SACP urges Miss SA to boycott Miss Universe pageant in solidarity with Palestine

Cape Town (QNN)- The South African Communist Party (SACP) on Friday issued a statement, urging Miss South Africa organization and Miss South Africa Lalela Mswane to boycott the Miss Universe pageant, which will be held in ‘Eilat’, an Israeli city built on the ruins of displaced Palestinian villages.

The statement cited Israel’s apartheid and targeting of Palestinian women and children, which “contradicts the claim by Miss Universe that one purpose of the pageant is to “empower” women”.

The SACP added that “Miss South Africa organisation and Miss South Africa need to think about the situation of the oppressed majority under the successive colonial and apartheid regimes that prevailed in South Africa.”

“The Palestinian people, with women and children the worst affected, are in a similar, if perhaps not a worse, situation today. Miss South Africa organisation and Miss South Africa need to sympathise with the Palestinian people”, it added.

The statement also stressed that like the people of South Africa, the people of Palestine deserve support to overcome the oppressive regime and they also deserve to have the right to democratic national sovereignty and self-determination.

“There can be no normal Miss Universe in an abnormal situation, in an occupied Palestinian territory”, the statement noted.

Several parties and figures had called on Miss SA to boycott the pageant, including Mandla Mandela, the grandson of South Africa’s leader Nelson Mandela.