Lindiwe mabuza biography of william hill
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We needed more resources and there was always an adequate response to our calls for assistance.
Tor Sellström: Nordic support to ANC was strictly civilian. He went straight to Denmark, at the invitation of the Social Democratic Party. As women, they also knew the women’s organizations in their respective countries that could get access to SIDA, NORAD, FINNIDA or DANIDA funds in order to augment the already ongoing assistance.
Instead, their own people were to follow. I would let many people down by not accepting it. With the assistance of experts within the Nordic governments, we could say that rice from Indonesia and oil from country X would be the best. This time it is on the cultural front’. I would also be consulted and so were the other chief representatives of ANC.
Tor Sellström: Do you not think that there were strings attached to the support?
Lindiwe Mabuza: I think that it really would be the height of naïvety to say that there are no strings attached in a contribution.
She traveled across Scandinavia teaching children about the evils of apartheid – an ideology of racial segregation entrenched by white minority rule in South Africa. But, all of this supposed daily work, where you reached out to different artistic or cultural expressions in the Nordic countries.
Long before the demise of apartheid, from 1979 already, she was representing the African National Congress (ANC) in the Nordic countries and the US and is well recognised for her role in solidifying the international movement against apartheid.
I know, because we also had to make certain procurements in the Nordic countries related to the military, using these funds.
Tor Sellström: Some countries would not support ANC or SWAPO with transport means because it was said that a truck can be civilian by day, but military by night. There were many ways in which the military was being assisted.
Tor Sellström: But at the same time there were political forces in the Nordic countries who criticized the governments for not giving armed support to ANC?
Lindiwe Mabuza: Yes, but as they did that we never responded.
She was called ambassador, diplomat, feminist, poet, writer, freedom fighter, leader and educator, amongst others. There were all the time answers to the bankrupt philosophy of apartheid. People who were ready to give and actually gave their lives and their time completely and totally to that commitment. I went there and on their own the smaller children started fund-raising!
We also needed SIDA’s reports, because we had to have a panoramic view of the entire contribution. We had to deal with all the arguments where our own positions were not accepted and our reasoning was questioned. But our perspective of what ought to be accommodated grew as we had more people coming out of South Africa to go into schools.