Minneapolis, MN – “Today, I call on you and all freedom-loving people of the world, and boldly say to all of you, do not speak in hushed and muffled tones about the more than 7 million Palestinians in the diaspora who are being denied their right of return. Today, we call on all freedom-loving people of the world to support the global call for their return to Palestine,” said Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, grandson of South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela, to a crowd of over 200.

Mandela’s May 16 visit to Minneapolis came as part of a nationwide tour to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba – Arabic for catastrophe – when Zionist settlers violently forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to leave their national homeland, during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The tour was organized by US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR). Affiliated local groups, the Anti-War Committee and Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar (TCC4J), put together the Minneapolis tour stop.

In his speech, Mandela made connections between the anti-apartheid struggles in both South Africa and Palestine, as well as the Black liberation movement in the U.S.

“Today, as we commemorate the 75th Nakba year, we are reminded of our own struggle against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa,” he said. “Israel is an apartheid state, and it has been practicing racism, repression and brutality against innocent Palestinians since the day it was created.”

Mandela highlighted the local Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the Israeli occupation. “For supporters of the Palestinian struggle in the USA, one of the most critical tasks is lobbying to end U.S. aid to apartheid Israel,” Mandela explained. “I am told that the Minnesota State Board of Investments has over $800 million invested in entities carrying out or complicit in Israeli apartheid systems. We must intensify the BDS campaign to end these investments in apartheid Israeli crimes.”

The event originally had been set to take place at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. But just one day beforehand, the university abruptly canceled the talk, allegedly due to an anonymous threat of violence posted on social media.

The cancellation was criticized by human rights groups, who in a press release said it “emboldens those who seek to intimidate.” Organizers quickly relocated the event to the nearby meeting hall of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and increased security precautions. Ultimately, no threats materialized.

Before the talk, Mandela visited George Floyd Square at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where in May 2020, George Floyd was murdered by white police officer Derek Chauvin, sparking a worldwide uprising against racist police. Mandela met with Floyd’s aunt at the square along with other local Black liberation movement activists.

In his speech, Mandela told the diverse crowd: “It is no coincidence that you have come out in support of this Nakba 75 tour, because you have experienced firsthand the evil of racism and repression. You have experienced the evil that dehumanizes and denies you your fundamental human rights. You have experienced the brutality meted out against an innocent person. You have experienced firsthand that victims have names, just as the 530 villages that were destroyed had names, and the 15,000 people massacred on Nakba Day on the 15th of May, 1948, all had names. His name was Jamar Clark. His name was Daunte Wright. His name was Andre Hill. His name was Manuel Ellis. His name was Philando Castile. His name was George Floyd.”

#MinneapolisMN #Palestine #NelsonMandela #MiddleEast

Grand Rapids, MI – Close to 100 people celebrated Nelson Mandela Day here over the weekend. Some gathered on July 18 to view posters from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the work of local artists portraying Nelson Mandela and Maya Angelou. Local artist Paul Collins shared a large canvas of hands reaching across the world portraying King, Gandhi and Mandela. On July 19, the Institute for Global Education hosted a jazz band, church choir, African dance and the poetry of Maya Angelou.

During a panel discussion on the legacy of Mandela, the speakers and audience compared the struggle opposing white minority rule in South Africa, known as apartheid, and the struggle for Palestinian freedom today. Outside the event, local anti-war activists tabled for Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian American leader and activist. The U.S. government is putting Odeh on trial in Detroit on Sept. 8 in a highly-charged political repression case.

Tom Burke with the Committee to Stop FBI Repression was gathering signatures and quoted Nelson Mandela, “We know too well our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.”

Burke continued, “Rasmea Odeh won the ‘Nelson Mandela Award: Opposing Israeli apartheid is not a crime!’ last year in Chicago. We know the worldwide solidarity movement helped defeat minority rule in South Africa. The same is true with ending Israeli apartheid. We need to get out and rally to show our solidarity with the Palestinians in their struggle. We need to encourage resistance to oppression. The U.S. needs to stop funding Israeli oppression and war.”

A protest in solidarity with Palestine is planned for July 21 at 4:00 p.m. at the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building in downtown Grand Rapids.

