Middle East crisis — ‘Activists are the antibodies of a healthy society,’ says UN’s Francesca Albanese

In the grounds of the Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, just outside Madiba’s old office and current archive, Francesca Albanese spoke of the existential challenge to all our humanity of the genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza.

But she also spoke about the role of civil society activists, calling them “the antibodies of a healthy society”, the future of human rights and why she has developed a special love of our rainbow nation. We publish the interview in full.

Mark Heywood: Good evening, Francesca. Your visit, being hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, has been met with huge interest and acclaim in South Africa. Tomorrow you are speaking at the Sandton Convention Centre, which is one of the biggest venues in Johannesburg. On Monday, you are going to give a major address at the University of Cape Town. What is your message to South Africa at this moment in time in relation to Israel/Palestine and the genocide that is taking place? Is there something you would like us to take home from your visit?

Francesca Albanese: I think that this is the darkest moment for the Palestinians in their entire history, although the history of the Palestinians has been marked by many dark moments. 

This is a moment of existential threat for the Palestinians, and so this is the time to live and to mobilise Nelson Mandela’s legacy of “our freedom will not be achieved until the Palestinians are also free”. 

This is a message of humanity, a universal message of humanity, that of course doesn’t apply to South Africa only. But South Africa and the South African people are the country that has been closely associated with Palestine and the Palestinians historically because of the similarity of the struggle, because of a shared and unresolved experience of settler colonialism. 

Mark Heywood: Of apartheid?

Francesca Albanese: Of course, it’s apartheid. 

Now it has culminated with a genocide. The genocide is not going to stop as the killing has not stopped. A hundred Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the ceasefire.

Therefore, today the question for us is: what does it mean to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians? Solidarity is not an emotion. Solidarity is a verb. Solidarity is a call for action. But what does solidarity mean in practice? What does it mean to do the right thing? What does it mean for the state, for the government?

The government must abide by international law. There should be no aid and assistance to the state of Israel, and therefore there should be a full arms embargo and full trade embargo with Israel.

South Africa has done so much compared to other countries. The very fact of bringing Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is enormous. It’s historical in and of itself because this is the first settler genocide ever to be litigated before an international court. By doing so, South Africa has led the way and opened the door to other states for action. Now, there are over 15 other states that have joined the case. 

Then, South Africa has also been extremely meaningful and not just rhetorical in trying to move towards concrete actions. The Hague Group is a phenomenal development. But it must be sustained.

So what I expect the South African government to do is to mobilise more states, travel to Europe, mobilise European countries, go with your tasks, shake the ground, be the good troublemaker in the good tradition of beloved Nelson Mandela! 

Mark Heywood: You mean remobilise the anti-apartheid movement in support of Palestinian freedom?

Francesca Albanese: Yes, but anti-apartheid is a philosophy, it’s a choice of life, and this is where I think South Africa symbolically has a huge potential. That potential must be translated into action.

The other thing is that for Palestinian people, there is also a battle fought at the level of narrative. It’s very serious that Zionism is so rooted in this country. This is detrimental not just for Palestine, but for the Jewish people of this country. I understand why some Jewish people are so connected to Israel and love Israel so much. But they need to look at what Israel is doing. This has nothing to do with religion. No one can slaughter kids.

Mark Heywood: Yes, it’s to do with supremacy, ideology and things that we thought we had rejected in South Africa. We need to take that same spirit that rejected apartheid and racism in South Africa and apply it to what is happening in Israel.

Francesca Albanese: Exactly. How can you slaughter kids, mothers and fathers and obliterate an entire piece of land in the name of God? This is a heresy. This has nothing to do with religion. This is a choice that doesn’t demand intelligence. It just demands courage. It’s about standing against hypocrisy, standing against this logic of intimidation, which is quite violent – the shutting down of debate, pressurising the Mandela Foundation not to have my visit. What is this? 

Mark Heywood: In South Africa, because of their stance on the genocide, political parties have also come under pressure, NGOs have had funding withdrawn, and so on.

Francesca Albanese: This is how this logic wins, like any violent ideology. This is how it wins, by bullying others into silence. I understand the fear; I don’t blame people harbouring fear. But the question and the challenge is not to be controlled by fear. [It is necessary] and to find the coping mechanism, resistance, alliances and the building on the necessity of exploring intersectionality of the struggle – at governmental level, at trade unions level, at university level, and of course grassroots and civil society.

Mark Heywood: Is there a special role for civil society? You’ve been at the Mandela Foundation this afternoon, meeting with activists. What do you say to activists? Is there a different job for activists, to the government at this moment, both in South Africa and globally?

Francesca Albanese: Own the fact that you are the antibodies of a healthy society!

There is something so noble about being an activist, someone who renounces, to get out of your own comfort zone, who takes sacrifices, who devotes the time to others, to social justice, to take care of others. This is something beautiful. This is solidarity in action, and solidarity is the political definition of love, as someone says. 

Mark Heywood: Beautiful. You are an expert and professor of international law, of human rights. Many activists feel betrayed by international law, they feel that international law has failed, that such blatant impunity, genocide, has succeeded, and law has done nothing to stop it. What do you say to this? Should we rebuild faith in international law and even in the United Nations? I heard you speaking very frankly inside about the way the UN has failed abysmally to stop this.

