{"id":94322,"date":"2026-01-19T15:53:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T20:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muslimmatters.org\/?p=94322"},"modified":"2026-01-19T15:53:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T20:53:05","slug":"iron-principle-under-pressure-a-profile-of-naledi-pandor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muslimmatters.org\/2026\/01\/19\/iron-principle-under-pressure-a-profile-of-naledi-pandor\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Principle Under Pressure: A Profile Of Naledi Pandor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The principal role for which Naledi Pandor of South Africa is known is politics, but her principal interest lies in education. During the final year of her career in 2024, the septuagenarian foreign minister of South Africa gave an education in principled politics with perhaps the most concrete step of any government minister against Israel\u2019s assault on Palestine when she took them to an international court for genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were personal costs to pay, of course, given the ferocity of Zionist propaganda that has accompanied the genocide. Most recently, in November 202,5 her visa to the United States was <\/span>revoked <\/span><\/a>in an extraordinarily petty move, which was nonetheless celebrated by <\/span>Zionist organizations<\/span><\/a>, many of which had spent months attacking both South Africa in general and <\/span>her <\/span><\/a>in particular for having had the <\/span>temerity <\/span><\/a>to challenge their bloody assault on Palestine.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for Pandor, the vindication of being on the right side of history was well worth it. Speaking at Ottawa during a whirlwind trip through Canada just days before the cancellation of her visa, she described the feeling when, after months of personal attacks, professional snubs, and outright mistreatment by both local rivals and foreign peers, her case was found to have been valid all along: \u201cThanks be to Allah, it\u2019s a wonderful feeling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not that there was any let-up in the urgency of the Palestinian cause, of course. With the genocide still afoot, she emphasized the importance of civil society and mass, organized international solidarity. Palestine\u2019s plight required, she said, that its supporters \u201cbuild a united global front\u201d in support. This front can not afford parochialism, sectarianism, tribalism, and hatred.<\/span><\/p>\n

Background<\/span><\/i><\/h2>\n

Pandor grew up amid the downtrodden black majority in apartheid South Africa in a family with both educational and political roots. Her grandfather, Zachariah Matthews, was a professor renowned throughout Africa, who was exiled from his homeland after opposing apartheid in 1956 and became a diplomat for the newly independent Botswana before he passed away. Though he was also exiled, Zachariah\u2019s son Joseph Matthews, Pandor\u2019s father, ended up taking a different route: after apartheid ended, he left his father\u2019s party, though he served a few years as minister in charge of police in a subsequent coalition cabinet. By contrast, Pandor, like her grandfather, spent her political career in the African National Congress, which has ruled South Africa for the past three decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

The African Congress\u2019s rise to power in 1994 came at the end of several generations\u2019 worth of struggle, where they were the main, banned party representing South Africa\u2019s downtrodden majority against the apartheid regime. Their leader, Nelson Mandela, is renowned in anticolonial circles for, among other things, his unfettered solidarity with Palestine, famously remarking, \u201cWe know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.\u201d It was this internationalist solidarity that Pandor inherited; speaking at an event arranged by the Justice for All organization, she emphasized the need for human dignity and freedom across borders – highlighting, along with Palestine, the cases of Rohingya, Uyghurs, and Kashmiris as oppressed people deprived of their rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

From South African Apartheid to Israeli Genocide<\/span><\/i><\/h2>\n
\"Naledi

“Pandor stressed the importance of civil society as nimbler, more flexible form of activism than reliance on officialdom” [PC: Al Jazeera]<\/p><\/div>Israel\u2019s supremacist regime over Palestinians has often been likened to apartheid; Pandor recounted the similarities in militarized townships, forcibly separated places for different races, and the seizure of land for European settlers. In some respects, the current situation is even more ludicrous: where the apartheid regime in South Africa handpicked puppets to impose on the majority black population, today Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and notorious neoconservative ideologue, is being trotted out as a prospective viceroy for a Gaza that does not want him.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Pandor also emphasized certain key differences. In South Africa\u2019s minority rule, the majority workers in unions were able to organize and protest on account of their importance to the South African economy, thus pressuring the same apartheid regime that deprived them. This is not applicable to Palestine, especially under the current genocide, where the role of international solidarity becomes that much more important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pandor stressed the importance of civil society as nimbler, more flexible form of activism than reliance on officialdom: civil society can also afford to stick to its principles in ways that officialdom may not. In taking political stances on principle, she remarked, \u201cFor some of us, we are there for freedom, for others we are there for the selfie – and actions will tell which one [is which].\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an experienced diplomat, she lamented the limitations of even multilateral international bodies and particularly urged the reform of United Nations institutions to break free of the control of the major powers: \u201cIt is tragic that the body we rely on for peace and security,\u201d she said, was dominated by five member states more responsible between them for global insecurity and war than the others put together.<\/span><\/p>\n

