In a letter shared by various media outlets, former anti-Apartheid activist Ronnie Kasrils writes, “So appalled were Pallo Jordan, Ebrahim Ebrahim and I at the Labour Party’s suspension of Jeremy Corbyn, their former leader, on October 29th, that we drafted a petition directed to his successor, Keir Starmer.” Kasrils continues with: “We, South Africans, are deeply disturbed at the Labour Party’s treatment and suspension of Jeremy Corbyn. We can attest to his outstanding support for the liberation of South Africa from apartheid, and his resolute stand against all forms of racism, discrimination, antisemitism, xenophobia, injustice and oppression of people, wherever such evils are manifested. We stand in solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn and join those in Britain calling for his reinstatement without delay.” Regular columnist Simon Lincoln Reader feels strongly that his support is misplaced and that Kasrils assumes people still associate the ANC with the pursuit of justice. – Claire Badenhorst
What does Ronnie Kasrils think he’s doing interfering in an anti-Semitism investigation?
By Simon Lincoln Reader*
Peering into the heart of British left-wing Twitter is like entering an obsessive hoarder’s lodgings 10 days after he was last seen. It is quickly apparent that not even industrial masks can repel the odour from a decade’s worth of vindaloo silver trays, broken lavatories, and the mountains of cat shit covering everything from VHS cassettes to yellowed copies of the Socialist Worker. Observing the correspondence of the same group is like listening to the hoarder’s friends lament his parting: “Derek was a committed socialist,” they remark, “who inherited a 2.9m quid house from his parents in Belsize Park and was passionate about Palestine and climate change.”
There is a sense of the inevitable through the forms and turns of each tweet. Sooner or later an anti-Semitic remark is encountered, most of the time attached to a worn disclaimer (but sometimes not): BEiNg 🐈 cRitiCAL oF 🤪 iSraEL doEs nOT qUAlifY aS anTi-seMitiSm🤡
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It is into this swamp of jealousy, mental derangement and appalling hygiene that Ronald Kasrils has intentionally waded, alongside two other rotters of equally jerkish appeal, including, erm, “DOCTOR” Z Pallo Jordan and someone called Ebrahim Ebrahim, who most sensible people would immediately have to Google. Together they have headlined a petition on Change.org demanding the re-instatement of Jeremy Corbyn to the UK Labour party.
What happened: after months of investigation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (the UK equivalent of the HRC) published its report into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party under former leader Jeremy Corbyn. To the surprise of nobody Corbyn was revealed to be wholly incompetent, negligent and sometimes even complicit in a litany of incidents involving anti-Semitism.
He was suspended from the party and immediately gapped it to the Isle of Wight, where, in a remarkable coincidence, he was pictured in the company of a crusty anti-Semite nudist. Were it not for the US elections and Boris Johnson’s capitulation to zombie-science academics, this – a former leader of an opposition party who came achingly close to becoming Prime Minister and being suspended for racism – would have already been archived as one of this country’s greatest ever political scandals.
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You have to be a particular type of person to dismiss the EHRC findings. I personally know some Jewish Labour members affected by the bullying, harassment and concerted humiliation attempts, consequences of which have included suicidal thoughts, self-harm and depression. One man claims he suffered early onset dementia symptoms, and his wife reportedly miscarried. My own lawyer was provoked so viciously that he responded by declaring a death wish upon his social media tormentors. He ended up being fined by a solicitor’s tribune.
For years, this culture festered in Labour under Corbyn – and this fact doesn’t give a monkeys about Ronnie or his pedestrian career in a notoriously corrupt party, or about how intelligent Dr Z supposedly was before van Onselen bust him lying. Ebrahim was probably only included in this little caper because he knows a sociopath called Muhammad Khalid Sayed, who accused United States Ambassador to South Africa, Lana Marks, of “playing wolf” (?) with regard to death threats allegedly from Iran as revenge for the death of local London hero Qasem Soleimani (Beijing24 published this “opinion” – naturally).
Ronnie and Dr Z’s problem here reaches even beyond the excesses of Corbyn’s supporters. Most of these people – from students to professors to civil servants to the media to HR personnel in multinational companies – have attached themselves to wokeness to such a degree that their lives are now reduced to matrix charts of contradictions. What Ronnie and Dr Z add to this toxic fantasy is more exaggerated status – self and reality – the idea that the petition would sommer attract support working on the assumption that people still rapidly associate the ANC with the pursuit of justice. Horse. Bolted.
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Ronnie may have been exonerated for anti-Israel sentiments by the South African Human Rights Commission in 2007 but there are no Buang Jones cut-outs in London. This investigation was thorough, fair – its recommendations considered and its impact(s) accommodated. The only explanation [NOTE: not excuse] worth entertaining is that Corbyn lacks the intellectual capacity to understand what actually happened under his watch.
Meanwhile peace is breaking out in the Middle East and an African country with a predominately Muslim population has normalised ties to Israel. Ronnie thinks that everything is always going Cuito Cuanavale, that with one more little push over the top Palestine will be liberated and the next thing Jeremy Corbyn is on a people-trafficker Mercy Ship, wearing those sandals with 100 holes in them, getting ready to take the next wave into Gaza where he’ll celebrate with bottles of jam made from his allotment in North London.
- Simon Lincoln Reader works and lives in London. You can follow him on Medium.