Francesca Albanese: Absolutely. But we need to realise that the United Nations is not a divine entity. It is made of states. This is the failure of states. This is why I don’t take the criticism of International law so light-heartedly. Because eventually, international law is a tool, not a magic wand. It doesn’t operate on its own, it depends on institutions. 

So yes, there is an abysmal failure of institutions, of governments, of states, to abide by their obligations. 

In my most recent [UN Special Rapporteur’s] report I say the genocide in Gaza is a collective crime; it is a joint criminal endeavour, where states have been providing weapons, have been trading with the apartheid state of Israel. This is including at the time it was developing an economy of genocide – meaning profiteering from genocide and including corporations and universities. 

They have all been enablers. 

If Gaza were a crime scene, it would have the fingerprints of all of us…

This is why we need to understand that international law does not fail or succeed on its own, it’s the use that we make of international law. Eventually, it boils down to citizens being the ultimate guardians of the application of international law. There are people who have been fighting and dying and sacrificing their lives to have their rights codified. It’s such a betrayal to say “oh, international law doesn’t work, or the SA Constitution doesn’t work”. We have to make it work. 

Justice is an unfinished job, 

Mark Heywood: Citizens have to make it work. Are you worried that the very notion of human rights is under threat globally?

Francesca Albanese: Yes, it’s a real thing. The plutocracy is a transnational endeavour, clearly. It has its epicentre in the West, but it’s well spread everywhere. It’s resisting. The more you try to vindicate human rights, the more you advance their claims, the more you bother, the more you are a troublemaker, the system pushes back. 

This is where civil society, grassroots organisation and the good part of the institutions – including civil servants, the disgruntled part of civil servants, those who want to be more civil than servants – must organise. 

There is so much that is to be changed, but the change is in every step, and it depends on every one of us, and daily choices and daily sacrifices we make.

Mark Heywood: You’ve talked about the existential threat to Palestinian people in Gaza. But in a comment that you made in a speech to the Hague Group in July, you said that “stopping the genocide is an existential question for all of us”. What do you mean by that? 

Francesca Albanese: Look, a people is like a body. You chop a limb, the entire body suffers. We need to understand that the genocide in a settler colonial endeavour is the attempt to annihilate, to destroy a people. It calls upon who we are as people. Because the UN Charter talks about us, “we the peoples”. If we don’t save one another in the most critical moment, in the face of the most existential threat, who are we? 

It’s something so enormous to let a group, a state, a people destroy another people, that it really puts into question our humanity. If we don’t act, if we are not compelled to act in the face of a genocide, can we really claim to be a healthy humanity? 

I don’t think so. There is something monstrous in the inaction, in the silence, in the looking away from a genocide at the moment it happens. And this has been ongoing for two years already.

Mark Heywood: May I ask one last question? I know you probably won’t want me to ask this question, but doing the job that you’re doing at the moment – speaking truth against the greatest power in the world, taking the insults, taking the sanctions from the US, I’m sure drawing a lot of hate – what is it that is keeping you going? 

Francesca Albanese: Look, I know what I’m doing. I knew what I was putting myself into when I wrote that report. I’ve been scared. I’ve been scared until the very moment the report became public. It’s not that I’m not scared or I have no fear. Of course, I receive death threats, and the threats have become very close, too close for me to ignore.

At the same time, as I was saying, it’s not the fear, but the way you allow fear to control you. Frankly, the insults, I don’t care about. Because there is so much love, what I say resonates with people because what I say comes from what I’ve learnt. 

My ability to speak truth to power comes from what I’ve seen happening to other people, because of silence, because of cowardice of the majority. The Holocaust would have never taken place had our European fathers and our grandfathers been better human beings. 

And now a genocide has happened under our eyes. And it is in my DNA to be a better person, and I want to be a different European from what was done until 60 or 70 years ago. 

There is a new Europe, and the new Europe speaks a language of humanity and walks the talk. 

You know, there are two places where I’ve always been hesitant to visit. One is Bosnia, because the genocide in Bosnia happened when I was 18, and I’ve done nothing. I was active on so many things and not this! To come close to the Bosnians after the genocide, to the people in Srebrenica; the reason why we have a genocide memorial in Srebrenica is because of the Srebrenica murders, not because they’ve enjoyed the solidarity and the support of so many.

Today, we must be different.

The other place is South Africa. Again, I’m a white person from Europe. So I was scared, because my language is forceful. I was aware of cultural sensitivity. And it’s so beautiful, so beautiful, to see this feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood. I feel the love of the people here, and I feel it inside myself before feeling it from the people toward me.

So when the Nelson Mandela Foundation says, “welcome home”, I feel it.

Mark Heywood: I think you are at home in the home of Nelson Mandela. I think Nelson Mandela would’ve been very proud and inspired by you. I think Nelson Mandela would’ve said that you’re somebody who follows his legacy, his values, his spirit. For me, Francesca, I just want to say you’ve given me hope. I think you’ve given a lot of other people inspiration, hope and a sense of power.

Francesca Albanese: It’s been like a sudden realisation, but also something that sinks in every day and every hour a little bit more. After being here for three intense days and meeting hundreds of people, I won’t ask myself any more, how come Nelson Mandela was a South African? Because you are a special people and really you carry a love and an energy. You really are a rainbow people. 

Now let’s make sure that the other side of the rainbow lands in Palestine, and let’s make the arc of history bend towards justice. DM