When ANC comes close to ISIS

12 October 2023

The African National Congress, as the party of government, and the South African Communist Party effectively support Islamic jihad, when they endorse the genocidal massacre by Hamas jihadis of young Jewish dancers, grandmothers and the babies Hamas beheaded when they invaded Israel on Saturday 7 October.

In a response dated 8 October, the SACP's Central Committee censored out any direct reference to Hamas's genocidal pogrom, stating: "They say the Palestinians, referring to Hamas, 'infiltrated Israel'. This is gibberish, as Israel is the aggressor." The SACP may as well accuse Jews of causing Nazi Germany to carry out the Holocaust.

Calling for "peace in the Gaza Strip" in a statement issued the same day, the ANC stated that "the decision by Palestinians to respond to the brutality of the settler Israeli apartheid regime is unsurprising."

For these political parties, the deliberate Islamist killing of young dancers, grandparents and babies is ... "unsurprising".  It is a cruel acceptance of genocidal politics by a governing political party, especially since the name "Hamas" is a shortened form in Arabic for "Islamic Resistance Movement".

This is no matter of "national liberation". Their effective support for Hamas by SACP and ANC shows a wilful lack of understanding of Islamic jihad - not only against Israel, but in conflict after conflict across Africa.

Both political parties are silent, even though a millennial history of Islamic jihad and the enslavement of non-Muslims in north, west and east Africa and in Sudan through to the Red Sea has now revived - also in southern Africa.

In an article on 6 June 2022 headed, "At least 50 killed in terrorist attack on Christian church", the organisation CSW reported the massacre the previous day of scores of Christian worshippers inside St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo state in southwest Nigeria.

On 21 July this year, an article on the website Open Door reported: "A spate of attacks on Christians by Fulani herdsmen that began in May has continued, causing death and distress across Nigeria’s Plateau State. ... Sadly, the violence has continued - with impunity. ... 

"Rev. Dr Gideon Para-Mallam of the Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation says that, between 17 April and the present day, at least 346 lives have been lost in the Plateau State, and over 200 of this number have been in Mangu. Of this number, 315 are Christians, while 31 are Muslims. The Mwanghvul Development Association (MDA) reports that some 54 villages have so far been attacked by the Fulani."

The Wikipedia site "Fula people" states: "The Fulani, after being the first group of people in West Africa to convert to Islam, became active in supporting Islamic theology and ideology from centres such as Timbuktu. ... The Fula people led many jihads, or holy wars, some of which were major. These war efforts helped spread Islam in West Africa, as well as helped them dominate much of the Sahel region of West Africa during the medieval and pre-colonial era, establishing them not only as a religious group but also as a political and economic force." It report the historical period of the 1050s - nearly 1200 years ago - as when "Islam gains a strong foothold in West Africa." 

Yet ANC and SACP remain silent that Islamic jihad has now revived in Africa, in the global age of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The people of South Africa are kept ignorant, while an important book has been issued by the publisher Hurst in London this month with the title, Towards Jihad? Muslims and Politics in Postcolonial Mozambique. The author, Eric Morier-Genoud - a reader in African History at Queens University, Belfast, in Northern Ireland - reports that the eruption of Islamic jihad in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique is based on the Mwani community, who have a "precolonial Islamic and Swahili past (albeit as slave traders)". (p.131)

A Christian group, the Joshua Project, reports that the Mwani live along the coast of northern Mozambique, and that the word "mwani" means "beach"in their language. "Mwani tradition states that around 1,100 years ago Arab traders came down the east coast of Africa to trade and to take slaves. Entire people groups along the coast became Muslims because the Arabs, being Muslims, were not allowed to take another Muslim as slaves. In this way the Mwanis also became Muslims. Today, to be a Mwani is to be a Muslim. From when they are children, Mwanis go to the Madrassa, or Islamic school. There they learn about Islam and learn to read and recite the Quran in its original Arabic form...".Mwani in Mozambique

Morier-Genoud asks: "When did they connect to the Islamic State? ...(We) can say with certainty that the Mozambican insurgents pledged allegiance to ISIS before August 2018, that is, before the ISIS supreme leader al-Baghdadi made a reference in a publicized speech, to the creation of an ISIS Central Africa Province (ISCAP) that included DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] and Mozambique." (p.135)

He reports that the jihad in Mozambique has "many links, particularly with Tanzania, Kenya, the DRC, Uganda and Somalia. ...the sect's supreme leader is reported to be a Tanzanian (AbuYasir Hassan)" and that "some Congolese are fighting in the insurgency in Mozambique...." (pp.133/34)

Effectively, the Nazi-type ideological war of Islamic State has a historical base in South Africa's neighbour.

Fox News has now reported that Israeli soldiers say "they found an ISIS flag among the belongings of a Hamas operative, drawing a connection between the two terrorist groups.

"ISIS, also ISIL or the Islamic State, is a terror group that rose to prominence in 2014 when it declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. It also claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in different parts of the Middle East, including Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan." ISIS flag found in Hamas equipment as Netanyahu makes direct connection between terror groups: 'Hamas is ISIS'

A photo provided by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) shows an ISIS flag among the belongings of a Hamas fighter.

It is bad enough that Mozambique preserves the name of a Muslim slave master, Ali Musa Mbiki (Mussa Bin Bique), the sultan of Mozambique Island when the first European navigator, Vasco da Gama, arrived there briefly in March 1498.

Yet when ANC and SACP endorse Islamic jihad by Hamas against the Jews of Israel, they effectively support ISIS, and imperil the whole of southern Africa.