Nelson Mandela:neither sell-out nor saint
Correspondent | Friday December 13, 2013 17:18
Nelson Mandela was the last of a great generation of freedom fighters who guided South Africa's liberation struggle from the early days of the African National Congress Youth League in the 1940s. South Africans have fond memories of these leaders - men and women such as Albertina and Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Anton Lembede and Govan Mbeki - particularly in today's political climate, which is characterised by greed and rampant accumulation of wealth, often through corruption.
These people demonstrated the kind of morality and selflessness that is lacking in South African political life today. That is why Mandela was loved by the majority of South Africans, black and white. Each time he was taken ill, this outpouring of love came through clearly from radio talkshow callers and TV vox pops. But that love is not universal in South Africa.
There are many white die-hards who still see him as a terrorist who should never have been released from prison. They are disgruntled about their loss of power and privilege, and they vent that in comments on various South African newspaper websites. At the other end of the spectrum are the black youngsters who are disillusioned with the 'new' South Africa and hold Mandela personally responsible for betraying the revolution.
Two years ago, a two-day information blackout after he had been taken to hospital resulted in the first flurry of speculation on his medical condition. South Africans feared that he was either dying or was already dead. But some black youths were in despair for different reasons. Malaika wa Azania, a 19-year-old radical from Soweto who was at that time gaining a following among youth throughout the country, posted on Facebook: 'Mandela must not die yet. No no no. That would be unfair. People don't get away with crime. Neither must he ...' Her voice was loudest on social media, but she made inroads in mainstream media, writing newspaper opinion pieces on why the settlement reached between the ANC and the white apartheid government in the early 1990s was a fraud perpetrated on black people who are yet to regain their land, stolen by whites during colonial conquest.
This young woman is not a voice in the wilderness.
One of the many who think like her is Andile Mngxitama, a pamphleteer who travels the country rallying youth against the establishment, which he feels continues to be anti-black. His stomping grounds are the university campuses. Such disparate voices claim that Mandela failed black people and sold them out to white capital. His policy of reconciliation did not serve the interests of poor blacks but, instead, reinforced white supremacy, they assert.
I understand the disillusionment of these young people, although I do not share their perspective. To me, Mandela was neither the devil they make him out to be nor the saint that most of my compatriots and the international community think he was. I see him as a skilful politician, smart enough to resist the megalomania that comes with deification. I do not think the policy of reconciliation was ill-advised; it saved the country from a bloodbath and ushered in a period of prosperity.
But therein lies the rub. The distribution of that prosperity was very skewed. South Africa has never been a place of equal opportunity, and that was reinforced instead of changed by Mandela's presidency. His focus on the symbols and atmospherics of reconciliation was at the expense of real economic reform. The disillusionment of young black South Africans began when he was president. So did the unbridled accumulation of wealth by the ruling party apparatchiks, accompanied by the marginalisation of all those deemed to lack 'struggle credentials'. While cadres of the party gained positions of power and wealth, both in the public and private sectors, the rest of the black population remained poor and unemployed.
In December 1997, I wrote to Mandela, lamenting the corruption, patronage and crony capitalism I felt was taking root. 'The youth have a perception that generally our political leaders are thoroughly rotten,' I wrote. 'Many of our youth are despondent and have lost hope. The older ones talk of having been used as cannon fodder in the struggle, yet now they are forgotten while the leaders ride on the gravy train.'
To his credit, Mandela was swift in his response. He phoned and arranged that I meet three of his cabinet ministers to discuss my concerns. The ministers didnot seem to see the seriousness of the situation, but it enhanced my respect for Mandela. He obviously was concerned, but somehow couldnot rein in his comrades' unbridled greed.
I admired Mandela as a statesman: he came out of prison after almost three decades speaking of compassion and inclusiveness. I was surprised by his tone of tolerance and reconciliation, having known him from the early 1950s when he worked with my father, Ashby Peter Mda; they were founders of the ANC Youth League. Mandela was a fire-breathing revolutionary then, a far cry from the benevolent statesman he became.
Despite my admiration and those early connections, I have been very critical of some of his positions. As a columnist on the Sunday Times during his presidency, I was scathing when his statesmanship got in the way of truth and he lamented the death of a murderous African dictator, Sani Abacha, calling it a loss to Africa. I was just as critical when he defended the deputy speaker of parliament who was alleged to have obtained a fraudulent driver's licence.
Mandela was extremely loyal to his comrades, sometimes to a fault. This led to the false perception that he condoned corruption.
In fact, in his later years, as a retired statesman and an ailing man, he was a victim of that very corruption, surrounded by characters who - despite the gallant efforts of the Nelson Mandela Foundation to protect him - were keen to cash in on his name and even his death. Now the statesman has taken leave of us and our problems.
He has earned his rest. (The Guardian)