Mayor of Johannesburg in Palestine to unveil Mandela Statue
The City of Johannesburg has commissioned a 6-metre Nelson Mandela statue to donate to the people of Palestine‚ BDS South Africa said.The activist group said the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg‚ Parks Tau‚ is currently in Palestine for the unveiling of the statue in the City of Ramallah on Tuesday (3pm South African time‚ 4pm Palestinian time).Madiba lives in West BankBDS South Africa quoted the former South African president as declaring in 1997 that: "our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians".The organisation quoted Mayor Tau as saying: “We see the statue as a symbol of friendship‚ as a symbol of demonstrating our solidarity but also hopefully as an inspiration to the people of Palestine that you indeed would be able to achieve your freedom...We are here as the people of South Africa to say we stand in solidarity with you‚ we stand in solidarity with your struggles and we understand the difficulties that you go through...Ultimately it is when you have experienced the real hardships of the people of Palestine that you understand the difficult situation that the people of Palestine are going through."The statue is believed to have been designed by Dali Tambo‚ the son of struggle icon Oliver Tambo‚ who was also involved with conceptualising the Madiba statue at the Union Buildings‚ Pretoria...
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