Dr. Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor is South Africa’s former Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of State.
For some, Pandor has become the face of her country’s International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ) case accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinian residents of Gaza. She is known for challenging false media narratives and has received death threats for her outspokenness on the topic.
In recent remarks, on the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research program, “Gaza Diaries with Dr. Omar Suleiman,” which broadcasts on YouTube, Dr. Pandor spoke of “embracing Islam late in life” and how the faith provided her with a “road map” of how to live her life.
She sat down with Dr. Suleiman after she addressed several African academics at the Global African Conference at King’s College in London, where she spoke on “Global Power Hierarchies.”
Dr. Pandor told Dr. Suleiman, “Islam is a directive as to how we are expected to live our lives.” She added, “So, in a sense, Islam provides a road map. And, for me, having embraced Islam late in life.
I have come to believe very strongly that because of the influence of the values and principles that are associated with the faith, one cannot but seek to live a different life.” She continued, “It’s a humane faith. For me, I was able to embrace Islam because it made me a person I could attach (to), I could recognize.”
Dr. Pandor was born in South Africa. Her father and grandfather were anti-apartheid activists, and her family went into exile from 1961 to 1984. She was educated abroad and, upon her return to her country, was an educator and held several government positions in South Africa over the years.
According to the website, South African History Online, following the country’s first democratic election in 1994, Dr. Pandor was elected to Parliament.
She has spoken often about the parallels between life under apartheid for Blacks in South Africa and life for Palestinians under the Israeli regime.
During remarks at the International Dilemmas of Humanity Conference III in 2023, she spoke on these similarities when she addressed a comment by a former colleague who falsely tried to assert that Israel was not an apartheid regime.
“Well, the Palestinians are denied free exit and entry into their own land. They do not have free movement. We didn’t have free movement under apartheid.
Palestinian people use separate entrances when they go through the border, we had to use separate entrances under apartheid. Palestinian children do not have free access to education, it was the same for us,” Dr. Pandor said, reported The Peoples Dispatch.
Concerning becoming the face of South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel, she said, “I have become the beneficiary of the ICJ case,” but she explained that she spoke on behalf of the South African government and people. “So it is that whole collective that must be recognized,” she added. She has been firm in her support of the Palestinian cause.
South Africa filed the case at the ICJ, the top court of the United Nations, based in the Hague in the Netherlands, in December 2023. She recounted a time when she said she was questioned on why she advocates so hard for Palestinians when there are people in South Africa who are struggling and suffering.
However, the person who asked her the question was from a community that was a beneficiary of the South African racist, anti-Black apartheid system, she explained.
“So, I reminded him you know why you are free? You are free because we fought for you to enjoy freedom. But it was not just us, we were joined by the people of Palestine in that fight. And so, while we enjoy our freedom, we have an obligation to those who recognize the inhumanity of apartheid to join in their fight against injustice and oppression.”
In March 2024, Dr. Pandor was in the U.S., where she addressed a reception in honor of anti-apartheid activists and the South African diaspora on the campus of Howard University, spoke at the Center for African Studies at the HBCU, and made several other stops. (See The Final Call Vol. 43 No. 26)
Focusing on the world’s ever-increasing global crises, Dr. Pandor stated to Dr. Suleiman “Today we meet at a deeply troubled period in global relations and should be concerned not only at Africa’s inadequate progress, but also, and most particularly, about growing threats to global civil liberties …,” she said in part.
“We should worry that instability in Libya has lasted so long. We should be concerned at four major coups in Africa (and) about civil war in Sudan (and) the Rohingya and their tragic suffering, and about the peoples of Palestine and Israel trapped in a cruel, never-ending war of existence.”
She noted that during the past decade, the world has witnessed these “international failings and to a sometimes subtle and often boldly open assault on freedom and democracy.”
Dr. Pandor added that as a “civil society we seem to have observed this decline in our civil and political liberties. And all of us have proven rather incapable of decisive, effective responses, a manner suggesting that we believe surely it can’t get worse.” She then added, “Yet today … we are seeing that it can get worse.”
She also spoke on her concerns about attacks on “free speech” on school campuses, stating that “even more concerning is the growing unashamed assault on academic freedom.”
These attacks must be resisted by those who support intellectual freedom and the free flow of ideas, she explained. The success of Africa “requires a free flow of ideas and freedom to pursue innovation and new knowledge,” Dr. Pandor added.
She declared that a proper response to such attacks must be to “ready ourselves to assert and restore the core values and principles,” including freedom, justice and development.
During Dr. Pandora’s remarks, she raised her own questions, including, “What happened to the generation of ‘Free Nelson Mandela,’” and the substance of the campaign calling for the freeing of Nelson Mandela?
The call and campaign to release the South African anti-apartheid freedom fighter was a global one. Dr. Pandor stated that it will take a similar commitment and work by people desiring to achieve the ideals necessary for true freedom for Africans, Palestinians, and others.
“Are we today worried that we lack the ability to establish similar popular actions in the interest of those who face harm?” Dr. Pandor asked.
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