Ebrahim Rasool Ambassador and Believer

Transcription

1 Ebrahim Rasool Ambassador and Believer Ebrahim Rasool is the South African ambassador to the USA. Prior to this he was a member of the National Assembly and Special Advisor to President Kgalema Motlanthe. Immediately after South Africa s first democratic elections in 1994, Rasool was appointed Minister of Health and Welfare in the Western Cape. In 2001 he was appointed Provincial Minister for Finance and Economic Development, and after the ANC s electoral victory in the Western Cape in 2004, he became Premier of that province. Rasool s involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle started at Livingstone High School, where he played a leading role in uprisings against unequal education in the 1980s. He continued to be involved in student resistance movements as a student at UCT, where he earned a BA degree and a Higher Diploma in Education. In 1983, Rasool was elected onto the Regional Executive of the UDF. Rasool was a founder member of the COI in 1984 and was involved in the launch of the South African Chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, organising two formative conferences on the role of religion in the struggle against apartheid and in a future post-apartheid South Africa. The National Muslim Conference was the first of these conferences. It addressed the need for a democratic South Africa to be a Dar-al-Amaanwa- Salaam (Abode of Security and Peace) for Muslims who constituted a small but significant minority in the country. The second conference, the National Interfaith Conference, brought together representatives of all the major religions practised in South Africa. Its aim was to 230 Religion and Culture

2 conceptualise the nature of a post-apartheid secular state, within which freedom of religion and the common values of the country s diverse religions could be included in the South African Constitution and a Bill of Rights. Building on his involvement in civil society, Rasool established the World for All Foundation in 2008 to promote a vision of an inclusive, shared society, free of religious and ideological extremisms in South Africa and around the world. Ebrahim Rasool occupies the nation s top ambassadorial post in Washington, DC, the capital of a country that declared its independence in 1776 on the basis of the separation of church and state. He believes in the active role of religion in the nation-building process. He is a devout Muslim, and is dedicated to building unity within Islam and the promotion of positive relations between Muslims and South Africans of other religious and secular beliefs. I am a Muslim. That s who I am, he says. He, at the same time, proclaims his South Africanness. I need to affirm both with the same breath, he insists. I explore what it means to be human by drawing on the history of Islam in the world and in South Africa, while seeking to understand and learn from other faiths and secular belief systems that are part of our common history. While race and racism have long been a defining characteristic of South African society, religious difference has never resulted in the kind of violence that religion has caused, or been used to promote or foment, in other parts of the world. Given the religious differences that exist in the Western Cape, however, it is something that needs to be both monitored and addressed. Rasool admits that although he smiles publicly, there is a brooding spirit within him that ponders the challenges of building a nation within which all South Africans are comfortable and feel secure. This is epitomised by his enduring involvement in religious and political affairs in the Western Cape and elsewhere. He says: My journey has been a tough one. I carry the scars. It has also been one filled with spiritual and political purpose. I have seen death and I live life I am Lazarus, raised from the dead. I have seen the worst, I can handle whatever life throws at me, and I revel in the challenges that we face as a nation. Conversations in Transition 231

3 Religion and politics Rasool explains his participation in South Africa s struggle against apartheid and in the post-1994 nation-building process both theologically and politically. He speaks at length of the contours and deviations of Islamic history and belief systems, stressing that the differences within Islam, including the early schism between the majority Sunni and the minority Shiite groups, were essentially political rather than spiritual. Over the centuries these political differences have spawned a number of varying practices and conflicts of spiritual significance, with dogmatic and fundamentalist groups emerging within both the Sunni and Shiite groups. He notes that there are times when some within these groups have reduced Islam to a narrow ideology that lends legitimisation to notions of Islamophobia in the West. Rasool s concern is to ensure that the different beliefs and practices of Islam are openly debated and rationally contested. It is only in so doing, he argues, that the essential values of the Qur an can be understood, appropriated and promoted. Muslims came to South Africa 300 years ago when slaves and exiles, including several important religious leaders, were sent from Dutch colonies in the Malay Archipelago and south India to what was at the time a Dutch colony in the Western Cape. They were joined by slaves from Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius and elsewhere. Under British colonialism, Indian indentured labourers were, in turn, sent to Port Natal to provide cheap labour on sugar cane farms. They were later joined by merchants and professional people who contributed to the growing Muslim presence in South Africa. The descendants of the Indian community largely retained their Indian identities, while many of the descendants of slaves in time came to be absorbed into a larger heterogeneous ethnic group with ancestries traceable back to Europe and various Khoisan and Bantu tribes. Collectively, they came to be known as coloureds, with those living in the Western Cape being drawn into a Cape Malay community built around Muslim ritual and belief, an emerging common language (Afrikaans or kitchen Dutch ) as well as music and culture. Together with black Africans, these groups were largely located at the lower end of racial and class distinction in South Africa. With the statutory introduction of apartheid under the NP in 1948, black South Africans were legally reduced to second- and third-class citizens. Muslims were also religiously ostracised, with Islam being regarded by the Dutch Reformed Church, which was effectively the state church of the time, as a false faith. Muslims were faced with a choice of either being victims or fighting for the 232 Religion and Culture

