Playwright Gillian Slovo: I Grew Up in Apartheid South Africa. I Saw the Same Thing in Palestine

Gaza solidarity encampments, which started on U.S. college campuses, have now spread worldwide as students call on their educational institutions to divest from companies profiting from Israeli apartheid and occupation. The uprising echoes the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, when many in civil society called for divestment from companies that profited from South Africa’s system of racial domination. Democracy Now! explored the parallels this week with South African-born novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, whose parents were legendary anti-apartheid activists Joe Slovo and Ruth First. “I have been to the West Bank, and I had a childhood in South Africa. I knew what apartheid looked like,” Slovo says. “When I went to the West Bank, what I saw was apartheid in action.”