Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane, the daughter of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, sparked an all-out war on social media over the weekend with her tweets about “apartheid apologists”.
Zindzi, 59, who is South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark, on Friday tweeted:
, which quickly drew reactions from people who called her out for what they said was a racist and divisive statement.
Within hours, #ZindziMandela was trending, with over 13 000 tweets responding to hers with either outrage or praise on the contentious land issue.
AfriForum labelled her tweets “racist and divisive”, and called on Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Naledi Pandor, to recall and fire her.
Deputy chief executive of AfriForum responsible for international liaison, Alana Bailey, said: “With false allegations and demeaning terms such as ‘cowards’ and ‘land thieves’, she is contributing to a dangerous discourse of scapegoating. Her defence that she is entitled to a personal opinion, shows a complete lack of insight into her responsibility in her position as ambassador.”
The president of the Black First Land First party, Andile Mngxitama, however applauded Mandela, saying his party backed her statements.
“She is absolutely correct in characterising white people as land thieves and also as cowards who hide behind stolen identities on social media,” he said.
“White people have made black South Africans... terrified to tell the truth and so when you speak the truth you are deligitimised, considered a racist and also thrown out of the protection of the law,” he said.