4 integrity of their faith in the face of an extreme form of Christian nationalism. Rasool sees this as contributing to both acquiescence and resistance in the Muslim community. It is only in recent years that he sees a middle ground within Islam emerging in South Africa. (He uses the Arabic word, wasatiyah, which he translates as the most middlemost to expound on this position.). Explaining this position, he draws on the early period of Islamic history when Muslims were ostracised and martyred, and the Prophet was ridiculed, to the point where Muslims cried out to Allah for relief. Rasool refers to the raging battles of that time described in the Qur an, indicating that the gift of Allah came to those who sought his favour, not in the form of a military victory, but as the gift of Sakinah the gift of peace and tranquility which he explains as a capacity to remain calm in the face of anger. The Qur an, like the sacred texts of all major religions, carries within it the spirit of its times. It appears to be tolerant of slavery and counsels husbands to beat their wives lightly. Arguing that these and related injunctions need to be read within the context of the moral universe of the seventh century, Rasool insists that the Qur an be theologically mined for the wisdom it contains. In so doing, he argues, the tranquility of the Qur an comes to the fore effectively requiring that Muslims coexist with people of other faiths and worldviews. This need for coexistence, he argues, began to bear its most notable fruits in South Africa in 1991 when 750 delegates representing every shade of Muslim opinion came together in Cape Town at the National Muslim Conference with the objective of preparing the way for a future Bill of Rights and the institution of laws that would satisfy the minimum requirements and aspirations of Muslims alongside their fellow citizens. After extensive debate on Muslim Personal Law and related matters, the conference committed itself to live in harmony with people of different faiths, under a secular constitution. This position was later also agreed to by a National Interfaith Conference in which Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and people of other religious beliefs debated the nature of a secular constitution. This, Rasool argues, was a part of a religious nation-building process in South Africa that enabled Muslims to participate in establishing the foundation for the democratic process in our country. The journey to this settlement was not, however, a trouble-free or easy one, nor did the conflicts end with the 1994 elections. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 had ignited a series of latent tensions that lay at the heart of the South Conversations in Transition 233

5 African Muslim community. This resulted in the unprecedented insertion of violence and fundamentalism into the lexicon of Muslim debate in South Africa. Rasool explains the vast implications of these developments in relation to three phases of Muslim internal conflict: The MJC, the dominant orthodox organisation that represents more than 150 mosques in the Western Cape, was presided over at the height of the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s and into the 1990s by the conservative but benign and popular Sheik Nazeem Mohamed. It endeavoured to hold the Muslim community together in the face of competing tendencies. Rasool explains that the MYM drew on the theologically fundamentalist teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, suggesting that an Islamic state could only be realised through internal spiritual discipline and personal development. In turn, he describes how Qibla drew on the example of the Iranian revolution to argue that Sharia law could only be realised through political militancy and violence. The COI was opposed to what Rasool defines as the pacifism of the MYM as well as the fundamentalism and violence of Qibla. It found common cause with the MJC in broadening the application of orthodoxy to meet the demands of the time and in providing theological justification for the involvement of Muslims in the struggle against apartheid. Rasool points out that both the MYM and Qibla accused us (the COI) of concluding a Faustian Pact with the conservative forces within the MJC. Well, maybe there was a measure of truth to that. We, however, saw Muslims represented by the MJC, as a fertile ground for progressive ideas and political activism. Rasool argues that the MYM became increasingly isolationist, if not elitist, failing to prepare the community for what he defines as their later adventurist theology. It promoted progressive views on gender and political concerns, while also resorting to technical innovations concerning the Muslim calendar. The latter, he argues, were innovations that undermined the joy of community involvement in the sighting of the new moon that announced the beginning of Eid. Qibla, on the other hand, promoted a form of Muslim political violence, with the aim of introducing an Islamic state, while the COI sought to promote a middle ground between the MYM and Qibla, mobilising Muslims to become involved in the liberation struggle led by the ANC. 234 Religion and Culture

