Imam Achmad Cassiem giving a lecture in London on Feb. 23, 2002

I was 3 years old when on December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the preamble, the following clause occurs:

“Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind … Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law …” (Emphasis added)

But who determines what human rights are? Who is entitled to legislate human rights? What is the purpose of human rights? And how can human rights be enforced? The Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states an objective which is itself a violation of human rights—that is, to prevent human beings from revolting against an unjust system! This right to revolt against an unjust government was included in the Rights of Man and adopted in August 1789 during the French Revolution.

Resistance is a law of nature. Before resistance sets in, there is only the prospect of subjection, capitulation, and defeat.

There are various dimensions of resistance. First, emotional resistance comes naturally in the form of distrust, anger, and hatred. It didn’t take long for us to hate the apartheid system because it poisoned every sphere of our lives. It prescribed who we are, what we are, where to school, what to learn, where to work, whom to marry, and where to live.

Second, intellectual resistance is best articulated in terms of specific ideological perspectives. This includes principles, values, and ideals. Ideological perspectives can be learned and can be taught.

While I was at secondary school, it was not difficult to understand that the entire system rested on racism and capitalism. More specifically on racist capitalism and capitalist racism. Racism postulates that mankind consists of many races that are different and unequal, and that one race is superior to all other races. This is true of Nazism, Zionism, and Afrikaner Nationalism or Herrenvolkism.

Multiracism postulates that mankind consists of many races that are different but equal. Non-racism, on the other hand, declares the negation of racism. This is essentially a defensive position.

In order to attain a non-racist social order, we must resort to anti-racism as an operational strategy. This is an offensive position. Another important distinction is made between racism and racialism. Racism is statutory based and maintained and executed through the judiciary, the police, and the armed forces. Racialism, on the other hand, is not statutory based but the result of indoctrination, social and personal preferences, etc. Racialism still flourishes in spite of the removal of all racist legislation.

It is important to affirm that there is only one race—the human race.

Third, moral resistance is a third dimension to resistance. Moral resistance does not only refer to fighting spirit but more importantly to the morality of the people who have this fighting spirit. The most deprived human being is the one who is unable (perhaps unwilling) to distinguish truth from falsehood. Science is concerned with the value of truth, and morality is concerned with the truth of value. Racism and multi-racism stand condemned on the basis of both science and morality.

There are also spiritual and physical dimensions to resistance.

An in-depth analysis of the intellectual roots of the oppressed peoples in South Africa reveals the influence of three streams of thought, three distinct cultural patterns. Not merely implicit but explicit. These are

1. The indigenous African culture: San, Khoi, Xhosa, Zulu, etc.

2. The Western, colonial, capitalist, Christian influences that arrived with the conquerors and settlers

3. The influence of Islam that arrived with the political exiles and slaves.

If this struggle of the oppressed people in South Africa has a history, which it certainly has, then the Muslims are at the focal point of that history. They were enslaved and in exile while they were on board ships of the conquerors. They arrived in chains while the indigenous Africans were still to be chained.

The slaves and political exiles were already a cultural force in the world. They had resisted European colonialism with armed force. And when they arrived at the Cape they were prepared to do so again. The revolutionary historical momentum was accelerated by cognizance of this fact. Any sincere historian would like to understand the precise nature of this revolutionary ideology, tested and enriched over many centuries and in various communities of oppressed people.

All the other ideologies of a liberatory nature still had to be articulated, formulated, and propagated. The adherents of this revolutionary ideology faced a number of obstacles, including the fact that they were considered infidels because they were not Christians and that they were slaves, political exiles, and non-Europeans. The colonialist conquerors and masters feared these slaves and political exiles because they had ideological clarity, understood the dynamism of the ideology of Islam, and were experienced in liberatory warfare against the colonialist conquerors in other parts of the world.

When we considered the ways and means of liberating ourselves we were not drawn into controversies about the technical preparation for revolution, for there couldn’t be any technical preparation unless we were prepared psychologically, ideologically, and politically for revolution.

The historical records of the Muslims show that the greatest resistance to colonialism was encountered in those countries inhabited by Muslims. And in the contemporary situation it is again the Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt, and Palestine, etc. who are successfully rising up against the superpowers.

It is ideology, and especially the ideology of Islam, that encourages and creates social consciousness, identity, solidarity and inspires positive action on a scale that no other ideology has done or can do.

