In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Mandla Mandela said South Africans lived for decades under the apartheid regime in their country.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we were able to defeat it,\u201d he said, attributing the victory to what he described as \u201cthe internal unity against the apartheid regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to unite our ranks to bring all the oppressed people of South Africa across national boundaries and gender differences,\u201d Mandela said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to speak in one voice,\u201d he said. \u201cOppression has helped us to be effective in our strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Africa established diplomatic relations with Palestine in 1995 — a year after the end of white-minority rule.<\/p>\n
Ever since, Pretoria has remained highly critical of Israel\u2019s continued mistreatment of the Palestinians, including its longstanding policy of building illegal Jewish settlements on Arab land in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n
Mandela said South Africans who lived overseas during the apartheid regime were \u201cactive ambassadors for our struggle for liberation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were mobilized and working hard to make the world aware of the brutality and atrocities committed against the defenseless people of South Africa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said such efforts had helped to draw global support and trigger solidarity campaigns with the cause of the South Africans.<\/p>\n
According to Mandela, one of these effective campaigns was the Release Mandela Campaign, which aimed to free all political prisoners.<\/p>\n
He also cited the Anti-Apartheid Movement, which has led to the launch of pro-South Africa campaigns throughout the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has led to a boycott of products coming from South Africa at the time as well as boycotting any sports activity in the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This movement, Mandela said, was also able to \u201clobby governments to impose sanctions on South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these initiatives led to the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mandela believes that the South African struggle against the white-minority rule could be a model for the Palestinians while resisting the decades-long Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we are witnessing the ugly face of the apartheid regime in Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say it to the world that as we were able to undermine the apartheid regime in South Africa, we will be able to do this with the apartheid regime in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mandela went on to appeal to all political groups in Palestine to join hands and unite against the Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are calling for unity among the Palestinians,\u201d he said. \u201cThey need to stop looking at each other through partisan lines, but to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called on the Palestinians in the diaspora to play an active role in exposing the atrocities committed against the Palestinians back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe six million of Palestinians living in exile can become effective ambassadors with a view to lobbying all people across the world in support of their cause,\u201d he believes.<\/p>\n
He also called on the Palestinians to take advantage of UN resolutions criminalizing the apartheid.<\/p>\n
\u201cApartheid is a global crime and it is our role to expose its ugly face, particularly in Israel, by taking it to all sorts of [international] courts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mandela directed his appeal to his own government by saying that South Africa should utilize its position in the BRICS to \u201censure that we are able to have BRICS countries alignment to the Palestinian cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2010, South Africa joined the BRICS \u2013 a bloc of emerging economies — which also includes Russia, India, China, and Brazil.<\/p>\n
He also called for utilizing South Africa\u2019s seat in the UN Security Council to become \u201cthe voice of the voiceless and therefore to speak about the self-determination of Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The grandson of late iconic South African leader Nelson Mandela has called on the Palestinians to follow the footsteps of South Africans while struggling against the \u201capartheid\u201d state of Israel. In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Mandla Mandela said South Africans lived for decades under the apartheid regime in their country. \u201cHowever, we were …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,34,103],"tags":[267,2237,263,78476],"class_list":["post-63675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-latin-america","category-only-on-nationalturk","tag-israel","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-palestinian","tag-south-africans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}