6 A second development within South African Islam concerned the MJC s conflict with those it branded as heretics. The COI had appealed to the MJC s sense of justice in the struggle against apartheid. The MJC, in turn, appealed to the COI to contribute to maintaining a sense of internal cohesion in the Muslim community. This, says Rasool, resulted in many in the COI being drawn into conflict and violence with the Ahmadi heretics. Yes, there were some excesses committed in the process and we must take responsibility for what we did. Arguing that while this period of conflict had acquired a moral demeanour of its own, he insists that we must not justify what we did at that time in terms of the end result it produced. I certainly do not morally justify all that happened. A third aspect of the Muslim quest for internal cohesion in the struggle against apartheid involved the emergence of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) in the late 1990s. We thought we had reached our nirvana in the sense of achieving a measure of Muslim cohesion and participation in a post-apartheid society, when PAGAD, drawing on a fundamentalist interpre tation of Islam, opposed the emergence of a democratic South Africa based on a secular constitution. Their highprofile political activism, violence and exclusivist theology threatened to destroy the gains made within Islam in recent years that had resulted in Islam being able to reap the benefits of participating in and promoting a constitutional democracy in South Africa. PAGAD was accused of firebombing Sheik Nazeem Mohamed s house, clerics were attacked and there were allegations of PAGAD s involvement in the assault and murder of Muslim businessmen and others. Rasool and other Muslim leaders insisted that the organisation needed to be isolated. A meeting of over 50 leading Muslims, which included ulama, judges, journalists, businesspeople, government leaders and others, was called to expose PAGAD. A sermon, accusing PAGAD in Qur anic terms of Ghamiyyah-ghamiyyahjoahiliyah (extremism and irresponsibility) was composed to be read on the same Friday in mosques across the Western Cape. The sermon was widely covered in the media. Rasool identifies this as a decisive turning point in the affirmation of middle-ground Islam in South Africa. It is this Islam, he argues, that locates Muslims within the South African democracy, while at the same time contributing to democracy. Conversations in Transition 235

7 A personal journey Classified coloured under apartheid legislation, Rasool was born and raised in District Six at the height of apartheid in the 1960s and early 1970s. Forcibly removed with his family to Primrose Park, close to Manenberg, his story has an authentic Western Cape ring to it. He suggests that many traditional Muslims live in two isolated or compartmentalised worlds the world of traditional Islam and the secular world of business, critical thinking and western education. This, he suggests, is dramatically symbolised in the Muslim woman who leaves home in the morning with aijābor scarf over her head, removes it at the bus stop, places it in her bag, and puts it on again in the evening. Men, in turn, leave their secular selves at the door of the mosque, as they take off their shoes to pray. Then, all too often, they put their religious and ethical values aside as they go about their daily business. Outside the mosque they may remember their religion in the practice of a particular ritual or in order to defend some aspect of Muslim dogma, while failing to integrate their faith into their daily lives. The rational and secular on the one hand, and religious and ritual on the other, fail to meet in meaningful dialogue. The middle ground is elusive and the extremes are tempting. Rasool s personal journey is an exercise in the integration of these two worlds and his engagement within the political sphere is intended, in his words, to challenge Muslims and others to integrate their lives into the lives of others. Reflecting on the ancestral origins of most Muslims in South Africa, he says, if being coloured means that one has mixed blood, then I have all the mix that it requires. His ancestors included a fourth generation Englishman, Javanese slaves and a woman of Dutch descent who was later (re)classified coloured. Continuing his story he says: My mother brought a sense of Muslim piety into our home, with Sheikh Nazeem Mohamed being regarded as the family s spiritual leader. My father was more of a free-thinker. Buying the Cape Times and the Cape Argus every day, he brought the outside world into our lives. Rasool s first real exposure to politics came when he attended Livingstone High, where Richard O Dudley was school principal and president of the New Unity Movement. I spent hours in Dudley s office in my senior year, discussing whether to become involved in boycotts and other forms of political protest, he recalls. Despite all Dudley taught me and it was a lot I became increasingly frustrated with what I saw as an overly cerebral form of politics. I wanted to become engaged in street politics. 236 Religion and Culture

