Dr Mamphela Ramphele
The UK’s denial of a visa to Nkosi Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela over his unequivocal support for Palestine’s struggle for justice is deeply regrettable.
While the UK seeks to rationalise its ban on moral grounds – due to Mandela’s statements of support for Hamas and meetings with Hamas leaders – it is silent on the immorality of its own continuing support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal actions.
When members of the apartheid government held meetings with members of the South African liberation movement, designated terrorists and engaged in armed struggle, they weren’t denied visas by the UK.
The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu navigation of morality in the Holy Land is instructive.
In 2014, after a flurry of Hamas rockets directed at Israel was met with a massive Israeli military response, Tutu pronounced himself opposed to Hamas’ use of violence against civilians, but unashamedly supportive of the rights of Palestinians to struggle for justice, dignity and sovereignty.
At a rally in Cape Town he had the crowd chant: “We are opposed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.”
He also famously advised: “If you want to make peace you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies”.
Mandela’s grandfather, the late Nelson Mandela put it similarly. He said that if you work with your enemy, “then he becomes your partner”.
If the UK views Mandla Mandela as an enemy, it should talk to him, not ban him.
Denying him a visa instead reflects the UK’s uncritical sponsorship of the State of Israel’s extermination plans for Gaza and the West Bank, and the completion of the land grabs that started with the Balfour Declaration in 1917 announcing the UK’s support of a national home for Jewish people in Palestine.
Although the UK government acknowledged 100 years later that the declaration should have called for the protection of Palestinians’ political rights, the UK remains a key sponsor of the State of Israel’s actions today.
Mandla Mandela is committed to the struggle for justice in the Holy Land, but he is not a terrorist. He is clear in his support for Palestinians, but he is not anti-Semitic. Nor does he supply any weapons or aid to fuel the conflict, as the UK and US do.
The unbridled violence that Israel has authored in Palestine since Hamas’ 7 October 2023 incursion and seizure of hostages is now spreading across the Middle East region.
It is time to talk, and to listen; to return prisoners and hostages; to return illegally occupied land; for the killing and destruction on both sides to stop. This is not the time to reinforce binary geopolitical positions or shut down voices with which we don’t agree.
The people of Israel and Palestine yearn for peace, but there can be no peace without justice.
The UK should reconsider its position.
** Dr Mamphela Ramphele is the Chair of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust
* The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
IOL Opinion