“Well, as my grandfather President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela said, the Palestinian issue is the greatest moral issue of our time, yet the entire global community is silent and mute on the issue,” Nkosi Zwelivelile “Mandla,” Mandela said in an interview with Mehr News Agency Correspondent on the sidelines of the Tehran International Conference on Palestine on Saturday.
“My grandfather said that for us, as South Africans, our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people,” he said, adding that it’s why the younger generation continues to be the voice for the Palestinian struggle.
“We have come to fully understand that the Palestinians, just like us in South Africa, had the right to resist occupation,” he said, noting that the Palestinians have decided not to submit but have chosen to resist occupation.
Referring to the struggle of South African people in resisting oppression, he said, “The Palestinians also can be able to overthrow the brutal, apartheid regime of Israel just like we were able in South Africa to collapse the apartheid regime of South Africa.”
“Well, the Islamic countries, in particular the Arab League of Nations, can learn a lesson from the front-line state in the SADC region in Africa,” Mandela said, answering a question about the cooperation of Islamic countries in preventing the Zionist regime’s war crimes in Gaza and help the Palestinian people.
“During our struggle for liberation in South Africa, it was the front-line state being the neighboring countries such as Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia, that supported our liberation struggle. Today, we have attained our liberation because of the support that we had from our front-line state,” he said.
“And this is why we call on the Arab League of nations and the entire Islamic countries in the region to also support the Palestinian Resistance and the Palestinian struggle until we attain liberation,” he added.
Interviewed by Marzieh Rahmani
