Rekindling kindred spirits
Dear Editor,
Recently, Jamaica was graced with the presence of one of the most powerful women in Africa, Dr Naledi Pandor, minister of international relations and corporation in South Africa.
Of course, her visit to Jamaica was not a coincidence but a deliberate strategy in her search for support for South Africa’s referring of Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the matter of the genocidal assault against the Palestinians in Gaza. It must be noted that she was also critical of the October 7, 2023 assault on Israel by Hamas.
South Africa needs the support not just for its case in the ICJ but also to confront and battle the political and economic backlash from the powerful Jewish lobbies in South Africa and on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States of America.
Her visit can be described as the rekindling of kindred spirits between South Africa and Jamaica that started in the late 1950s when Jamaica called for universal political and economic boycott of South Africa. This policy was taken to higher heights during the 1970s when the Government of Jamaica gave massive support for the liberation struggles in Southern Africa. It was this huge contribution that was associated with Nelson Mandela, making Jamaica the second country he visited after leaving prison.
This revival of kindred spirits is timely. The situation in Jamaica and the region is quite different from the 1970s. Presently, there is no strong progressive foreign policy activities by the Government of Jamaica and the political leadership in the region. It is against this background that Minister Pandor visited Jamaica to educate the public on the reasons for South Africa’s action against Israel and the political backlash from small but powerful Jewish lobbies in South Africa and in the United States of America.
There is hope for a rekindling of that 1970s fervour against injustice across the globe by South African solidarity groups and the related progressive organisations. These groups have expressed the zeal to inspire solidarity with South Africa in Jamaica, the region, and in our diasporic communities in North America and Europe.
We hope that the Government of Jamaica will move beyond its lukewarm words on this issue, and we are confident that the more progressive leaders of the Caribbean will play their part by supporting South Africa in its resistance against apartheid in the 21st century.
I wish Dr Pandor and her team great success in the mission to seek wider support for South Africa’s mission at the ICJ and its effort to combat the political and economic backlash for its strident political initiative on an issue that was around before October 7, 2023.