The role of principled activism was therefore paramount for Pandor, who quoted Mandela\u2019s advice to youth: \u201cBe a person who makes trouble, but make <\/span>good <\/span><\/i>trouble.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s Fight for Justice, Home and Abroad<\/span><\/i><\/h2>\n

Fighting for a just cause dovetailed neatly with Pandor\u2019s understanding of Islam, to which she converted earlier in life. The African Congress had a considerable amount of support among South Africa\u2019s Muslim minorities, many of whom had been engaged in the campaign against apartheid. For Pandor, faith in Allah enabled her to withstand frequent barbed attacks from political opponents. These could go from sweeping bigotry, as evidenced by much of the attacks on South Africa\u2019s current government in recent years, to the pettily personal: she drily recounted how rivals attacked a slight British inflection in her accent, having studied and taught in Britain in her youth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Education was Pandor\u2019s first job, and after a stint leading South Africa\u2019s equivalent of a senate, the first woman to do so, she held a number of ministries largely related to educational advancement. She also served a brief stint as interior minister, and ended her ministerial career with five years as South Africa\u2019s foreign minister. As a veteran politician well-versed in the cut and thrust of power, her initiative in a principled cause meant that much more. So too did her emphasis on the importance of civil society, something located well outside the realm of the corridors of power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since it threw off apartheid in the 1990s, South Africa has generally been seen as a leader on the African continent and is often catalogued among rising states in the international system. With that system having long been dominated by first colonial, and then Cold War superpowers’ competition, Pandor emphasized the importance of this moment in history: when these \u201cGlobal Northern\u201d powers, who have dominated international relations for centuries, are in flux. It was a huge opportunity, she said, for the \u201cGlobal South\u201d to reconfigure international relations to a more equitable keel.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was only a few days later, after her trip to Canada, that Pandor found that her visa to travel to the United States had been revoked. This stemmed partly from a general hostility toward South Africa by the United States, especially during Donald Trump\u2019s current reign, where far-right activists regularly and speciously claim that Pretoria\u2019s anti-apartheid measures discriminate against the white minority.<\/span><\/p>\n

This reached such a stage that Trump personally <\/span>berated <\/span><\/a>South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa for this fictitious oppression and offered asylum to white South Africans fleeing the country, a ludicrous proposition that even baffled many of its intended beneficiaries. And it also stemmed from a linked Zionist campaign against South Africa, which is accused of being in cahoots with Hamas to malign the Israeli state. Pandor, the highest-profile Muslim minister, a black veteran of the anti-apartheid movement, and the lady who took Israel to court, was a central target.<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout it all, the South African has kept a dry wit, a stiff upper lip, and an iron will. \u201cRemain engaged until freedom is won,\u201d she said at Ottawa. \u201cThat is all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

– Who\u2019s Afraid Of Dr Naledi Pandor? \u2013 Zionist Panic and a Visa Revoked<\/a><\/p>\n

– When News Becomes Propaganda: Gaza, Genocide, And The Media<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The principal role for which Naledi Pandor of South Africa is known is politics, but her principal interest lies in education. During the final year of her career in 2024, the septuagenarian foreign minister of South Africa gave an education in principled politics with perhaps the most concrete step of any government minister against Israel\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":94326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10162779835525413_128059875822":"","twitter_22332114_22332114":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_10162779835525413_128059875822","service":"facebook","timestamp":1768856045,"status":"success"},{"account":"twitter_22332114_22332114","service":"twitter","timestamp":1768856045,"status":"error"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_payment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_user_ghostwriter":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6040,8292,28,8992,6046,6044,10818,115],"tags":[1375,4158,385,7214,125,154,11599,158,2544,2098,1111],"coauthors":[10857],"class_list":["post-94322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-africa","category-civil-rights","category-featured","category-featured-current-affairs","category-featured-home","category-palestine","category-politics","tag-current-affairs-3","tag-featured","tag-genocide","tag-islam-3","tag-israel","tag-muslim","tag-naledi-pandor","tag-palestine","tag-south-africa","tag-un","tag-united-nations"],"yoast_head":"\nIron Principle Under Pressure: A Profile Of Naledi Pandor - 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