ANALYSIS:It is a measure of the man that the potential for internecine strife was not realised, writes SEAMUS MARTIN
ON FEBRUARY 11th 1990, Nelson Mandela’s prison identity tag became invalid. It had read: “Nelson Mandela. Crime-Sabotage. Sentence-life plus five years.” The slogan “Free Nelson Mandela!” had become “Nelson Mandela Free”.
Eleven days later I sat beside him on the leatherette sofa in the front room of his little bungalow in the Orlando district of Soweto.
Outside in the summer sunshine of that February afternoon, his neighbours and others had gathered. Mr Banda, who lived down the street, had called in to say hello. So too had British ambassador Robin Renwick, a delegation of tribal chiefs, groups of ANC colleagues including the redoubtable “Terror” Lekota, so called for his activities on the football field rather than in the political arena. It was the first day in more than a quarter of a century that Mandela was receiving guests at home.
Our conversation was on the politics of the day. Sanctions should stay. Lifting them would give the National Party an advantage at upcoming talks. Yes, Afrikaans was the language of oppressor and yes, he would come to Dublin to receive the Freedom of the City. It was interesting if uncontroversial stuff until the topic of his “friendship” with one of his warders, Warrant Officer James Gregory, was touched on. A movie Goodbye Bafana was later to be made on how the two became friends. But this was not how Mandela looked on things.
He had, he said, deliberately gone out of his way to cultivate Gregory to make life more bearable. “Because they can only persecute you through the warders, then if you get the support of a warder, he can give you a bit of advice even before he commits some form of cruelty.”
There was steel too in his determination to pursue equal opportunity. “You see, an idea cannot be abandoned simply because it’s going to be difficult to attain.”
I had seen him walk jubilantly from prison, hand in hand with Winnie Mandela but when I saw them meet by chance in Bophuthatswana four years later the chill had set in. Not only did Nelson Mandela not speak to his estranged wife, he did not even make eye contact. He stood and looked at his shoes.
Now a very old man, he is perhaps the world’s most admired politician but a target too for controversialists who realise they will attract attention by attacking him in print or on TV. Their most consistent allegation is that he appointed Thabo Mbeki as his successor and was, therefore, responsible for Mbeki’s mistakes.
In fact, when Mbeki stood successfully for the presidency of the ANC in September 1993, Mandela supported the candidacy of Kader Asmal, the former Dean of Humanities at Trinity College Dublin. When it came to the battle for the vice-presidency of South Africa with its ensured succession to the presidency, it was Winnie Mandela and the ANC youth league that swung the vote for Mbeki against his opponent, Cyril Ramaphosa, later to become a member of Gen John de Chastelain’s decommissioning organisation in Northern Ireland.
Nelson Mandela was a product of the ANC’s struggle for liberation against minority racist rule. The ANC had its own rules that favoured collective rather than individual leadership. It also stressed absolute loyalty to the organisation, a quality that was far more valid in the years of struggle for freedom than it was after the arrival of democracy.
But for this ingrained loyalty, he might have been more open and more frequent in his criticism of the organisation and of Mbeki’s disastrous policy on HIV/Aids.
His legacy, though, has been overwhelmingly positive. South Africa is a democratic country. Blacks can vote. They can be citizens of their own country. They can own property and land. The upcoming World Cup with all its financial spin-offs would have been unthinkable under the apartheid system. But it is by no means perfect though far closer than it was in the apartheid era. Crime and corruption are major problems but the old National Party was riven with corruption, and crime was high in the old days too. Power corrupts but the ANC does not hold absolute power in South Africa. There is, though, an undoubted need for a strong opposition. Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota saw the need for this and broke away from the ANC. His Congress of the People (COPE) has not managed, as yet, to get the support necessary to be a realistic alternative.
In Ireland we can change government but this became possible, in its present form, because of a vicious civil war. The potential for such internecine strife was far greater in post-independence South Africa. That it did not happen has been largely due to the determination of the man who walked to freedom on February 11th, 1990.
Seamus Martin is a former South Africa correspondent and international editor of The Irish Times.
KEY DATES
1918, July 18th:Born Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela near Qunu, in Transkei (now Eastern Cape), the youngest son of a counsellor to the chief of his Thembu clan.
1944:Founds African National Congress (ANC) Youth League with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu.
– Marries his first wife Evelyn, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. They were divorced in 1957.
1952:Mandela and others arrested and charged under Suppression of Communism Act; given suspended prison sentence.
1958:Elected deputy national president of ANC 1958
– Marries Winnie Madikizela. They separated in April 1992 and divorced nearly four years later.
1962:Leaves country secretly. Goes for military training in Algeria. Returning to South Africa, the "Black Pimpernel" is captured and sentenced to five years for incitement and illegally leaving the country.
1963:While serving five-year sentence, Mandela is charged with conspiracy and sabotage.
1964, June 12th:Mandela and seven others sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, off Cape Town.
1990, February 2nd:FW de Klerk, South Africa's last white president, lifts ban from ANC and other liberation movements. Mandela is freed on February 11th.
1991:Elected ANC president.
1993, October:Wins Nobel Peace Prize with de Klerk.
1994, May 10th:Mandela inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
1997, December:Hands leadership of ANC to deputy president Thabo Mbeki in first stage of phased transfer of power.
1998, July 18th:Marks 80th birthday with marriage to Graca Machel, widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel.
1999, June 16th:Retires, hands power to Mbeki.
2004, June 1st:Announces he will cut back public schedule.
2005, January 6th:Announces that only surviving son Makgatho Mandela has died from Aids at the age of 54.
2007, July 18th:Launches an international group of elder statesmen, to tackle world problems including climate change, HIV/Aids and poverty.
2008, June 26th:US lawmakers erase references to Mandela as a terrorist from national databases.
2008, June 27th:Stars pay tribute, celebrating his 90th birthday, in London's Hyde Park.
2009, May 9th:attends Jacob Zuma's presidential inauguration ceremony. – (Reuters)