"The Pass Laws Act of 1952 required black South Africans over the age of 16 to carry a pass book, known as a dompas, everywhere and at all times. The dompas was similar to a passport, but it contained more pages filled with more extensive information than a normal passport. Within the pages of an individual's dompas was their fingerprints, photograph, personal details of employment, permission from the government to be in a particular part of the country, qualifications to work or seek work in the area, and an employer's reports on worker performance and behavior. If a worker displeased their employer and they in turn declined to endorse the book for the pertinent time period, the worker's right to stay in the area was jeopardized. According to the Pass Law, government officials possessed the power to expel the worker from the area by adverse endorsement in the passbook. This technique was known as 'endorsing out' and could be carried out at any time and for any reason. Officials were not required to provide an explanation for their actions. Family members of a worker who was 'endorsed out' also forfeited their right to remain in the area and faced eviction and exile to a bantustan. Forgetting to carry the dompas, misplacing it, or having it stolen rendered one liable to arrest and imprisonment. Each year, over 250,000 blacks were arrested for technical offenses under the Pass Laws. As a result, the dompas became the most despised symbol of apartheid." http://home.snu.edu/~dwilliam/f97projects/apartheid/Laws.htm
New Yorkers are counting the seconds until the end of the current city administration and its inept policies. The latest decree cannot at all be justified: Covid-19 vaccination papers please for entry to NYC restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues—which the employees of various eateries, gyms, and performance spaces will then review for your personal medical history. The mandate has no basis in reality, since the current science is that Covid-19 vaccines wane after 6 weeks and 50% after 10 weeks, per The Lancet /Virus Watch papers published in July:
“However, we found these levels dropped substantially over the course of 2 – 3 months. If they carry on dropping at this rate, we are concerned that the protective effects of the vaccines may also begin to wear off, particularly against new variants; but we cannot yet predict how soon that might happen.” https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/jul/vaccine-antibody-levels-start-wane-around-2-3-months
The de Blasio decree is absurd and reeks of injustice, like Open Restaurants without the consent of New York’s residents and the ensuing mayhem that continues to destroy our neighborhoods. Papers please is seriously stepping over the line. African National Congress leader Mfanafuthi “Johnny” Makhatini would call the de Blasio mandate—“a badge of slavery,” as he did the apartheid-South Africa Pass.
Following is a YouTube of my 1982 interview (part 2) with both Johnny Makhatini and Theo-Ben Gurirab. At the time of our conversation Gurirab and Makhatini were in exile. Gurirab was serving as UN Observer of SWAPO (South West African People’s Organization), Makhatini as UN Observer of ANC (African National Congress). Gurirab was a founder of Namibia and would become its second prime minister.
It is the discussion with Makhatini about the Pass Law of then-apartheid South Africa (11:04 minutes into the tape) that is particularly relevant to the de Blasio Covid-19 pass decree. Video and transcript follow:
Suzan Mazur: While the pass law no longer exists in Namibia, it’s still very much present in South Africa. Could you explain this briefly?
Johnny Makhatini: Well the Pass Law really, the Pass in South Africa is a badge of slavery.
Suzan Mazur: Does this mean you have to have a visa to travel from one town or city to another?
Johnny Makhatini: That’s one of the things it is aimed at ensuring, control of the movement of the blacks so that they are clearly allocated to various tribal creations, which are called homelands. So that the movement of blacks from those areas to the cities is strictly controlled. Even their wives when they are there in order to administer to the needs of the white racist rule cannot visit them. And their children cannot visit them because they are considered superfluous appendages, according to the official terminology.
Suzan Mazur: And if someone does not have a pass, what happens?
Johnny Makhatini: He’s arrested and the result is that hundreds of thousands of people have been arrested every day for failure to produce that document on demand. He has no right even to be in the urban area.
Suzan Mazur: There seems to be some talk of a new act being passed regarding blacks living in urban areas, giving them new powers of municipal self government. Are you aware of this?
Johnny Makhatini: South African [apartheid government] has mastered that as a technique. What they are talking of, in fact, is further fragmentation of the African people into various categories: the urban blacks, so-called, who are needed in order to ensure the running of the labor-to-profit, the exploitative system, are now going to be allowed. It’s a very small minority, just a little over a million. And the rest of the people who have no right to be in urban areas.
Suzan Mazur: So this doesn’t mean that Soweto will be able to govern itself.
Johnny Makhatini: Never at all. It’s aimed at ensuring tighter control of the urban population as the slaves of the system.
OSCILLATIONS 