Mandla Mandela, the South African political leader, former ANC MP and grandson of Nelson Mandela, will be the keynote speaker at the Dismantling Apartheid: South Africa to Palestine rally in Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin, on Wednesday, 16th October, starting at 7.00 pm.

Mandela is visiting Ireland to highlight the need for action to support Palestine and to pay tribute to the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers, who sparked a global campaign by trade unionists to boycott South African goods in the 1980s. He committed to travelling to meet the Dunnes Stores strikers while participating in a Freedom Flotilla which sought to break the blockade on Gaza earlier this year.

Mandela said: “There is no South African who can forget Dunnes Stores, and the name of Mary Manning. The 21-year-old who refused to handle any South African products in Dunnes Stores and began a global campaign.”

Irish activist John Hurson, who participated in the Freedom Flotilla with Mandela, said: “Mandla believes that as the struggle to free South Africa was the great cause of the latter half of the 20th century, the struggle to free Palestine is the great international cause of our time. He believes that action by ordinary workers, such as that taken by the Dunnes Stores strikers, can inspire international movements for change.

“He wants to discuss how we go about taking practical action in support of Palestine while in Ireland, a country for which he, like his grandfather, has a great regard.”

He added: “It is also very fitting that he will meet the Dunnes Stores strikers who followed in a great tradition of Irish activism. We must remember that it was Land League activists in 1880 in county Mayo, who gave the world the tactic of ‘the boycott’, when a community banded together to ensure that crops of the cruel Captain Charles Boycott rotted in the field rather than be harvested.”

The evening of discussion and song, which is focused on practical action in support of Palestine, includes among others, Civil Rights campaigner Bernadette McAliskey, the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers, INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha, folk musicians Andy Irvine, Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Palestinian singer Leen.

The event is being co-hosted by the Clé Club, Robert Tressell Festival and Left Bloc. Tickets are available on Eventbrite and cost €11.70.

Tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/dismantling-apartheid-south-africa-to-palestine-tickets-1016168416087