UK borrows from apartheid copybook in banning Chief Mandela

25 October 2024 

The United Kingdom’s decision to deny a visa to Chief Zwelivelile Mandela beggars belief. It is an ill-considered ban on free speech deployed to muzzle Mandela from speaking out in support of the struggle for justice for Palestine and Palestinians.

Rather than bullying Mandela, the UK would better serve its citizens, and citizens of Israel and Palestine, by using its muscle to get the protagonists talking about stopping the genocide in Gaza and preventing wider Middle-East meltdown.

That Mandela has met senior Hamas figures and made statements supporting their armed struggle, does not negate the UK’s global responsibilities to place peace and justice above its own narrow geopolitical interests.

The fact is that the UK is deeply complicit in the bloodshed of Palestinians: Historically, as the colonial power, later, due to its guilt over its failure to stop the genocide of the Jews, and presently, through its backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

It has no moral authority to seek to cancel Mandela, who poses no threat. He is an activist, who is not supplying aid or arms to fuel conflict in the Middle-East, or anywhere else – as the UK does. And he does not foment anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, as the UK’s backing of Israel does.

In South Africa’s experience, no number of bannings, detentions, or denials of travel documents could stop opposition to apartheid injustice. What we learned is that you can ban individuals and organisations, but you can’t ban their ideas.

The GOOD Party calls on the UK to stop its hypocrisy. Stop bullying Mandela, and stop enabling the genocide in Palestine.

* The GOOD Party is opposed to the indiscriminate killing of civilians in the Palestine/Israel conflict, but is very clear in its support for Palestinians’ right to struggle for justice and equality.

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General, 25 October 2024