Islam’s concept of anti-racism is revolutionary because

1. It makes it a moral obligation on its adherents not to obey racist authorities and laws and it encourages all oppressed people to do the same;

2. It goes to the assistance of any victim of racist oppression;

3. It attacks and sets out to destroy and eradicate racism and racialism.

We therefore submit that each and every attempt to bring together races as races is reactionary and is a betrayal of our revolutionary heritage.

An ideology, especially a revolutionary ideology, must define the boundary between oppressor and oppressed; it must not only help identify the system of oppression, it must also define the ideals for which the oppressed people are striving, and it must provide them with the methods of struggle to achieve these ideals.

The Ummah is therefore in constant, persistent, and perpetual conflict with all unjust social orders and ruling classes. It was as the religion of the oppressed that Islam first made its impact on the soil of South Africa. The intellectual roots of the oppressed in South Africa do not stem from the 18th and 19th century ideologies of Europe but from the intellectual heritage of the slaves. And the heritage of the slaves was Islam.

A community whose members are sober from birth to death, who are seekers of knowledge from birth to death, who prefer truth to falsehood at all times, and who invite to martyrdom rather than to survivalism, is already a liberated community.

	Devil’s Island
“Robben Island was called Devil’s Island for a particular reason; it was one of the worst prisons in the world.”—Achmad Cassiem Several prominent figures in the struggle against apartheid, such as Nelson Mandela, Achmad Cassiem, and Ahmed Kathrada, were imprisoned on the island, and they were subjected to physical and psychological torture.

Oppression, Exploitation, and Terrorism 

Oppression is, above everything else, the practice and institutionalization of violence. The problem with oppression is the problem of violence.

Those who monopolize and benefit from violence always portray that violence as necessary and for the benefit of all. The oppressed people submit to the oppressor because of a fear of death. But it has been observed that because they submit they become sick more easily and more frequently, and they die at an earlier age. Yet it is the oppressed who have the sole justification for using violence to resist and eventually eradicate oppression.

The apartheid terrorist regime, like its Siamese twin the Zionist terrorist state, monopolized violence until the oppressed masses responded to state violence with counter-violence.

It is grossly unfair and illogical to demand of the oppressed masses that they must justify their use of violence, while no such demand is made on the oppressor.

We fight ideas with better ideas and we fight force with greater force. And for obvious reasons pre-emptive strikes cannot remain the prerogative of the oppressor.

The decriminalization of crime, for example occupation and torture, also means the criminalization of justice. For efforts to undo the effects of decriminalization of crime are then seen as crimes themselves. Resistance to occupation, oppression, and exploitation is construed as a crime. In South Africa under the apartheid terrorist regime, this was achieved through the Sabotage Act, the Terrorism Act, and the Internal Security Act.

Yet it was apartheid itself that was declared a crime against humanity by the UN General Assembly. And all those who aided and abetted the apartheid terrorist regime formed part of the international crime syndicate committing this crime against humanity.

Ten years after the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), we are still digging up mass graves not only inside South Africa but also in Namibia. The wheels of justice grind slowly but inexorably.

Decade of Decadence (1994–2004)

All periods of radical social change had to provide answers to specific questions and solutions to specific problems. Islam in the period 610–632 CE, the French Revolution (1789), the Russian Revolution (1917), and the Chinese Revolution (1949), to name but a few, had to provide or attempt to provide these answers and solutions. The struggles against colonialism, imperialism, and—in their most vicious forms—the apartheid terrorist state and the Zionist terrorist state, are definitely not exempted from these questions and problems.

How can we judge the effectiveness of the new system? Has it eradicated racism, illiteracy, starvation, and homelessness? Has it curtailed or eliminated alcoholism and drug addiction as a prelude to providing primary health care for all? Has it liberated women specifically? Has it provided the foundation for genuine political mass participation in all issues that affect them?

The media was almost unanimous in applauding the 10 years of democracy. And of course the apartheid criminals—Pik Botha, F.W. De Klerk, Roelf Meyer, General Geldenhuys, etc.—didn’t hesitate to add their praises. Those who defend the slow process of change do not hesitate to explain that 10 years is a very short time in a nation’s life. But have they considered that during that period an average of a quarter million babies were aborted every year—that is conservatively 2.5 million abortions; there were a quarter million murders, 300,000 car thefts, 1.5 million deaths due to HIV/AIDS; robberies, assaults and rapes run into millions.

