Nelson Mandela
Updated 2024-04-03
2023-12-06 Unpack the past: Mandela, the keffiyeh and South Africa’s Palestine embrace Mandela felt a special bond with the Palestinian people. In 1997, while still president of South Africa, he said the ANC’s struggle was ongoing. “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
In 2004, after the death of Arafat, he paid tribute to the leader of the PLO: “He was an icon in the proper sense of the word. He was not only concerned with the liberation of the Arab people but of all the oppressed people throughout the world – Arabs and non-Arabs – and to lose a man of that stature and thinking is a great blow to all those who are fighting against oppression.” Three years after Mandela’s death on December 5, 2013, the people of Palestine repaid the favour by unveiling a giant statue of the South African leader in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
That sentiment of warmth – and the iconic imagery of Mandela and the keffiyeh – returned to underscore the nature of South Africa’s relationship with the Palestinian struggle after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa condemned that attack, but as Israeli bombs began killing thousands of innocent people in Gaza, he stepped in front of cameras, wearing a black and white keffiyeh around his neck, and holding a small Palestinian flag in his hand. “They [the Palestinian people] have been under occupation for almost 75 years … waging a struggle against an oppressive government that has occupied their land, but also a government that has in recent times been dubbed an apartheid state,” he said.
That context is vital to understanding comments made by Mandela during a state visit to Palestine in 1999: “Choose peace rather than confrontation. Except in cases where we cannot get, where we cannot proceed, or we cannot move forward. Then if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.” That alternative of violence was one that Mandela used sparingly. Under Mandela, MK only carried out sabotage strikes on state infrastructure and military installations, going to great lengths to prevent civilian loss of life.
A decade after his passing, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is killing thousands of civilians. The death toll is close to 16,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children. To Mandela, it would surely have felt personal. As he said during his 1999 visit to Gaza, he felt “at home among compatriots”. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/unpack-the-past-mandela-the-keffiyeh-and-south-africa-s-palestine-embrace/ar-AA1l2b04
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