The maulana (Muslim religious leader) and Harvard professor was on the Wits campus this week and the topic of his talk was in character: "Comparing Zionism with apartheid: privileging or undermining our unique victimhoods".

Speaking at the Wits Palestinian Solidarity Committee Nakba (catastrophe) commemoration week, Esack illustrated differences in dispossession, punishment and torture between apartheid SA and Zionist Israel.

"Life for the Palestinians is infinitely worse that what we had under apartheid, and the price they have to pay for it much more horrendous. We, for example, never had a wall separating black and white people," he said.

Esack, who was a pivotal figure in the anti-apartheid struggle in Cape Town, said his history in the liberation movement informed his view that there was "enforced apartness" in Israel during his many visits to the region.

"Every single South African who participated in the liberation struggle and who has been to this part of the world has been struck by this apartness," he said.

His professor-like glasses perched precariously on his nose and sporting a patterned Mandela-shirt, Esack also reminded the audience that Mandela was not always regarded as a symbol of reconciliation.

"Now we live in a time when Nelson Mandela is everyone’s favourite uncle. It’s all too easy to forget Israel’s support for the apartheid regime when Mandela was a terrorist."

His talk focused on victimhood and its perceived uniqueness, described the notion of apartness and measured sameness and difference between apartheid SA and Zionist Israel.

Esack also referred to the Holocaust, saying there needed to be a serious acknowledgment of the terrible crime that has been committed against the Jewish people throughout the ages. If not dealt with appropriately, the abused carries the trauma and sometimes becomes the abuser.

Explaining the notion of "unique victimhoods" he said: "Uniqueness in suffering is not the language of the oppressed people of the world. Solidarity is.

"Victimhood can become another tool to perpetuate superiority and to ensure that the stories of one’s own pain do not resonate with the stories of pain of others.

"Almost as if our victimhood is unique in history and thus it closes our hearts in an ironclad righteousness rather than opening it to other people’s pain.

"The question is not whether the Jews suffered or not but whether the tragedy of the Holocaust has been exploited for larger socio-political hegemonic interest in the world today."

Esack also unpacked the complex intersecting of Judaism and Zionism. He told Jews: "Don’t expect me to put up with your Jewish identity if it involves a relationship of marginalisation, subjugation and expulsion of other people."

In the question-and-answer-session, Caylee Talpert, of SA Union of Jewish Students, said the South African ambassador to Israel, Fumanekile Gciba, denied similarities between apartheid SA and Israel.

Esack said, however, that Gciba had told him he had been misquoted in that context by the Sowetan newspaper.

Esack also said the term apartheid could be applied to other countries like the Gulf States, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where migrant workers were treated as second-class citizens.

Responding to a comment that he appeared to turn a blind eye to human-rights abuses by Palestinians, Esack acknowledged that these did exist in the same way that the ANC were guilty of human-rights abuses during the liberation struggle.

"In the larger picture of justice and injustice, I’ve chosen to tell the story from the underside of history," he said.

(This article originally appeared in the Vuvuzela Newspaper on the 17th of May 2007)