The South African Civil Society Information Service

South African Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool on Obama, the Marikana Massacre and Confronting Islamophobia

8 Sep 2012

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, who attended the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rasool discusses the Obama presidency, the militarization of Africa, Islamophobia, the Marikana massacre and his 2006 meeting with then-Senator Obama in South Africa.

With respect to Marikana he says, "I believe, at the end of the day, the kind of compromises we made in 1994 are coming back to haunt us. I believe that the patience of blacks has not been rewarded with a requisite generosity from whites and from the owners of our economy, that if workers don’t even have basic amenities, then who can argue with their right to be angry? And I think it is the most important wake-up call that South Africa can have, tragic as it is, to address the need for the second transition in South Africa."

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You can find this page online at http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1418.