To celebrate the 30th year of South Africa’s democracy, a special Service of Thanksgiving was held at the Westminster Abbey in London on July 16, 2024, almost 30 years after Nelson Mandela visited the Abbey as South Africa’s first democratically elected President. Invited to the service was Zerbanoo Gifford, one of the few prominent anti-apartheid campaigners outside South Africa still alive. Accompanying her to the Service was Art (Athravan) Sett who had recently attended the World Zoroastrian Youth Leadership Forum at the Asha Centre founded by Gifford from May 24 to June 2.
Having studied history during his undergraduate days at Oxford, currently a corporate lawyer and a mobed, Sett shared his observations: "Knowing my interest in the history of South Africa, Zerbanoo said she wished me to experience a unique moment where ‘freedom can be won by those determined to see justice.’ What was surprising to me was the warmth of the reception we received as we were whisked away by the event organizers through the long hall, past the gates to sit in the pews usually reserved for royalty, with the robed Master of the Choristers of the Abbey immediately to my left, and the Zulu Queen Nompumelelo in eyeshot. This was unsurprising for not many people have a testimony from Nobel Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu on their biography as Zerbanoo has on hers, An Uncensored Life.
Zerbanoo Gifford (l) and Art Sett at Westminster Cathedral
"Praying for those ‘who died in the quest for equal rights,’ the Service at Westminster Abbey, with Jewish, Muslim and Hindu community leaders joining in, was a deeply moving, bittersweet but hopeful celebration of the achievement of South Africa’s democracy movement. During the ceremony great sorrow and distress was expressed over the condition of the Palestinian people, whose protection South Africa appealed for in the International Court of Justice. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation has been a strong supporter of Mandela and the Republic of South Africa.
"Speeches were given by the former British High Commissioner to South Africa, the general secretary of trade union UNISON, South African members of parliament and the deputy leader of the House of Lords. Mohau Mogale’s tribute to Mandela was sung beautifully in Zulu by tenor Innocent Masuku, a finalist in the 2024 ‘Britain’s Got Talent.’ The sincerity of the praise and the love for ‘Madiba’ as Mandela is known in South Africa, was evident in the song that referred to him as ‘a hero, a king of kings.’
"Through her work with the African National Congress and the Anti-Apartheid Movement (now Action for Southern Africa) in Britain, Zerbanoo had proposed the boycott, divestment… and (subsequent) sanction against the South African state. In 1985, Zerbanoo spoke at Trafalgar Square to an audience of 25,000 people alongside Lord Neil Kinnock (then leader of the Labour party) and South African politician Oliver Tambo, as recorded in her interview with the BBC. Mandela is said to have displayed photographs of all who spoke that day on the walls of his prison. The late Bishop Trevor Huddleston and Zerbanoo were selected to present the massive ‘People’s Petition’ to Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who was unreceptive.
"Zerbanoo’s commitment to the anti-apartheid movement brought her into the sights of the Afrikaner state’s secretive, centralized "super-security” agency, the Bureau Of State Security (BOSS), which terrified both opponents and insiders of the regime, superseding both military intelligence and the state defence department. Zerbanoo recollected receiving a short telegram in 1985 at the Liberal party’s annual conference in Dundee in Scotland. Signed by BOSS, it stated that she was being watched, and if she did not cease her anti-apartheid activities, she would be ‘dealt with.’ Her response was to read out the telegram to the world on BBC ‘and to tell the thugs running BOSS that if they were watching her they should know that the whole world was watching them too.’ Threats of violence were not uncommon in England either — Zerbanoo was on the British National Party’s hit-list and, following attacks on her home, required special live-in police protection and armed escort in public due to death threats and kidnapping threats levelled against her children.
"Young Zoroastrians are frequently shown examples of successful businessmen (historically often wealthy philanthropists) and are encouraged to style ourselves as entrepreneurs and influential professionals — I sometimes wonder whether this contributed to my becoming a corporate lawyer.
"Commercial success and philanthropy are certainly beneficial and necessary to the profile, power and longevity of the community. The reading of Zoroastrianism shared by many of us youth is that ‘good thoughts, words and deeds’ also means making hard choices which carry no public acclaim, tax rebates or career opportunities. It may mean fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised, the oppressed and the hopeless, without any guarantee of success, and even less guarantee of credit, simply because it is the right thing to do. Stories of such sacrifice exist in our communities, and I wish more weight was given to them so that we could appropriately thank people who have undertaken exceptional endeavors for others, especially those to whom they have no ties but a common humanity and a belief in justice,” Sett urged.