Please see below the full speech:
SPEECH – NELSON MANDELA INTERNATIONAL DAY | 18 JULY 2025, by the Chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Dr Naledi Pandor
President of the General Assembly; Secretary-General; Permanent Representatives and other invited guests.
Thank you all for being here. I am grateful for the opportunity to address you all this morning.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation expresses profound thanks to this body for allowing us an opportunity to address you on Nelson Mandela International Day.
President Mandela had an enduring appreciation for the bold role the United Nations played in advancing South Africa’s liberation struggle. The United Nations steered us to freedom, stood against apartheid domination not through arms, but through bringing its undeniable moral weight into combat against injustice. That boldness, that courage is needed more and more today, and we hope as we remember and honour President Mandela we recall his words “It is in your hands”.
And so, what is it that I call on all of you to do? On this day, Nelson Mandela International Day, my call to all of you is to remember to make good trouble.
This call is inspired by the man himself. While we all with great affection refer to President Mandela’s first name as ‘Nelson’, the name that he was actually given at birth was ‘Rolihlahla’. In isiXhosa, which was Mandela’s mother tongue and which is one of the official languages of South Africa, the colloquial meaning of Rolihlahla is ‘troublemaker’.
Mandela was a troublemaker. The kind of good troublemaker that we need more of in the world today and the kind that we will continue to need well into the future. The kind of troublemaker that some people did not always love because he pushed for a kind of equality and the overcoming of a system of oppression that was convenient and profitable to some – a system of oppression that was defeated in South Africa, but which has yet to be eradicated globally.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, which I now chair, often gets asked what Mandela would say or do on certain issues if he were alive today? We too ask this question of ourselves. In the context of my call here today, the question arises – What kind of world would he be prepared to make good trouble for?
Drawing on his life and work, and personal reflections, we believe that it would be a just world. A world where justice does not kneel to the rich and powerful; where our collective upliftment takes precedence over individual privilege; where the benefits and burdens of our society are equally shared; where our privilege and personal biases do not sway us from being just; and where our like or dislike of someone does not hinder us from doing what is right in relation to them. This is the kind of world that we need to make good trouble for.
Some of you listening today may ask yourselves: I am just an accountant; I am just a teacher; I am just a store manager, what does making good trouble look like for me? While it can take on different individual and institutional manifestations, let me suggest how we can bring it to life and give it expression in our everyday lives.
Firstly, making good trouble means being excellent. It means carrying your responsibilities out with excellence and with the knowledge that doing so will contribute towards our collective upliftment, regardless of whether people are watching or not, and regardless of the magnitude of the action. What we may refer to as ‘the ordinary’ has its own significance and when done to the best of one’s ability, can make a positive impact on the lives of others and can contribute towards better processes, systems and institutional functioning.
Secondly, making good trouble means always asking oneself the question as one journeys through the different phases of life “How do I make change in the space that I am in?” and showing up to what that question reveals to one. These are things that Mandela did. He aimed to be excellent in the things that he did and he showed up
to the question of how he could make change in the space that he was in with his whole self.
The two awardees of this year’s United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize, Brenda Reynolds and Kennedy Odede, offer us further examples of people who are energetic in their pursuit of good trouble.
Last night, I was privileged to launch an exhibition here at the UN entitled ‘Our shared humanity in action’, which focuses on the important role that the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid played in combatting Apartheid in South Africa. The committee was established by the UN General Assembly in 1962 and its work over the decades of its existence demonstrates what can be done when people come together to make good trouble for global equity. The committee demonstrated what can be done when diplomats, like those I see before me here
today, rise to the occasion and dedicate themselves to the upliftment of people in need out of the recognition that while they may not be their fellow national citizens, they are their fellow human beings.
What brought freedom to South Africa was good trouble and while making good trouble for global equity requires many things at this current juncture, one of things that is needed now is a stronger, reformed and capable United Nations. It will be harder to do good trouble out there in the world, if the internal structures
here are not democratised. This must happen for the sake of the global community and the credibility of the UN.
So as we celebrate 80 years of the UN, let us build better for the next 80 years.
When Mandela came to the United Nations for the first time, he said that while the UN was in session people would come up to him and shake hands with him and that he could not bring himself to shake hands while seated. So, he would instinctively get up and shake hands. This however was not to the liking of the other members of his delegation who told him “You are disturbing the conference” and asked him to go back to his hotel, which he did1. No one has asked me to leave yet, so I think I am doing well. Just for clarity, this is not the
good trouble I am referring to.
But I am also reminded of the kind of heaviness with which he first came to the UN, given the challenges of South Africa’s transition to democracy, which was still being negotiated2. One can imagine the weight on his shoulders when he came here, but also the kind of reprieve he might have felt in the presence of so many country representatives committed to international solidarity and to support for a free South Africa. So, let us too feel a kind of reprieve in the company of all of us gathered here today, but let us leave here reminded of the work that each of us is called to contribute to. I trust that the memory of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela will keep inspiring all of us to do the work of transformation, and to never give up on his dream of a just society and a just world.
I will conclude my speech here today in the same way that Mandela concluded his speech in 1990 when he addressed the Special Committee Against Apartheid in this very room. He said: “We also take this opportunity to extend warm greetings to all others who fight for their liberation and their human rights, including the peoples of Palestine and Western Sahara. We commend their struggles to you, convinced that we are all moved by the fact that freedom is indivisible, convinced that the denial of the rights of one diminishes the freedom
of others.”
I thank you once again for the opportunity to be with you today. May God bless
you all with goodness.