#GrandRapidsMI #PeoplesStruggles #TomBurke #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression #NelsonMandela #RasmeaOdeh #Michigan #MayaAngelou #PoliticalRepression

Nelson Mandela, a leader of the South African struggle for national liberation, passed away today, Dec 5. Mandela led the African National Congress, and along with South African communists, founded the armed struggle group Umkhonto we Sizwe, After 26 years in prison, the national liberation movement of the African masses, supported by a broad international anti-Apartheid movement, won his freedom. The official racial segregation and discrimination of Apartheid was brought down and Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa.

The U.S. government supported Apartheid and opposed Mandela – keeping President Mandela on the U.S terrorism list up until 2008. The U.S. government has instituted laws such as the Patriot Act and NDAA and reversed other civil rights laws like the Voting Rights Act of 1964, reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.

It is important to study and understand Nelson Mandela the freedom fighter in his own words:

http://www.anc.org.za/list_by.php?by=Nelson%20Mandela

Mandela On Struggle:

“Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.”

“It is revolutionary…precisely because the changes it envisages cannot be won without breaking up the economic and political set-up…to win the demands calls for the organization, launching, and development of mass struggles on the widest scale.”

“The most vital task facing the democratic movement in this country is to unleash such struggles and to develop them on the basis of the concrete and immediate demands of the people from area to area. Only in this way can we build a powerful mass movement which is the only guarantee of ultimate victory in the struggle for democratic reforms”.

“The majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organization and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy.”

Mandela on Apartheid, Racism, and Discrimination:

“The Government takes measures to protect White people in one way and Black people not at all.”

“Our most potent weapon against this [AIDS] virus is education. We have, perhaps, for some time, allowed ourselves to believe that like other epidemics it will come and go; that the great advances of our time in science and technology will offer us appropriate quick intervention. The key to our success is our own collective effort. The time for rhetorical arguments and victim blaming has passed. Now is the time for action.”

“As long as…people are denied the democratic vote, they shall have to vote with their feet.”

Mandela on Freedom:

“No power on earth can stop an oppressed people determined to win their freedom.”

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Mandela on the U.S.:

“If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.”

“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.” -- Iraq War speech (2003) Mandela On Workers:

“I think we may sometimes be at fault in not stressing and repeating the importance of the organized participation of workers in our struggle.”

“What has characterized workers in our country, has been the determination not to be isolated from the rest of society, not to be misled that Unions must only concern themselves with shop-floor issues.”

Mandela on Communism:

“Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.”

Mandela on Armed Struggle:

“I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.”

“50 years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights.”

“Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”

“As violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.”

#UnitedStates #Remembrances #AntiRacism #Apartheid #SouthAfrica #NelsonMandela #Communism #UmkhontoWeSizwe #AfricanNationalCongress

To us as a democratic movement, the lesson of our history is very clear. It is what the peoples of Europe learnt during the turbulent decade of the 1930s, when fascism began its assault on democracy by launching a violent offensive against the Communists.

It is the same lesson that the people of the United States learnt during the decade of the nineteen fifties, when the forces of Macarthyism launched an assault aimed at undermining the democratic heritage of the American people, by conducting a virulent offensive against Communist and left opinion.

Theologians of the German Church understood these processes very well when they said the Christian Church did nothing when the Nazis attacked the Communists. And again the Church did nothing when the Nazis turned their brutal attention to the Socialists. And when the Nazis turned against Christian men and women of conscience, the Church found that there was nobody to defend it.

This is a mistake the ANC never made, because we understood that the banning of the Communist Party in 1950, was but a prelude to the suppression of all democratic opinion in our country. This is a lesson that those within the National Party, who consider themselves to be Democrats, need to learn very quickly.

Mandela: We are here today to participate with you in the public launch of the Communist Party, 40 years after it was banned. We do this because during the nearly 70 years of its existence, the Communist Party has distinguished itself as an ally in the common struggle to end the racial oppression and exploitation of the black masses of our country. It has fought side by side with the ANC for the common objective of the National Liberation of people, without seeking to impose its views on our movement.

Mandela: Because we have an urgent task to attain our emancipation, we insist that the talks must go on. Our freedom should not be postponed or denied simply because some people have a secret agenda to sustain an anti-democratic crusade against Communist opinion.

#SouthAfrica #Apartheid #NelsonMandela #SouthAfricanCommunistParty #Africa