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On 23 March, the University of Johannesburg in South Africa cut all ties with Ben Gurion University in the Negev in Israel. Salim Vally is a senior researcher at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg and the coordinator of the Education Rights Project. While he was in Montreal in May 2011, giving a lecture at McGill University in Montreal entitled Reading Edward Said in South Africa, he spoke with Lillian Boctor regarding the University of Johannesburg's decision to sever links with Ben Gurion University, the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid within the South African context, academic freedom and the role of academics and science in society. 

LILLIAN BOCTOR: On 23 March, the University of Johannesburg decided not to continue the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ben Gurion University in Israel. Can you tell me what this was about?

SALIM VALLY: Ever since the tragic events in Gaza in 2008-2009, where 1,400 people, largely civilians, were killed, the international movement against what we call apartheid in Israel has been galvanised.

The massacre of the humanitarian activists on the flotilla has also given this movement an impetus. For us as South Africans it has resonance, because you know we called on the world to support our struggle by isolating the apartheid regime. And the call made by Palestinia... >>>