My first 'encounter' with Nelson Mandela must have
been around 1994. It was from the musical Sarafina
which is set in Apartheid South Africa. I must have been around 8 then and can
safely say that I was already precociously politically aware. He sounded too
good to be true this Mandela guy. Almost a mythical character. However, a few
years later, as I dug deeper on him and other heroes that I had discovered
along the way, the likes of Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr., my affection
and admiration for the man grew. Before December 5, 2013, if I had been granted
just one wish in the world, I am more than sure that it would have been to meet
this man. Let’s keep it simple. I admired the man because not simply because he
spent 27 years in prison; there are many people who have spent even longer
periods of time in incarceration on politically motivated grounds. Rather, it
was the raw and unapologetic commitment to principle that the 27 years
represented that earned him my eternal respect. It was the way in which he went
about building a nation after he became President that etched his name onto my
heart. The boldness to reconcile with the enemy, to embrace his tormentors and
the magnanimity and grace to move on from a painful past without forgetting its
useful lessons. Let’s face it. Madiba is stuff of legends. President Obama was
right when he said that we are unlikely to see anyone of his ilk again. Not that
human decency has perished from the face of the face. But rather because the
peculiar political circumstances that conspired to birth the Mandelas of this
world won’t probably repeat themselves. True there remains a lot to be done in
this world. A lot of evil to be confronted. There is war on poverty, hunger,
disease and illiteracy to be won. But surely this will not require those waging
these wars to be locked up on a lonely and wretched island for close to 2
decades. [There is a popular misconception that Mandela spent 27 years on
Robben Island. In fact he only spent some 18 years or so on the Island. The remainder
of his prison term was served at Pollsmoor and Victor Verster prisons.] It’s
further true that there still remains political settlements to be secured in
the Palestine and that there are still many peoples of this world who are
denied the basic rights and freedoms that some of us take for granted. Countries
like Burma, Saud Arabia, Swaziland come to mind. Maybe these still need gallant
sons and daughters to lead them to the Promised Land. But so different are the
variables that they are unlikely to attain even half the stature of Mandela.
There are those who in light of his passing on December
5, 2013 have sought to cast aspersions on his legacy. They have called him
names. From an opportunist who had greatness thrust upon him to a western
puppet and everything in between. It’s a
free world. The kind that Mandela was ready to lay down his life in order to
see realized. So people can blurt out what they fancy. However, it is in that
same freedom that we add our own voice to the ‘debate’ about the Madiba legacy.
Greatness
thrust upon him…
There is no gainsaying that Mandela was a product
of peculiar historical circumstances. He became of age in a country in which a
brutal system of racial discrimination condemned him and others of his race to “a lonely island
of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material
prosperity.” They were to be excluded from the political process simply
because they were black. Faced with such kind of stark social reality, one must
make a decision. For good or bad such calls alter history. Madiba, dutifully,
made the right call when he got recruited by Walter Sisulu into the ANC in 1942/43.
Any person who has even fleetingly glanced at the history of the ANC will know
that before his incarceration in 1962, Madiba had been a leader in the ANC. It
was him and others who pushed for a more ‘militant’ liberation organisation. In
fact his views to revolutionize the ANC [through formation of a Youth League
for instance] were considered so radical by Dr. Xuma, the leader of the ANC at
the time that him and his comrades [Sisulu, Lembede] were dismissed as being “naïve
firebrands.” In fact, by the time that Mandela was being incarcerated he had
been the movement’s leader for the Transvaal, secretary of the Youth League on
top of being a member of the party’s national executive committee. This clearly
shows that Mandela was a leader in his own right even before he was thrown into
prison.
Even a cursory examination of the role he
played during the Rivonia trial [his 3 hour court address] and at Robben Island
clearly shows that his colleagues recognised him as the first among equals. It’s
accurate indeed that the ANC had rivals within South Africa. Long Walk to Freedom,
Madiba’s autobiography details how Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the Pan
Africanist’ Congress, the ANC’s chief rival organisation, made it a point to antagonise
Mandela and to challenge his ‘leadership’ of political prisoners on the Island.
But for those within the ANC on the Island, they accepted Mandela as their
leader.
The struggle to liberate South Africa has never
been a one man show. No honest man can produce evidence that Mandela ever made
any claim that he singlehandedly dismantled apartheid. Such evidence is not
available because Mandela never made such an outlandish assertion. In fact
quite the contrary. Mandela has always been insistent that the liberation
struggle was a collective effort. It is even recorded that he resisted any
attempt to call for his lone release minus that of his comrades. The slander
that he stole other struggle stalwarts’ glory is, therefore, baseless and is
indeed just that; malicious slander. But it is indeed true that there was a decision
made by the movement in exile in Zambia and London [the likes of Tambo and
Mbeki] that they would make Mandela the ‘poster boy’ of the liberation
struggle. I guess ‘Free Mandela’
sells well than Free Mandela, Govan
Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Kathrada, Mac Maharaj….[yo! The list is endless isn’t
it?] Can you imagine such kind of a media campaign? Wouldn’t it be a such a
damp squib that no traction would in fact be gained? By highlighting the plight
of Mandela, the struggle movement was ‘dramatizing [his] shameful condition’
and indeed that of all those prisoners of conscience who were being held on the
Island. It was indicting the apartheid regime and everything else that it stood
for.
But again History will record that it was
Madiba who had wisdom to tell that the pivotal moment to start talking to the
racist regime had come. This he did at a great risk to his personal standing
within the organisation as others were suspicious of his motives. After his
release from prison in 1990, Mandela continued to provide steady leadership to
the ANC through the CODESA process. It was him who probably pulled South Africa
from the precipice of a bloody civil war when he appeared on national
television to calm the nation down after the racially motivated slaying of
Chris Hani.
To be continued...
Nice piece a Soko
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