In one decade we have democratized the decadence and have even displayed a tendency to be proud of it.

Seven million people still live in shanties; 6 million are still unemployed; 8 million adults are illiterate; and 1 in 8 are HIV/AIDS infected. We have produced 500 new ultra-millionaires but still have 21 million people living below the poverty line of 354 rands per month. And of course, 2 million people have lost their jobs since 1994.

Perhaps this is why the new dispensation in South Africa is called a “miracle” and not a revolution. Revolutions are achieved by planning, organization, hard work, and sacrifice, not by wishful thinking and plea-bargaining.

The African Renaissance is a misnomer because the Renaissance is the end product and not the starting point—unless, of course, one is a clairvoyant, a visionary, or a prophet. Or, of course, we are expecting “Miracle Mark II.”

We know now that one doesn’t need a miracle or a series of miracles to create unemployment - there are much easier ways to achieve that. But what is the flipside of this decade of democracy? Let us call it the decade of decadence.

This miracle (a strictly religious concept) is embedded in the absolutism of secularism. That is what makes the South African miracle—a proudly South African product—such a phoney product.

“Poverty of Philosophy” was written by Karl Marx as a retort to the “Philosophy of Poverty.” Yet if things don’t change drastically for the better, then we need to placate the masses with a philosophy of poverty. In one decade we got what the world’s so-called oldest democracy, the United States, couldn’t achieve in over 200 years! Gay and lesbian rights, same-sex marriages, abortion on demand, and the abolition of the death penalty.

We also got national lotteries, casinos, prostitution, a spiralling drug culture, rampant alcoholism, and of course the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And the dubious honor of having the highest murder rate in the world.

The apartheid terrorist regime introduced the vulgarity, obscenity, decadence, and degeneration of tyrants. And in one decade we have democratized the decadence and have even displayed a tendency to be proud of it.

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**Imam Achmad Cassiem’s personal involvement started with the anti-pass campaign in 1960 while he was a student at Wesley Secondary School in Salt River.

In 1964, he was charged under the Sabotage Act and sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labor. He was further subjected to one year in solitary confinement and corporal punishment for exposing conditions on Robben Island and planning to escape from Robben Island.

A banning order was signed by the Minister of Justice three months before his release on December 1, 1969. The banning order expired on December 31, 1974. The banning order meant he could not meet socially with more than one person at a time; he was not allowed to teach anybody or to enter any factory or educational institution; he was not allowed to be quoted; he was under house arrest from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays and for 24-hour days on weekends and public holidays; he was restricted to the magisterial district of Cape Town.

Cassiem was detained again in September 1976 for allegedly inciting armed revolt against the state while addressing students in Surrey Estate Mosque. He was sentenced to another five-year banning order on December 19, 1979.

After being held incommunicado for 14 days, Imam Achmad Cassiem was detained under Section 10 of the Internal Security Act.

While he was in detention during this period, an urgent Supreme Court interdict was applied for against the Prisons Department for imposing, as a punishment, 14 days of total solitary confinement without being charged for any offence. The state had to pay cost of application after the Supreme Court upheld the application. This was an important legal precedent in South Africa and has been noted in law reports.

After being released, he was arrested in 1984 at an open-air Jumu`ah (Friday prayers) with 56 others for attending an illegal gathering as stipulated in the banning order.

Subsequently, he was charged for contravening the banning order by being present at a social gathering, that is, the Jumu`ah (Friday prayers).

On December 2, 1986, Cassiem was charged with terrorism and sentenced on October 28, 1988, to six years imprisonment. He was imprisoned on Robben Island for the second time. The state declared that the Qur’anic verses quoted in his literature was subversive. He was denied leave to appeal against the sentence and conviction.

Cassiem was released on bail in 1991 with stringent conditions, including a ban on travelling beyond a 100-km (62-mi.) radius from his home, surrender of his passport, and requirement to sign at the nearest police station at least twice a week.

The appeal was heard and judgment was passed in September 1993 (the 24th anniversary of the killing in detention of the martyr Imam Abdullah Haron). The conviction was upheld but the sentence reduced.

Achmad Cassiem has been the National Chairperson of the Islamic Unity Convention for nine years. He is the founder of the Qibla organization and he is currently an advisor to the Islamic Human Rights Commission.

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