Inkosi Mandla Mandela recalled the years when his country was an outcast, kept alive by global solidarity. Now, he said, the same must be done for Palestine. Photo: Hasina Kathrada
In Tunis, ahead of his departure on a boat carrying internationally recognised activists such as Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson stood before a crowd of journalists and campaigners and summoned a memory that still shapes South Africa’s conscience.
Inkosi Mandla Mandela recalled the years when his country was an outcast, kept alive by global solidarity. Now, he said, the same must be done for Palestine.
He addressed hundreds of people from over 40 countries who had gathered for the launch of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a non-violent civilian mission preparing to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The South African delegation, comprising nine other activists who have travelled across continents to join the campaign, was among those in the crowd. Mandela reminded the gathering that history is not only written by governments and armies, but by ordinary people who refuse to look away.
“Over 40 ships from 44 countries have now joined this effort,” he said. “We will not fail where others have been blocked by land or by air. Our mission is simple. To get humanitarian aid into Gaza and ensure it reaches its intended beneficiaries. The Palestinians will realise their freedom in their lifetime, just as South Africans did in ours.”
For Mandela, the lesson of his grandfather’s generation was clear.
“My grandfather said we could either submit to occupation or resist.”
Liberation, he argued, was not delivered by former US president Ronald Reagan or former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, but by ordinary citizens who forced governments to act — dockworkers in Ireland who refused to handle South African fruit, students who marched in European capitals, communities that kept the struggle alive in exile.
Exile, he said, was not weakness but power, and Palestinians abroad must become “the frontline soldiers of their home struggle”.
“Every video, every testimony must be shared — because it was through exile that South Africans kept our struggle alive.”
His rebuke of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was sharp. “They have failed the Palestinian people. You and I, as rising activist movements, cannot fail them.”
The flotilla represents continuity rather than a fresh start. Earlier convoys by land were stopped at Rafah or blocked in Turkey and North Africa, sometimes with Mandela among those turned back. He told the crowd that such setbacks were not failure but the long road of resistance.
“This is not our first attempt. But each one has carried us closer. Just as South Africans faced setbacks and betrayals before our eventual freedom, so too will Palestinians realise their liberation in their lifetime.”
Beyond the gathering in Tunis, off the coast of Menorca, the fleet had regrouped, with vessels rejoining after repairs in Barcelona. Crews carried out safety checks while awaiting clearance. And on 7 September, dozens of boats arrived in Tunis to join the larger fleet bound for Gaza in the coming days — a departure organisers described as the largest mobilisation yet.
The timing was not incidental. In recent weeks, Israeli officials have escalated threats against the flotilla and European governments have been under pressure to stop it from sailing. Against that backdrop, the sight of ships leaving Tunis harbour took on symbolic weight. A civilian fleet was challenging a military blockade that has lasted 18 years, part of a wider regime of dispossession stretching back to the Nakba in 1948.
The flotilla has drawn broad international backing. More than a hundred lawmakers, from senators to mayors, have signed a joint statement calling for the protection of the mission and the creation of a humanitarian corridor.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, affirmed that the flotilla “fully complies with international law”.
Dockworkers in Genoa, Italy, pledged to block all shipments to Israel if contact with the flotilla is severed. Colombian President Gustavo Petro sent a message of solidarity, writing, “You have chosen the most difficult and dangerous path, that of action in the face of brutal violence. From this shore, we send you strength, words, life.”
For South Africa, the presence of Mandela in Tunis is symbolic. The government has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide in Gaza, a move that made headlines but left many sceptical of what international law can deliver.
Mandela’s appearance here alongside nine other South Africans bridged the gap between diplomatic process and grassroots action, rooting the country’s solidarity in lived experience.
“Our weapon is far from home,” he said, invoking his grandfather’s words that injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere. “We carry the hopes of the world when we say the Palestinians will be free.”
He reminded the gathering that discipline and unity were as vital as courage and that the real test of solidarity lay in sustaining commitment when obstacles multiply.
His intervention gave the gathering a reference point, a reminder of what international solidarity can achieve. He recalled the Cubans who helped defeat apartheid South Africa’s army in Angola and the global protests that forced Western powers to finally concede to sanctions.
“Do not think small acts are meaningless. They are the sparks that light the fire.”
It was mobilisation in its rawest form — ordinary people organising across borders, building pressure where governments have failed.
The Global Sumud Flotilla might not have sailed exactly on schedule. It might not reach Gaza. But, in Tunis, the sense of purpose was palpable.
The weight of South Africa’s history was invoked as proof that liberation can feel impossible until it is realised.
“We carry the hopes of the world when we say the Palestinians will be free,” Mandela told them.
In that crowded hall, under banners and chants and the buzz of journalists filing copy, the words landed not as rhetoric but as a call to keep moving, however uncertain the seas ahead.