Nausheena Mohamed is a Muslim and a Middle East peace activist. She is no stranger to insults and criticism from her own community for her alternative views on peaceful dialogue and conflict resolution in the region.
But when she was attacked in an advertisement in The Star newspaper last week for taking part in a one-day programme at Redhill School dedicated to discussion of the conflict, she felt “hurt and shocked”.
Unnamed members of the so-called Redhill Parents and Alumni Concerns Committee (RED-PACC) took out a paid advertisement in the form of an open letter in the daily newspaper to express its dissatisfaction with the school’s executive headmaster, Joseph Gerassi, and the school’s choice of speakers for a programme dedicated to discussion on the Middle East conflict.
This follows ongoing protest by RED-PACC that accused Gerassi of limiting free speech for trying to calm rising tension on campus during the recent 11-day flare up between Hamas in Gaza and Israel.
In an open letter to the Redhill executive and trustees, the anonymous pro-Palestine group wrote on 4 June that it had “no trust in Joseph Gerassi’s objectivity to centre Palestinian perspectives in any dialogue or discussion” on the conflict.
The group lambasted Gerassi for inviting Mohamed to address the school on the day, which was devoted to education and information about the conflict. The advert accused Mohamed of being a blogger for “Zionist lobby groups” and for being a “beneficiary of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies’” routine and fully funded “hasbara” tours of Israel, where a “sanitised and one-sided view is curated”.
Mohamed has written about peace in The Times of Israel, and has visited the region to engage with people on the ground.
Gerassi’s choice of speakers, the group said, promoted a biased view. It demanded that an alternative speaker such as anti-Israel lobbyist Ronnie Kasrils be invited to take part in the programme.
Mohamed, a multimedia and broadcast journalist, told the SA Jewish Report this week that she was “disappointed” by this group, which made no attempt to engage with her and find out who she really was and what her beliefs were.
“What they said was unjustified. They have a totally incorrect perception about me and my involvement in this conflict. If they had reservations about me, they were more than welcome to approach me for open engagement.”
She said it was “a poor reflection” on them.
“Instead of running to The Star, which I see as intimidating, they could have rather engaged with me, and the school,” she said.
Mohamed advocates peaceful solutions to the conflict and has engaged with many peace activists in the region such as the popular and growing Women Wage Peace organisation, which is comprised of Jews, Muslims, and Christians who seek alternative paths to peace.
Gerassi told the SA Jewish Report that the school and its trustees still had “no idea” who was behind the RED-PACC open letter. “As a school, we have tried to reach out to them, but unfortunately they haven’t been willing to meet us or tell us who they are. They have refused to give their names. How do you engage with people you don’t even know?” he asked.
Mahomed, meanwhile, is the founder of Channel M Productions, and started an online campaign on social media called, “Give Peace A Chance”, which highlights the importance of peace activism in Israel and Palestine.
She spoke to the children about the “third alternative – the other peace process, which is a non-political process that aims to build bridges of understanding to heal the divide of the two large narratives without de-humanising or cancelling out the other”.
“I gave the children a snapshot of the incredible peace initiatives in the region which rarely make the headlines. Ordinary Arabs and Israelis, Muslims, Jews, and Christians have more commonalities than differences. The majority don’t want violence and war, they want peace,” she said.
The one-day programme at the school was broken up into three sessions. The first featured a panel comprising veteran journalist Anton Harber, journalist Flo Letoaba, and advocate Ben Winks who debated the topic, “Should freedom of speech be limited in the media and in schools? If so, what should those limitations be?” In session two, lecturer Larry Benjamin presented an historical perspective of the conflict featuring both narratives. Mohamed spoke in session three.
Gerassi said the school would establish a centre for conflict resolution and dialogue.
Meanwhile, the SAJBD wrote a letter to the editor of The Star in response to the RED-PACC open letter describing it as “intimidation”.
In it, Professor Karen Milner accused RED-PACC of “insisting on bulldozing its political agenda into the school” by amongst other things “vilifying” the headmaster and providing an ultimatum to the school on who could and who couldn’t participate in a discussion of the conflict.
“Why are the Redhill alumni so insistent on a speaker [Kasrils] who has been deliberately offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community over a woman [Mohamed] who tells the story of tolerance and peace? We shudder to think that Redhill is being bullied into choosing toxicity and vicious hatred over peace activism.”
She accused the “alumni association” of trying to prevent free speech by forcing its own narrative into the school space.
