“Let’s ask every South African” to do this, Naledi Pandor, the South African Minister of Foreign Affairs said in a passionate speech on Sunday.
In a speech at the III International Dilemmas of Humanity Conference, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Naledi Pandor called for complete solidarity with the Palestinian people while urging Africans to unite behind Palestine.
Her speech on Sunday was delivered at the opening panel discussion of the conference. She spoke passionately while wearing a traditional Palestinian headscarf, a keffiyeh.
The Peoples Dispatch transcribed her full interview. Below are selected excerpts, along with the full video of the speech.
“I realized this when in 2021 I was sitting in the summit of the Executive Council of the African Union, and it was whispered to me that the African Union Commission chairperson had issued an invitation to Israel to become an observer at the African Union. Imagine my horror. I decided at that moment that I would raise my arm and would propose that this decision be rescinded. (…)
“This coming week, a number of proposed resolutions are going to come before the United Nations. We must keep our eye on that process. We must ensure it’s the right kind of resolution. Today, the people of Palestine are in need of help. They need medical supplies, they are unable to bandage wounds, they cannot provide help. Médecins sans frontières is doing a good job, they are absolutely there, but they are also being decimated. What are we going to do about that?
“Let’s ask every South African. There are 62 million of us…all of us must donate one thing, food or medical goods, and let us persuade an airline to take them all to the Egyptian border with Palestine and deliver those goods.
“Let’s do something comrades. Let’s stop talking. Because the world is in a terrible place and all it needs are a few good men and women, our organizers, strategists and not to organize because you are Numsa only, but to organize everybody.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
