrades in the labour movement, for example – who would agree with me on eight out of ten items. But when it came to Palestine, they actually stumbled a little bit.
They felt like they weren’t ready to condemn Israel. They weren’t ready to criticize Israel for fear of being accused of antisemitism. Some of it was genuine fear. Some of it was confusion.
ED: As a South African and speaking to South Africans back home, particularly those in the pro-Palestine movements – I’m not referring to the South African government, but rather to South Africans at large. What we do now in terms of international solidarity is speak to the very same supporters who stood with us during the decades of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
We put the question to them: “Okay, you supported us because of laws that condemned Black children. The mortality rate was exceptionally high. Now, in Palestine, this is three times worse, or more.”
And when I talk about the Sharpeville massacre, which people in the past identified with – especially Soweto – I say: “Well, Palestine is experiencing two or more Sharpevilles a week.”
So, it’s important to draw that connection and that’s why I say, personalize it. Because I saw it firsthand. And I think that is one way of bringing people over. And I don’t mean bringing people over to one side – I mean getting them to recognize the inhumanity being meted out to the people of Palestine.
If you could support our struggle in South Africa because of these reasons, why aren’t you supporting the Palestinians for the same reasons, only triple-fold?
I mean, Desmond Tutu said it himself about Palestine: “It’s far worse than what we experienced.”
[Photo of Enver Domingo and Pamela Arancibia: Nadia Papineau]
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