From Sharpeville to Gaza, Ronnie Kasrils reflects on the shared struggle against apartheid, exposing Israel’s crimes as worse than South Africa’s – and urging the world to act with equal resolve.
On 21 March 1960, I was travelling to work in Johannesburg when the car radio announced that police had opened fire on unarmed protesters in the Black township of Sharpeville, an hour’s drive away. Later reports confirmed that 69 men, women and children had been slain, and another 200 wounded. Grainy photographs hit the front pages. I knew what side I was on. Human sensitivity sufficed.
After that my life was irrevocably altered as I began to move from darkness into the light.
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