Watch "Checkpoint - Jasiri X" on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq6Y6LSjulU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
“This is apartheid”: rapper Jasiri X on visit to Palestine
Amira Asad 10 February 2014
Jasiri X is a hip-hop emcee based in Pittsburgh, and he recently participated in a delegation of black American activists, academics and artists to Palestine.
The weeklong trip by Jasiri X inspired his track “Checkpoint” (Accompanied by hard-hitting breakbeats, this track features the emcee detailing the types of persecution and harassment which Israeli soldiers inflict on Palestinians as a matter of routine. The track references Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela, the track urges listeners to support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.)
Amira Asad writes of an interview with Jasiri X and the Apartheid he witnessed in Palestine.
Here are excerpts of this interview:
Amira Asad: What did the delegation do while you were in Palestine?
Jasiri X: We had a Palestinian woman as our guide, and we went to different places and talked to people about the suffering they are experiencing due to the occupation. We went to East Jerusalem and talked to people in a neighborhood where they were doing forced evictions. We went to Bethlehem and saw the separation wall and talked to the community there [about] some of the things they were doing there that were affecting the ecosystem and the farmers.
We went to Hebron and that was one of the most intense days. We went to Ramallah, Nazareth and south Tel Aviv to see the African refugees.
AA: What made Hebron particularly intense?
JX: Well, it’s like a militarized city. There were members of our delegation that were approached by Israeli soldiers, asking us what our religion was. I guess that was the determining factor because we were outside of the Ibrahimi Mosque.
There was one place where there were settlers and Palestinians in close proximity, then you put in these soldiers and it got really, really intense.
As black people, who are walking down the street and soldiers are stopping us, it takes us to stop-and-frisk and policies we are coming from and experience a lot of the time in inner cities
On Fighting Apartheid, here is what Jasiri X had to say.
AA: As a hip-hop artist, what are you doing to fight Israeli apartheid?
JX: I try to use my means of expression that I have, which is hip-hop. It was interesting — because of how emotional and intense the trip was — my first thought wasn’t to do a song but it kind of just came. Someone made a joke like “yeah he’ll probably have a song and a video before we get back.” And I was like “naw” but then I started thinking like “well if I did do something, what would I do?”
So I had just happened to film these checkpoints because I had got into a habit of when there’s some type of interaction that could be dangerous we film the police. So when we go through these checkpoints and I see all these military soldiers and guns, I was just filming it for my own and our delegation’s safety.
So I made a song about it and leant my voice to the growing voices that say this is wrong and this is apartheid. This is immoral and it needs to stop. I was able to meet one of the members of DAM, a Palestinian hip-hop group, when I was over there and we also talked about possibly doing some stuff in the near future.
I take my message back to the hip-hop community and encourage other artists to stand up or take that to the media.
?This is apartheid?: rapper Jasiri X on visit to Palestine | The Electronic Intifada
No doubt but that Apartheid is practiced by Israel in Palestine, much like and reminiscent of Apartheid in South Africa.
Here is what prominent South Africans have had to say about the issue of Israel and Apartheid.
“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.”
“When I hear, ‘that used to be my home’, it is painfully similar to the treatment in South Africa when coloureds had no rights.”
– Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Israel and Apartheid: Is It a Fair Comparison? | Dissident Voice
“… the fundamental cause of the conflict — lest anyone remains unclear. It stems from the Zionist world view — its belief in a perpetual anti-Semitism that requires that Jewish people around the world — a faith group — should have a national home of their own. The biblical narrative was evoked to proclaim Palestine as the promised land reserved exclusively for God’s ‘chosen people’ and their civilizing mission. It sounds all too familiar as a vision the Voortrekkers had in this country. It gives rise to racism, apartheid and a total onslaught on those who stand in your way, whether blacks or Arabs or red Indians. Many Jews do not agree with this Zionist world view, and declare that being anti-Zionism and critical of Israel does not equate with anti-semitism.”
– Speech given to the South African Parliament by Government Minister Ronnie Kasrils
Ronnie Kasrils' speech to S. African Parliament on 40th anniversary of occupation | The Electronic Intifada
“… Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith – even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment and the aggression against neighbouring states.”
– Former South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils from a speech at Israel Apartheid Week 2009.13
Israel and Apartheid: Is It a Fair Comparison? | Dissident Voice
“But what is interesting is that every black South African that I’ve spoken to who has visited the Palestinian territory has been horrified and has said without hesitation that the system that applies in Palestine is worse.”
– Professor John Dugard, Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine.
Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture: Apartheid and Occupation under International Law with John Dugard
“Apartheid Israel can be defeated, just as apartheid in South Africa was defeated.”
– Winnie Mandela
Apartheid Israel can be defeated, says Winnie - Politics | IOL News | IOL.co.za
“”When I come here and see the situation [in the Palestinian territories], I find that what is happening here is ten times worse than what I had experienced in South Africa. This is Apartheid.”
– Arun Ghandi
Inter Press Network: Friday, September 03, 2004
“The horrendous dehumanisation of Black South Africans during the erstwhile Apartheid years is a Sunday picnic, compared with what I saw and what I know is happening to the Palestinian people.”
– Willie Madisha, former head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
Israel and Apartheid: Is It a Fair Comparison? | Dissident Voice
“As someone who lived in apartheid South Africa and who has visited Palestine I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, I believe that some of Israel’s actions make the actions of South Africa’s apartheid regime appear pale by comparison.”
– Willie Madisha, in a letter supporting CUPE Ontario’s resolution.
Israel and Apartheid: Is It a Fair Comparison? | Dissident Voice
“I say with confidence that Israel is an Apartheid state. The trade union movement must move beyond resolutions, otherwise history will look back on us and spit on our graves.”
– Willie Madisha, at a trade union conference held in London, England.
PGFTU Account of recent events in Nablus
“Indeed, for those of us who lived under South African Apartheid and fought for liberation from it and everything that it represented, Palestine reflects in many ways the unfinished business of our own struggle.”
– Farid Esack, Writer, Visiting Professor at Harvard and Anti-apartheid Spokesperson.
?I come from Apartheid South Africa. Arriving in your land, the land of Palestine, the sense of deja vu is inescapable.? | Mondoweiss
“They support Zionism, a version of global racist domination and apartheid based on the doctrine that Jews are superior to Arabs and therefore have a right to oppress them and occupy their country.”
– Current COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini.
Address By Sidumo Dlamini, To The International Strategy Workshop Towards The International Solidarity Conference Of COSATU
Here is a link to a documentary illustrating the similarities between Apartheid in South Africa and Israel/Palestine.
Watch Roadmap to Apartheid online | Free | Hulu
Apartheid in South Africa was defeated by popular resistance and BDS, and I am convinced Apartheid in Israel/Palestine shall be defeated in that same fashion.
How long? In God's timing, Apartheid shall end in Israel/Palestine