JEAN YVES OLLIVIER
‘JUST LOOK at yourself in the mirror. Realise that on the other side there is another human exactly like you. Why would you want to destroy him? Do you want to destroy yourself?” Jean Yves Ollivier, otherwise known as “Monsieur Jacques”, is musing on the advice he would give Israelis — indeed all the key players in the Middle East conflict — now that he has put the apartheid of South Africa behind him. “But I’m too small to give advice,” he suggests. Actually he’s not. Ollivier’s story is an extraordinary one and now finally available for all to see as he “comes clean” in Plot For Peace, a documentary that is garnering awards around the world.
The film charts the steps this Algerian-French Jew took in persuading South Africa’s various neighbours to agree on a mutual peace as part of the process to end apartheid. From initiating a top-secret prisoner exchange on an air strip in Mozambique to brokering the 1988 Brazzaville Protocol (mandating the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, paving the way for Namibia’s independence), the film plays like a thriller and has been described as such by reviewers. There is also riveting archive material and interviews with the likes of Winnie Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Pik Botha and Congolese politician Sassou Nguesso.
“I was a good negotiator in business, so I thought, why not use it in politics?” If it all sounds very simple, strangely it was. Ollivier was a hugely successful international commodities trader and had built up relationships with all the African leaders, which he decided to put to a different use.
When he arrived in South Africa in 1981, he felt he was seeing a community that was “wrong” in its political approach “and, of course, racist. Many felt excluded and that they had no choice but to fight. I decided I could, and should, help them understand that they had a future.”
Ollivier offered himself as a secret envoy, persuadingonestateafteranother to relax its positions, ultimately creating the conditions that would allow Nelson Mandela’s release.
It was a conflict that resonated strongly with Ollivier, who was jailed at the age of 17 for carrying secret messages from Algeria to Paris, before being forced, with the rest of his family, to leave for France. “It wasn’t political,” he recalls. “We were fighting to be able to continue to live on the soil where we were born. In just three months we had to abandon everything. My community was in danger.”
TheFrenchMuslimsandJewsdideverythingtogether, he adds. “They shared customs, music, dress, food. I would go with my mother to shul on Yom Kippur. It was the one thing she did. My father was Catholic.”
Did his Jewish values influence his later peace-making efforts? “Honestly? No. These are human values. I am not following overtly Jewish values.” Ollivier prefers to consider himself a believer “in man, in humankind. I believe that God will be there to help me.”
It was South African Jewish businessman Ivor Ichikowitz who “found” Ollivier. Ichikowitz has spent five years collecting South Africans’ stories, in a Steven Spielberg-like remembrance project called the African Oral History Archive, which documents the apartheid period. Ollivier, a previously little heralded figure, came up in a lot of testimonies. “Jean Yves was able to understand the individuals on a personal level and he could co-ordinate the various personal interests. For him, failure was not an option,” says Ichikowitz.
Ichikowitz believes that, as with Holocaust testimony, the details of who did what in the dismantling of apartheid is critical for the education of a new generation. “Young Jews today don’t know what happened. They aren’t aware that there were many Jews involved in the change of regime, that the militant wing of the ANC was founded in a Cape Town synagogue. These stories are essential in giving young African Jews an interest in staying in a country in which they feel increasingly marginalised. Africa is the most exciting place to live right now. We have to make our youngsters proud of their heritage.”
Both men are certain that Israel can learn from the experience of Africa. “There are a lot of people on stand-by who want to implement strategies for peace and reconciliation in Israel but the road map is not defined yet,” Ollivier says. “The big challenge in the Middle East is that there will never be a peaceful outcome until both sides want one,” Ichikowitz reasons.
“I believe there is hope for Israel,” Ollivier adds. “But the rest of the world has to help it, not try to wash their hands of it. My success in South Africa was in creating a peaceful situation around South Africa and only then could I let the South Africans go ahead and solve their own problems. And at that point they had no need for arbitrators and mediators. They were just left to get on with it once they realised that they both wanted peace.”
The world now expects Israelis and Palestinians to come up with a solution themselves, which is unreasonable, he feels. “[Henry] Kissinger tried to look at the neighbouring countries and the bigger picture. But no one really has tried to do it since.”
What does Ollivier see as the key to successful power-brokering? “Not to take sides, to be honest with yourself and towards others and [to acknowledge] that dialogue is the best way out of a civil war.”
Since being “outed” by Ichikowitz, Ollivier has written a book, taken part in a documentary and is in talks for a feature film about his life. He wants to spread the word about promoting reconciliation and dialogue.
Londoners will get their own chance to quiz him at a Q&A following a UK Jewish Film screening of the movie later this month. And after that, there’s a screening at the Doc Aviv festival, in Tel Aviv.
“I like attending the screenings and doing the Q&As. The idea is that I can pass on a message that there is always hope of a better understanding of the other.” Plot For Peace is available on DVD on Amazon. The London screening and Q&A is at the Tricycle cinema, NW6 on April 24 at 8pm — www.tricycle.co.uk