The UK’s decision to deny Mandla Mandela, the former ANC MP and grandson of former president Nelson Mandela, a visa has been described as a missed opportunity.
The UK Home Office rejected Mandela’s visa application to visit Britain for a pro-Palestinian speaking tour as it said he made statements supporting Hamas and had “engaged in unacceptable behaviour”.
Former diplomat and international relations analyst Zeenat Adam told Daily Maverick this was a “missed opportunity” and argued that South Africa’s negotiated democracy could offer a pathway for ongoing discussions regarding Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.
Adam, the deputy executive director of the Afro-Middle East Centre, said Mandela posed no threat nor was he making anti-Semitic remarks. She said this was an attempt to “muzzle” someone with a “weighty name and weighty history”.
“I think he has been constructive,” she said.
Adam claimed the visa refusal was “hypocritical” and argued other countries, such as South Africa, could apply the same principle to leaders such as former British prime minister Tony Blair, who has been accused of war crimes.
Adam said that in South Africa, parallels were often made with the country’s history of apartheid, and right now, mediators in the conflict “should be speaking to all parties”.
She also made it clear that Hamas was not banned in South Africa. Hamas, however, is classified as a terrorist group in the UK, with its military wing banned in 2001 under its Terrorism Act. In November 2021, this was extended to include the organisation’s political wing.
Daily Maverick asked the British High Commission for comment, but did not receive a response. It will be added should it be received.
According to the UK’s House of Commons Library, the government has wide discretion to ban foreign nationals from the UK if their presence is not considered “conducive to the public good”.
Reasons for visa rejection
Mandela’s visa issue has been ongoing since mid-October. According to the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Ireland waived his visa requirements to enter the country and British officials initially said he didn’t require a visa to visit the UK, but then changed their tune.
His planned speaking tour was titled, “Dismantling Apartheid from South Africa to Palestine”.
The coalition said despite “high-level approaches” from senior ANC figures “the British embassy has not relented or issued a visa. By contrast, the Irish authorities have waived the visa requirement for him”.
This meant Mandela was unable to catch his flight to visit Ireland and the UK. He has still been attending his speaking events virtually.
Mandela did not respond to Daily Maverick’s request for comment but he posted a statement on the visa refusal – and the letter he received from the UK Home Office – on Instagram.
The letter from the Home Office was dated 21 October 2024.
It said under immigration rules “an application for entry clearance must be refused where the applicant’s presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good because of their conduct, character, associations or other reasons. This applies to conduct both in the UK and overseas”.
Read more: Middle East Crisis News Hub
“You have made multiple statements which explicitly support Hamas and their terrorist violence, including glorifying the October 7 attack on Israel and their recently deceased leader Ismail Haniyeh,” said in the letter.
It said the military wing of Hamas was forbidden in the UK and pointed to Mandela’s support, via his Instagram account, for the Palestinians’ right to resist on 7 October 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack in Israel.
Read more: The human cost of conflict: understanding violence in South Africa and Gaza’s tragic reality
It stated Mandela’s visit to the UK would likely cause “tensions within UK Jewish communities due to your explicit statements highlighted above, particularly in relation to support for Hamas and glorifying the 7 October attack”.
It said the decision to refuse his visa was not to “deny you freedom to express your views, but rather to deny you the ability to express your views in person in the UK, which may lead to community tensions in the UK…”
The decision to refuse the visa could not be appealed or reviewed, said the letter.
‘Not a terrorist’
Mandela’s visa refusal drew criticism from the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Intellectual Property Trust.
On Friday, the trust said in a statement signed by chair Dr Mamphela Ramphele: “Mandla Mandela is committed to the struggle for justice in the Holy Land, but he is not a terrorist. He is clear in his support for Palestinians, but he is not anti-Semitic. Nor does he supply any weapons or aid to fuel the conflict, as the UK and US do.”
“The unbridled violence that Israel has authored in Palestine since Hamas’ 7 October 2023 incursion and seizure of hostages is now spreading across the Middle East region.”
The trust, named after the Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been a voice for the release of hostages taken by Hamas as well as a lasting solution to the ongoing war. It said as far back as 2014, Desmond Tutu spoke out against violence against civilians by Hamas, while he was also “unashamedly” supportive of the Palestinian people’s fight for justice.
The trust quoted Tutu’s words following violence in the region in 2014: “If you want to make peace you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies”.
The trust said, “It is time to talk, and to listen; to return prisoners and hostages; to return illegally occupied land; for the killing and destruction on both sides to stop. This is not the time to reinforce binary geopolitical positions or shut down voices with which we don’t agree.”
On Instagram, Mandela said: “We can never be silenced and we will never let the refusal of a visa prevent us for standing for justice, peace and equality. We will continue to raise our voice against the unjust occupation, genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and all of Occupied Palestine sponsored by the UK and its ilk,” he wrote.
Mandela said the refusal letter was “symptomatic of the UK’s complicity with Apartheid Israel and its ongoing support for the genocide in Gaza and all of Occupied Palestine”.
Mandela added: “We are denied a visa for supporting the Palestinian Resistance but the UK consistently fails to condemn Apartheid Israel’s war crimes, occupation of Palestinian land and the genocide of the people of Gaza and all of Occupied Palestine.”
Usuf Chikte, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign coordinator, told Daily Maverick the refusal was viewed as an “assault on free speech and freedom of movement. This decision is particularly concerning given the UK’s history of supporting Israel’s actions in Palestine, which have been criticised as apartheid, genocide, and state terror.
“The visa denial has sparked calls for reciprocal treatment of UK dignitaries when they visit South Africa,” Chikte said. DM