Chief Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, MP and tribal chief of the Mvezo Traditional Council has reiterated calls for a boycott of the Miss Universe pageant that will take place in Israel in December.
Chief Mandela – the grandson of icon Nelson Mandela – said: “We reiterate our call to all Miss Universe pageant contestants to heed our call and do what is right.
“Boycott Apartheid Israel. Do not participate in the Apartheid Israel Miss Universe pageant.
“Do not allow it to hide behind your presence and a semblance of normalcy whilst it continues its agenda of extermination and discrimination against Palestinians.”
Chief Mandela’s remarks on Sunday were a repeat of earlier comments that sparked a furious response from former Miss Iraq Sarah Abdali Idan.
In her video response directed at Chief Mandela, posted on social media, the Iraqi-American model, television host, musician, and beauty pageant titleholder said: “How dare you, as a man, try to tell an organisation for women and women empowerment what to do”.
“This is an opportunity that millions of women dream of having. To go on world stage and represent their people, their nation, their culture.
“Not government, not politics, and definitely not your political agenda.”
Unfazed, Chief Mandela said Idan was “entitled to her views and we applaud her stated stand for women and women’s empowerment”.
He added: “It is just tragic that in her blind support for the apartheid state of Israel she lacks the moral fibre to also speak for the women of occupied Palestine who are routinely harassed, beaten, humiliated, incarcerated, and killed by this brutal regime.
“Don’t Palestinian women also have human rights?”
Earlier this month, 24-year-old Lalela Mswane was crowned Miss South Africa 2021 at the Grand Arena in Cape Town, which entitles her to compete in the Miss Universe pageant.
Although Mswane has not made any public comment about what stance she will take, organisers of Miss South Africa have refused to be drawn into a what they say is a “political war of words”.
