Diversity something to be welcomed

MARY KLUK

Yesterday, our President Zev Krengel attended the State Security budget speech. This week, other executive members are attending the 5^th Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in co-operation with the Ministry of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs.

These activities underline what is one of the key functions of the SAJBD, which is to maintain a working connection between the Jewish community and the greater society, whether this is in the realm of local political affairs or those involving international Jewry.

Participating in international conferences enables us to take part in the global Jewish conversation through meeting and exchanging ideas with our counterparts from all over the Jewish world and forging productive working relationships with them.

In the local political sphere, building relationships with government at all levels not only makes it possible for us to deal with issues of direct concern to South African Jewry, but also creates opportunities for our community to participate in and contribute to the wider nation-building process.

What is true of the political and international Jewish spheres also applies to the civil society realm. Much of the essential work in confronting our country’s myriad challenges is being carried out by the NGO sector, including in the human rights, educational and social welfare fields.

In KwaZulu-Natal, the Board’s regional office continues to be much involved, in tandem with such Jewish-headed outreach organisations as ORT-SA and Afrika Tikkun, in addressing the aftermath of the recent xenophobia unrest.

As pointed out in this column last week, this involves dealing not just with the immediate, short-term needs of those who have suffered, but seeking to confront the underlying socio-economic problems that gave rise to the violence in the first place.

An area where I believe our community can make an especially significant contribution is that of tolerance education. This is where the work of the SA Holocaust and Genocide Foundation (SAHGF), and its three regional centres in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, is so vital.

Each year, tens of thousands of learners visit these centres. Among the lessons they learn are that acts of hatred against others based on race, ethnicity or other such grounds do not simply happen out of nowhere, but are invariably preceded by hateful words against those thus targeted.

Just as invariably, a central theme of such discourse is to portray the targeted group as being “the other”, that is, people to be regarded as an alien and negative element in society by virtue of their differing from the mainstream.

Such thinking is at the core of all racist thinking. It is also characteristic of totalitarian regimes, where divergences from what is held to be “correct” modes of thinking are officially discouraged, often by force.

Part of the brief of the SAHGF, therefore, is to teach that diversity whether of race, culture, religion or creed – is something to be respected, indeed welcomed, and that people can hold different views without regarding those who think otherwise as being “the enemy”.

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