Publications
Partners
South African Ambassador to Denmark Zindzi Mandela has reappeared on social network Twitter after disappearing, following a series of radical tweets from her account aimed at "apartheid apologists" and "land thieves".
On Friday, Mandela tweeted: "Dear Apartheid Apologists, your time is over. You will not rule again. We do not fear you. Finally #TheLandIsOurs."
"Whilst I wine and dine here ..wondering how the world of shivering land thieves is doing #OurLand," was another of her late-night tweets.
By Saturday, Mandela was trending as she took on social media users who disagreed with her view on the land debate.
Back in South Africa, several high-profile politicians and institutions weighed in on the furore.
The Freedom Front Plus insisted that government take action against Mandela for her "racist and divisive" tweets.
The DA said on Tuesday it also believed that Mandela's divisive comments were a strong enough basis for her to be recalled as ambassador.
ANC national executive committee (NEC) member and Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula also entered the fray, seemingly calling Mandela to order by tweeting: "Ambassador, hold it right there, comrade."
The EFF, on the other hand, rejected a call by lobby group AfriForum to have Mandela fired over her tweets.
Gone MIA
Since the tweets, Mandela herself had been quiet, to the point where Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesperson Clayson Monyela said his attempts to get hold of the daughter of late struggle icons, Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, were unsuccessful.
Until Tuesday night at 22:31, that is, when Mandela simply tweeted: "Zithandwa zam, Maqabane (my dear comrades): I am back from my trip and will take a stroll down twitter streets tomorrow. Thank You Thank You Thank You #OurLand."
It was not clear what trip she had taken.
Her return to Twitter was met with much enthusiasm and the tweet had by Wednesday morning been retweeted 944 times, eliciting 482 comments that were overwhelmingly supportive.
Monyela earlier said he needed to get hold of her to verify whether she was the one who was tweeting because it could be a hijacked account.
"I need to first check with her whether, number one, this is her account because it is not verified, [number] two, whether she is the one who has been tweeting, and [number] three, whether she stands by those tweets, if it is her who has been tweeting," he said.
Monyela added that once all those elements had been verified and established, the department's social media policy would be applied and the matter would be taken forward.
Mandela's childhood was interrupted several times with the imprisonment of her parents and the banishment of her mother to Brandfort in the Free State. In 1985, at age 25, she famously read her father's refusal to submit to then-president PW Botha's conditions for Mandela's release from prison.
- FOLLOW News24 on Twitter
