A leading icon of our Zoroastrian community worldwide, Zerbanoo Gifford is a globally renowned Human Rights campaigner, author of seven books, founder of The ASHA Centre (which aims at enriching young adults by delivering transformative education in various fields – www.ashacentre.org), as well as President of The World Zoroastrian Organisation (WZO). A pioneer for Asian Women in British politics, in 1982, she was elected Councillor in Harrow and was the first ethnic minority woman to stand for parliament. Her humanitarian work spans over fifty years of grassroots and global activism, for championing the rights of women, children and minorities, and for her strong anti-slavery and pro-equality campaigns, for which she has received numerous awards

Recently, Zerbanoo Gifford participated in a Thanksgiving event at the Westeminster Abbey, London, UK. Athravan Sett, who accompanied Zerbanoo at this historic event, shares…

On 16^th July, 2024, in Westminster Abbey, a special Service of Thanksgiving was held to celebrate the 30^th year of South Africa’s democracy, almost thirty years after Nelson Mandela visited the Abbey as South Africa’s first democratically elected President. Zerbanoo Gifford was invited as one of the few prominent anti-apartheid campaigners outside South Africa. This was unsurprising – not many people have a testimony from Nobel Laureat Bishop Desmond Tutu on their biography (‘An Uncensored Life’). What was surprising was the warmth of the reception we received as were whisked away by the event organisers 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 HM Queen Nompumelelo Zulu within eyeshot. Addresses were given by the former British High Commissioner to South Africa, the General Secretary of trade union UNISON, South African MPs and the Deputy Leader of the House of Lords. Knowing my interest in the history of South Africa. Zerbanoo wished me to experience a unique moment where, “freedom can be won by those determined to see justice.”

Mohau Mogale’s tribute to Nelson Mandela was sung beautifully in Zulu by tenor Innocent Masuku, a finalist in 2024’s Britain’s Got Talent. The song referred to Mandela as “a hero, a king of kings,” sincerely praising ‘Madiba’, as Mandela is known in South Africa.

Through her work with the South African ANC and the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) (now Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA)), Zerbanoo was integral to the movement to boycott, divest and sanction the South African state. The ACTSA’s service celebration materials included contemporary posters such as those encouraging divestment from banks who were financing the apartheid regime, and posters for mass protests being organised in Trafalgar Square and across London.

In June 1985, per her interview for the BBC, Zerbanoo spoke at Trafalgar Square to an audience of 25,000 people alongside Lord Neil Kinnock (then leader of the Labour party) and Oliver Tambo, calling for “full mandatory sanctions against South Africa and for the release of Nelson Mandela”. Mandela is said to have kept photographs of all that 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, at 10 Downing Street, who it will surprise few, was unreceptive.

Zerbanoo’s commitment to the anti-apartheid movement brought her into the sights of the Afrikaner state’s secretive centralised “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. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report presented to Nelson Mandela in 1998 noted the links between BOSS and extra-judicial killings, the violation of human rights and political and social oppression, especially through its infamous “covert Z division”. The Abbey service prayed for those “who died in the quest for equal rights”.

Zerbanoo recollected receiving a short telegram in 1985 at the Liberal party’s annual conference in Dundee in Scotland. It was signed BOSS (but probably came from its more PR-conscious successor the National Intelligence Service), stating 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 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 out in public due to death threats and kidnapping threats levelled against her children.

The service at Westminster Abbey was a deeply moving and hopeful celebration of the achievement of South Africa’s democracy movement, with Jewish, Muslim and Hindu community leaders, all presenting prayers. 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. Many will appreciate the long-standing tensions between the states, with the Zionist Israeli state a substantial ally of the South African apartheid state, and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation a strong supporter of Mandela and the Republic of South Africa.

Speaking to Zerbanoo about her days as an anti-apartheid activist was deeply educational. This is just the sort of modern history all Zoroastrians (particularly young Zoroastrians) globally, want to know about our community’s commitment to justice and our untold impact on the world.