The South African Students Congress (SASCO) welcomes the decision by the ANC led government to withdraw its support for Miss SA in the upcoming Miss Universe pageant.
It is terribly unfortunate that Miss Lalela Mswane insists on supporting and legitimising an apartheid state through her insistence to participate in the upcoming Miss Universe pageant in Apartheid Israel.
SASCO supports the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). The campaign recognises the role that academic and cultural institutions play in actively supporting the Israeli regime and normalising apartheid.
The Miss Universe pageant is just another cultural platform for Israel to use to whitewash its continued violations of Palestinian human rights. The 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crimes of Apartheid provides a legal definition for apartheid, and Israel fulfils that definition. The Israeli regime’s continued illegal settlement project has resulted in land being dispossessed from indigenous Palestinians. The city of Eilat, is an illegal Israeli settlement built on the ruins of many Palestinian homes, whose population was ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba. This is the same city where the pageant is set to take place.
It is therefore legally and morally justified to call for boycotts against the Apartheid state of Israel, just as the South African anti-apartheid movement mobilised the international community to isolate South Africa because of its policy of apartheid. Palestinians have issued the same call that SASCO will continue to support without reservation.
SASCO further, urges all students and South Africans in general to join all upcoming demonstrations calling on Miss Lalela Mswane to reconsider her individualist position to compete in Israel.
Issued by SASCO
Bamanye Matiwane
President
Buthanani Thobela
Secretary General
For Enquiries:
Luvuyo Barnes
Media & Communication Liaison
079 393 7131
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