POLITRICKING | ‘We haven’t fully addressed it’: Pandor on SA-Nigeria social tensions, and being threatened over Palestine
Pandor stepped into the studio amid a series of outgoing interviews, seminars and international conferences she has been attending, despite having finally taken a break from a political career that spanned several decades.
Former international relations minister Naledi Pandor. Picture: DIRCO
“I hope we'll get to a point where there is a positive relationship between ourselves and Nigeria. At the government level there is, at the people-to-people, I think we haven't fully addressed it,” says Dr Naledi Pandor.
These are the views of Pandor, the former International Relations Minister on the current tensions between South Africans and Nigerians on social media.
Pandor is this week’s guest on Politricking with Tshidi Madia, a politics podcast by Eyewitness News.
She stepped into the studio amid a series of outgoing interviews, seminars and international conferences she has been attending, despite having finally taken a break from a political career that spanned several decades.
The former minister, at 70 years of age, shows no signs of slowing down. She’s also spending her time contributing several thought pieces to different institutions and is due to start working on her book in the coming months.
Pandor’s emphasis that Africans had to embrace one another was spurred on by the recent saga involving former Miss SA beauty pageant contestant Chidimma Adetshina, who has since dropped out and gone on to win the Miss Universe Nigeria pageant.
Adetshina’s citizenship is under investigation following a public outcry over an individual with a Nigerian background participating in the local beauty show.
She said the two countries had to be the best performing on the continent because they were critical to Africa’s progress.
“If South Africa was doing as well as it should, and if Nigeria was doing as well as it should, Africa will be in a very different space,” said Pandor.
“It shouldn't be that South Africa becomes the key magnet for economic opportunity on the continent because other leaders are not attending to the homework that they should,” she added.
CONTINUED ONSLAUGHT ‘UNBELIEVABLE’
Further afield, Pandor broke down the Palestine-Israel conflict, and how during her time as South Africa’s chief diplomat, she often dealt with the pushback on the country’s foreign policy agenda, including its long-standing position of siding with the Palestinian people’s cause for self-determination.
This is one of the many active situations she left behind when she went into retirement two months ago, along with the Russia Ukraine war, conflict in the Sudan, the Congo, and several other sensitive matters, including two South African engineers who remain incarcerated in Equatorial Guinea, allegedly on trumped-up charges.
Israel’s onslaught on Gaza continues in the face of growing calls for negotiations.
“What I find very, very surprising is that what we are concerned about are lives being lost, is an onslaught that is absolutely unbelievable in this day and age, and that the world is not able to do anything… this is shocking,” she lamented.
Pandor not only faced insults and threats over South Africa’s stance, but it spread to her loved ones too. And while she refused to dwell on this too much, she admitted finding it surprising - but not unexpected.
“It's happened to other people before, and what was surprising to me, though, was the behaviour of people who call themselves leaders of the Jewish community in our country - they were among the most hostile.
“And even recently, I know that they kind of have people who tell them where I am and what I'm saying, so they can quote verbatim in their articles,” she said.
She also dismissed attempts to personalise her role on the matter.