1994
Freedom
Freedom and Palestine
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South Africans voted in April 1994. In Pretoria on 4 December 1997, Nelson Mandela spoke of South African freedom as incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.
The 1994 election
The election came after the forced removals and after Imam Abdullah Haron’s death in detention. Three years later Mandela spoke about Palestine.
Mandela’s words
“But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” Mandela said it in Pretoria on 4 December 1997, at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
A line still quoted
The democratic election belongs to a much longer history of organising against exclusion, and Mandela’s line is still quoted across the city.
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