8 While at high school, Rasool began to discover a new religious dimen sion to his life that deepened during his years at university. He joined the Muslim Students Association and the Azanian Students Organisation (AZASO). Again, he needed to bridge the secular and the religious, which began to happen when he attended the UDF launch in 1983 as a member of the AZASO Executive, and a year later when he was involved in the formation of the COI. He became increasingly involved in student protests and the UDF, was imprisoned for three months for his political activities in 1985, and again in 1987 for a period of thirteen months. After his release from prison, he married Roshieda after what he defines as a traumatic political courtship. We walked life s journey that was opening up for us together although, very clearly, she was able to integrate the two worlds of religious and political life better than me. She also exposed me to issues of women s rights, including the freedom of choice and reproductive rights. Following the unbanning of the ANC, Rasool was elected treasurer of the ANC s Western Cape region and, in his words, the die was cast for my future. He, at the same time, clung to his engagement with the mosque, arguing that a neglect of this link would have cut him off from his place in the history of the struggle and would have condemned him to a shallow form of political pursuit. He says: If I had not been able to read the Qur an, attend mosque and share in Muslim fasts and celebrations, I would not have had the spiritual strength to get me through some very dark days. These spiritual practices are, for him, interwoven into things like Malay choirs, weddings, funerals, singing spiritual songs, eating traditional food and such things. The spiritual, the cultural, the social and the political are for me an integrated whole. He insists that in being critical of parts of Islam in the Western Cape I am still part of it and I am dependent on it. This is where I live and move and have my being. I cannot not be a Muslim, he maintains. Rasool stresses the importance of relationship-building and maintenance, both among Muslims and between Muslims and other religious groups in South Africa. I have worked hard at building trust in the community, not least with traditional and conservative sections of the Muslim community. As a result of this I am welcomed in mosques across the Western Cape, often being asked to occupy the pulpit at Friday prayers. Trust, he insists, is a prerequisite for intelligent debate and honest disagreement, arguing that the majority of Muslims in the Western Cape have never been exposed to life beyond the intimacy of their immediate homes, their communities and their Conversations in Transition 237

9 mosques. These people are threatened and left insecure in the face of new ideas and non-traditional teachings. He refers to this traditional community as the constituency where I worked for many years and to which I shall one day return. If I cannot persuade and convince the more conservative people in this constituency of the importance of their being part of the secular South African state, then maybe my views on these matters are wrong. This is a battle that requires more than intellectual debate. It requires understanding, solidarity and taking responsibility for the successes and failures of the larger Muslim community. The underbelly of ANC politics Rasool identifies the electoral defeat of the ANC in the Western Cape in 1994 as the beginning of the most intense period of his political career, which would essentially lead to what he defines as his Lazarus moment. Recriminations and accusations were deep and fractious in the coloured community of the Western Cape after the 1994 elections. The ANC was torn into four factions the ANC s traditional base in Gugulethu; the Left under COSATU and the SACP; the Africanist tendency; and the coloured community, divided into the rural and urban sectors. Rasool was entrusted by an informal group that sought unity in the ANC to draft a document titled The ANC: A Home for All aimed at preparing the way for the ANC to win the 1999 elections. It successfully drew three of these four groupings into an alliance, with Rasool being elected as chairperson and Mcebisi Skwatsha as provincial secretary of the ANC. The ANC won 42 percent of the provincial vote in the 1999 elections, the New National Party (NNP) won 38 percent and the DA 12 percent, with the latter two parties joining forces to form a coalition government. The NNP, however, withdrew from this coalition two years later. The ANC, in turn, wanted to broaden its base in the Western Cape and an ANC-NNP government was established in This, arguably, paved the way for the ANC to win a clear majority at the polls in 2004, with Rasool being appointed Premier of the province. The irony is that at the moment of victory, the old demons re-emerged in the ANC with a new level of intensity. There was scrutiny of the voting profile to determine how many blacks, coloureds and whites ought to be included in the provincial cabinet. Contrary to ANC policy, Skwatsha further insisted on being both the provincial Minister of Public Works and secretary of the ANC in the Western Cape, which Rasool sees as the precursor to all hell breaking out 238 Religion and Culture

