COMMEMORATIVE EDITION
Nelson Rolihlahla
Mandela 1918-2013
Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
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BY PATRICK SMITH
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t took a fellow South African, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to draw the clearest lessons from Nelson Mandela’s life: tremendous courage and moral authority. “Suffering embitters some people but it enobles others,” Tutu said just hours after Mandela’s death was announced late on 5 December. “Prison became a crucible. People could never say: ‘You talk glibly of forgiveness. You haven’t suffered. What do you know?’ Twenty seven years gave him the authority to say let us try to forgive.” First, came the courage. When Mandela and his comrades in the African National Congress (ANC) leadership chose to fight a military campaign against the apartheid regime, they were clearly putting their lives on the line. The biggest test of courage came with Mandela’s arrest in August 1962 and subsequent trial after he had eluded apartheid security agents in his role as the ‘Black Pimpernel’ directing operations for Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s military wing, over the previous year. However impossible it seems today that even the apartheid regime could have sent Mandela and his co-defendants to the gallows, it was a distinct possibility when they faced charges of sabotage at the Rivonia trial in October 1963. Three decades later, the then President Mandela described in a public lecture how he had tried to get some reassurance from a friendly warder on the evening before the final verdict. Mandela told the warder that he assumed that he would get the death sentence – in the quiet hope that the warder would come back with a more cheering response. But, said Mandela, the warder simply thought very hard and
Mandela’s statement to the court – with the threat of a death penalty hanging over him – became the manifesto for every struggle against oppression and injustice.
then concurred that the death sentence was indeed the most likely outcome. Colleagues of the trial judge Quartus de Wet agreed that he had intended to hand down death sentences. Mandela made the audience laugh as he described how he went on a marathon run around the prison yard the following morning to try to settle his mind. Later that morning, Mandela made the statement that would secure his place in history no matter what happened next. Mandela’s lawyers advised him to omit the most powerful coda to his statement because they felt the spirit of defiant dignity in the words would ensure that De Wet would send him to the hangman. But Mandela insisted on making the critical points: those words became the manfesto for every struggle against oppression and injustice. “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” As he spoke, Mandela looked straight into the eyes of the hanging judge. That epic courage and the determination to emerge from jail with such clarity of purpose and to work for the remaking of South Africa with such generosity and intelligence, have been unequalled across the world. We celebrate his bravery and achievement when we pay tribute to Mandela, Africa’s gift to humanity. ●
CONTENTS 2 Editorial Father courage 3 The world on Mandela In the words of those who knew him 4 Interview with Mandela In conversation with John Battersby in 1999 about reconciliation and prison life
6 Photo history 1918-1963 A leader in the making
12 Mandela’s African legacy The mediator with moral authority
8 Photo history 1964-1994 From prisoner to president
16 Interview: Ahmed Kathrada Madiba was stronger than all of us
10 Photo history 1994-2013 Healer of a continent
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Father courage
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The world on Mandela “He is an outstanding individual but he knows he derives his strength from the people who make up the freedom struggle.” OLIVER TAMBO | Former ANC president, in the introduction to Ruth First’s 1965 book No Easy Walk to Freedom
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“What became clear was an intellectual stature. By the end of that trial it was perfectly clear that he was going to be one of the great leaders.”
“He made us realise we are our brother’s keeper, and that our brothers come in all colours.”
SIR SYDNEY KENTRIDGE | Member of Mandela’s defence counsel during the treason trials between 1956-1961, on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, April 2013
BRIA
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“He is a loner. His personal life he is very protective of. He now and again lets slip something, but on the whole, he’ll never let that wall crack.”
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BARACK OBAMA | The 44th President of the United States
GRAÇA MACHEL | Mandela’s third wife, speaking in an interview in 2008
ZAK
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“When you think of a single individual that embodies the kind of leadership qualities that I think we all aspire to, the first name that comes up is Nelson Mandela ”
“He is simply a wonderful husband. We met when we were both settled. We just accept each other as we are. And we enjoy every single day as if it is the last day.”
MUHAMMAD ALI | Boxing legend
AMINA CACHALIA | Anti-apartheid activist, in the 1999 documentary The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela
EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP
The ANC leader, in the words of those who loved him, worked with him, and revered him.
