NEW BOOK RELEASE
Anthony Löwstedt, 7 July 2010, Apartheid – Ancient, Past, and Present: Systematic and Gross Human Rights Violations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine, Vienna: Gesellschaft für Phänomenologie und kritische Anthropologie, 2010, 6th edition, (1st edition 2006)
The author, Dr. Anthony Löwstedt, worked and carried out research over twelve years on three continents for this book, which is now appearing in a new, updated and considerably extended edition on the web. In his Foreword to this edition, the Israeli historian and editor of the forthcoming volume, Peoples Apart: Israel, South Africa and the Apartheid Question (I.B. Tauris, 2010), Ilan Pappe, writes:
„Although the association of apartheid South Africa and the Palestine issue has been in the air for quite a while, very few scholarly books tackled the comparison in a profound and professional way. This book is one of the first serious attempts. . . It does not confine the comparison to South Africa alone. After all, apartheid and segregation accompanied other…regimes and these case studies are equally important for such a comparative study. The novelty here, however, is not confined to extending the comparison geographically or chronologically. What the author calls the ‘wide sense’ of apartheid exposes layers quite often hidden from the public, and quite often the professional eye. These include the impact of segregation polices in both societies on individual violence, family cohesion and gender issues. . . The awareness that the story in one case, South Africa, has come to an end and the terrible sense of worse to come in the other, in Israel and Palestine, gives this book particular urgency and vitality.”
Apartheid is a crime against humanity under international law, which uses the term ‘apartheid’ in a generic sense, i.e. not restricted to South Africa, yet academic and theoretical efforts to extend the applicability of the term, ‘apartheid’, have been slow. This book attempts to meet what the author sees as a need to discuss the definition of apartheid much more extensively, especially since the UN Human Rights Envoy, John Dugard, has recommended charging Israel with the crime of apartheid in international courts. The book also addresses such questions as: How does apartheid relate to colonialism, genocide, and other crimes against humanity? To what extent does the concept of apartheid enable us to explain what has happened and what is happening in Israel/Palestine? Are predictions possible based on the South African experience? In what areas and for how long are apartheid legacies likely to linger in South Africa (and in a possible post-conflict Israel/Palestine)?
Anthony Löwstedt was born in Sweden and grew up there and in Hong Kong, he studied in Vienna, and worked here for a press freedom organization, the International Press Institute, for ten years. He has also been active as an academic and UN consultant in South Africa (University of the Witwatersrand, University of Pretoria, UNESCO) and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Bir Zeit University, UNDP, UNESCO). Since 1997 he teaches Media Communications, History, and Philosophy at Webster University Vienna.
You can view the web edition here, or below on RamallahOnline.com