Dr Pali Lehohla is the former Statistician-General of South Africa and the former head of Statistics South Africa. Photo: Thobile Mathonsi
ON Monday, March 7 Allan Wolman, responded with the title “Tell us more about the ghost of apartheid” to my article of February 25 titled “A caring SA government would invest in CPI data to gauge poverty”.
He published his unprovoked provocation in The Sunday Independent. His concern is that I did not illustrate well enough why the government did not care, and he felt I left him high and dry.
I reread my article and I adequately demonstrated that by not funding the Consumer Price Index the government will not know who the poor are and how poor they are, so the much spoken about inflation targeting will have no relevance and effect on the poor when decisions on subsidies on food become a matter for consideration.
This concern was just a decoy. Writing from Tel Aviv, Wolman was more interested in my assertion that the occupying force of Israel in Palestine was apartheid par excellence from my two visits I paid to Palestine. My article was a comparison on the development of statistics between Palestine and South Africa, countries that share the same history of settler dominance and discrimination.
My conclusion was Palestine as it continues under the Israeli yoke has actually done better in its statistics compared to South Africa where the government has deliberately defunded statistics.
But now I have to address the unprovoked provocation on the matter of the Israeli exercise of apartheid over Palestine. The facts on this matter are abundantly provided not only by the Palestine Statistics Office, but well documented in the United Nations General Assembly.
To satisfy Wolman, let me now delve into the facts. The state of Israel was a post-World War II creation and was imposed on the Palestinian State, which had existed since biblical times. In 1948 apartheid in South Africa was established as policy and the state of Israel acted in tandem with apartheid South Africa in executing apartheid policies. These policies in both South Africa and Palestine were executed through a deliberate spatial segregation of populations in which dormitories or impoverished labour reserves were created.
In both countries the settler population invaded the land of the indigenous populations through forced removals. This diabolical act of spatial apartheid impoverished populations of both countries. Since 1948 in the case of Israel and since 1913 in the case of South Africa both states initiated spatial apartheid. And since 1948 in both countries, spatial segregation was intensified and Palestine has only a fraction of its 12 million population residing in Palestine and the rest are refugees in other parts of the world, especially in the Middle East.
The black population in South Africa also scattered across the world as refugees. Palestine is a country endowed with a lot of water, yet Palestine as of today has access to only 15 percent of its water while Israel has appropriated 85 percent of the water to itself.
Israel through its expansion of settlements and resettling Jews has created a wall with a perimeter of 700km that keeps Palestinians apart. A trip that would take 10 minutes now has been extended to up to two hours. While Palestinians would visit even on foot among themselves, the wall that was erected has ensured that Palestinian villages become enclaves without contact.
In 2003, for discussion was an agenda in which Palestine accused Israel of stealing their census data for purposes of targeting Palestinian families. This was a major violation of United Nations Fundamental Principles for Official Statistics. The matter was postponed to the following year, but alas, the Palestinian delegate was denied a visa by the US and the matter could not be discussed at the United Nations Statistics Commission.
In engaging the Palestinian authorities, I asked what the two-stage state means in the context of Israel annexing so much land to itself. Is it a ploy by Israel to undermine the conditions set out in the Oslo Agreement and adopt the resolution with landless Palestine?
The Nyala, the young trigger-ready Israeli soldier and the high fence defined the apartheid ecosystem of oppression and enforcement. Lest we forget, that many including the United Nations have labelled Israel as an apartheid state. I experienced this no differently. I trust this rendition satisfies Wolman’s inquisitive mind.
For more on the subject browse Pali Lehohla and Ola Awad Stats Demo on YouTube. Yet it leaves the Palestinians under constant harassment. Wolman’s was an unprovoked provocation whose historical elements bear semblance and relevance in the current Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Looking ahead perhaps we should take comfort in Pixley ka Seme, who reminds us through his seminal lecture on the Regeneration of Africa in 1906 in London that Africa may just be the place from which ubuntu brings new harmony in the world. If this assertion of “I am an African” is true, South Africa before it is too late may find its radar too and a liberated world may emerge out of this global chaos.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the former Statistician-General of South Africa and the former head of Statistics South Africa. Meet him @ www.pie.org.za and @Palilj01.
*The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL or of title sites.
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