[Peace-discuss] Letter from Alice Walker to Publishers at Yediot Books Withholding Permission to Publish "The Color Purple" in Hebrew until Israel changes its policies toward Palestinians

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1917


>From the website of the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel


Alice Walker | PACBI | 9 June 2012



Letter from Alice Walker to Publishers at Yediot Books


This letter is published with author's permission.


June 9, 2012


Dear Publishers at Yediot Books,

Thank you so much for wishing to publish my novel THE COLOR PURPLE.  It
isn’t possible for me to permit this at this time for the following
reason:  As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on
Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and
persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the
Occupied Territories.  The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and
Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating.  I grew up under American
apartheid and this was far worse.  Indeed, many South Africans who
attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes
is worse even than  what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes
that dominated South Africa for so long.

It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)
movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli
civilian society to change the situation.

In that regard, I offer an earlier example of THE COLOR PURPLE’s engagement
in the world-wide effort to rid humanity of its self-destructive habit of
dehumanizing whole populations.  When the film of The Color Purple was
finished, and all of us who made it decided we loved it, Steven Spielberg,
the director, was faced with the decision of whether it should be permitted
to travel to and be offered to the South African public.  I lobbied against
this idea because, as with Israel today, there was a civil society movement
of BDS aimed at changing South Africa’s apartheid policies and, in fact,
transforming the government.

It was not a particularly difficult position to hold on my part:  I believe
deeply in non-violent methods of social change though they sometimes seem
to take forever, but I did regret not being able to share our movie,
immediately, with (for instance) Winnie and Nelson Mandela and their
children, and also with the widow and children of the brutally murdered,
while in police custody, Steven Biko, the visionary journalist and defender
of African integrity and freedom.

We decided to wait.  How happy we all were when the apartheid regime was
dismantled and Nelson Mandela became the first president of color of South
Africa.

Only then did we send our beautiful movie!  And to this day, when I am in
South Africa, I can hold my head high and nothing obstructs the love that
flows between me and the people of that country.

Which is to say, I would so like knowing my books are read by the people of
your country, especially by the young, and by  the brave Israeli activists
(Jewish and Palestinian) for justice and peace I have had the joy of
working beside.  I am hopeful that one day, maybe soon, this may happen.
But now is not the time.

We must continue to work on the issue, and to wait.

In faith that a just future can be fashioned from small acts,


Alice Walker


Posted on 17-06-2012


-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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