10 in the ANC. Suspicions emerged concerning the affairs of the Public Works Department and the allocation of tenders, while recriminations intensified in the ANC. The high-stakes game included Rasool being voted out as provincial leader of the ANC at the Western Cape Provincial Conference in Two days later Mbeki dismissed Jacob Zuma as Deputy President of South Africa, after his conviction on corruption charges in the Durban High Court and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was appointed Deputy President in his place. Zuma retained his position as Deputy President of the ANC, with accusations and counter-accusations escalating within the ANC at a national level and in the Western Cape. The latter included allegations of brown envelope payments being made by Rasool as Premier to journalists in return for media support. Intra-ANC conflict deepened and in 2006 Rasool offered his resignation as Premier of the Western Cape to President Mbeki who, following consultations with leaders of the Western Cape government, refused to accept it. The National Conference of the ANC in Polokwane in December 2007 lay ahead and the majority of Western Cape delegates voted for Mbeki, who was defeated by Zuma. National divisions between Mbeki and Zuma were taking precedence over the politics of the Western Cape. Rasool s opponents pushed for his resignation and he was recalled as Premier of the Western Cape government in July 2008, after which he was appointed as an advisor to Motlanthe, who at the time was Minister without Portfolio in the Mbeki cabinet. In September 2008, Mbeki was recalled as the country s president by the National Executive Committee of the ANC and Motlanthe was elected President. After the 2009 general election Zuma became President of the Republic. The ANC lost the 2009 elections in the Western Cape and Rasool was appointed a member of the National Assembly. Rasool became involved in a public spat in the media with Max Ozinsky, the ANC whip in the Provincial Assembly, which resulted in the membership of both Rasool and Ozinsky being suspended by the ANC Provincial Executive for bringing the party into disrepute a decision that was later reversed at the instigation of the ANC National Executive. Rasool later explained his vote against Zuma at the Polokwane Conference to President Zuma saying: I saw the disciples and feared the master. When Rasool was appointed in 2010 as the South African ambassador to the USA his opponents petitioned President Zuma to cancel the appointment. I lived through dark days in the ANC, with very mixed emotions. I was angry. Conversations in Transition 239

11 I had been exiled within by the very movement that gave me birth. I also remembered that I had been an insignificant laatie from the Cape Flats when the ANC gave me political direction and I needed to remain within its fold. I resisted the temptation to join the Congress of the People, which is what some of my close associates did. Ambassador Rasool says that when he received a phone call to meet President Zuma in his home, he had no idea that he was going to be offered the post he now occupies. Once I had digested this, I recalled that Trevor Manuel and I had been the only ANC leaders who agreed to meet with a largely unknown senator from Illinois, called Barak Obama, when he visited South Africa in I was now going to present my credentials as ambassador to President Obama. He refers to a sense of vulnerability in the US, driven by the worst recession since the Great Depression, that is emerging after the shrillness and arrogance that once accompanied that country s economic and military might. He sees this as the opening of a space within which the case for trade and security issues relating to the developing world and South Africa can be confidently promoted. It is also an opportunity to explain South Africa s stance on issues concerning the status of the Palestinian people, tensions in Burma, concerns about Libya, other conflicts in the so-called Arab Spring countries in North Africa, and in the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa and Zimbabwe. South Africa is in the fortunate position of being neither an enemy nor a client state of America, he notes. We are beginning to be seen and heard as an independent voice in a world where political and geostrategic alliances as well as economic relations are being reconfigured. There is a certain fascination that the South African ambassador is both African and Muslim someone who is engaged in debate on Muslim theological and political concerns, he says. I am invited to speak on a range of different religious, cultural and political issues and to address think-tanks on the left and the right of American politics. He speaks of the significance of South Africa being included in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and of the recognition of South Africa s role in spearheading development initiatives in Africa and elsewhere. China, he says, is on the lips of almost every American. As ambassador I need to choose my words carefully. I also need to speak and intervene in an honest way in order to establish my integrity as a person and as a representative 240 Religion and Culture

12 of a country within which there are many different voices regarding global concerns. Rasool refers to the words of the song: If you can t be with the one you love, you need to love the one you re with. This, he suggests, is a form of wisdom that lies at the heart of his job. He points out that America is a huge country which draws together people of vastly different views. South Africa is a small country which is not of much obvious interest to all Americans. There are, however, given the fluidity of opinions in America, an increasing number of people in business, in government and in international think-tanks who are interested in South Africa. Businesses are beginning to see Africa as an economic opportunity in a depressed international economic environment. There are also those in America who were arrested outside of the South African embassy for protesting against apartheid, who drove a disinvestment campaign, and who refused to offload South African goods in American ports. Each of these groups is a primary constituency for me. I have built relations in the diverse Muslim community and with other South Africans at home. I now seek to build relations with a cross-section of people in America. I firmly believe that courtesy, respect and good relations precede understanding and the acceptance of new ideas and insights. Conversations in Transition 241