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Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
INTERVIEW
A time for forgiveness After serving five years as President, Nelson Mandela spoke to John Battersby in 1999 about reconciliation, prison life, his ANC comrades, the power of religious faith and the roots of his political determination
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espite his reluctance to be singled out and discuss his personal qualities, there is consensus in South Africa that without Nelson Mandela’s commitment to reconciliation, his moral authority and intense compassion, the country’s transition to democracy might not have gone as smoothly as it did. History will remember Mandela for having the strength of conviction to risk engaging his jailers – thereby humanising them – from inside the prison and eventually setting the stage for the ANC to negotiate them out of power. Mandela sees the success of the ANC in mobilising both domestic and international opinion against the apartheid government as the key factor. Mandela insists that he wants to be remembered as part of a collective and not as some kind of saint. This brings to mind his words on his release from prison in 1990, where he described himself as a “loyal and obedient servant” of the ANC.
FALLIBILITIES
Despite some superhuman international peace missions, frequent overseas travel and stepped-up philanthropic activities, Mr Mandela has begun to reflect on how he wants to be remembered. “Whatever my wishes might be, I cannot bind future generations to remember me in the particular way I would like,” Nelson Mandela says.
He believes that leaders should be seen for their fallibilities, too. “I was once a young man and I did all the things young men do,” he says. RECONCILIATION
Mandela’s extraordinary focus and sense of purpose throughout his life has intrigued biographers and commentators. “If you have an objective in life, then you want to concentrate on that and not engage in infighting with your enemies,” he says. “And therefore, for all people who have found themselves in the position of being in prison and trying to transform society, forgiveness is natural because you have no time to be retaliative.” Mandela reacts to criticism from certain black leaders that he has bent too far towards whites in his efforts to achieve reconciliation and forgiveness. He strongly defends his impressive campaign to get business leaders to donate funds for the building of schools and clinics in rural areas. He says seeing Afrikaners and the white business community changing and now sharing their resources with the poor gives him a feeling of fulfilment. “It enables me to go to bed with an enriching feeling in my soul and the belief that I am changing myself [by reconciling with former adversaries]. One of the most difficult things is not to change society – but to change yourself,” Mandela says.
Talking about his success in persuading his jailers and their political bosses to negotiate with him, Mandela says: “When you have attained the moral high ground, it is better to confront your people directly and say: ‘Let’s sit down and talk’. So, it is not something that just comes from me. It is something that was worked out by the organisation to which I belong.” Mandela has often spoken about the importance of giving, and how tolerance is forged when people look beyond their own desires. Mandela says that leaders should be constantly thinking about poverty. He talks at length about how he launched the Mandela Children’s Fund immediately after a personal encounter with homeless children in Cape Town who had come to see him to explain their plight. Mandela donated a third of his presidential salary to the fund during his five years in office. Many business executives matched his example and some bettered it. Mandela speaks of veteran ANC leader Walter Sisulu’s influence on him in prison. “I learned a great deal from him – he was our mentor. He is a very good fellow […] and humble. He
“One of the most difficult things is not to change society – but to change yourself”
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led from behind and put others in front, but he reversed the position in situations of danger. Then he chose to be in the front line.” Known to have been impulsive and quick-tempered at times, Mandela acknowledges the importance of mastering his anger while in prison. “One was angry at what was happening [in apartheid South Africa] – the humiliation, the loss of our human dignity […].” •
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Mandela has spoken about how important the long period of solitude in prison was to him. He says that one of the most powerful forces that changed him was thinking about his behaviour in the past. He talks about how, once he had become a busy lawyer, he forgot about the generous people who helped him when he first arrived in Johannesburg as a poor young man.
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DEEP REFLECTION
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Mandela says that since his release from prison in 1990, he consciously tries to make time for reflection. He mentions how he proofread his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, during a time of deep reflection after his separation from Winnie. At a world gathering of religious leaders in Cape Town in 1999, Mandela expressed his views on religion for the first time. “Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew or a Hindu, religion is a great force, and it can help one have command of one’s own morality, one’s own behaviour, and one’s own attitude. “You have to have been in a South African prison under apartheid where you could see the cruelty of human beings to each other in its naked form. Again, religious institutions and their leaders gave us hope that one day we would return. “In prison, you had to follow a highly disciplined regime, and that influenced your behaviour and your thinking.” Mandela recounts how, while in prison, he disciplined himself to exercise, study, converse, and read biographies. “It is possible that if I had not gone to jail and been able to read and to listen to the stories of many people […] I might not have learned these things.” ● This interview first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor in February 2000
Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
A LEADER IN THE MAKING
THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE, 21 MARCH 1960 Police opened fire when over 5,000 peaceful protesters surrounded Sharpeville police station, demonstrating against the pass laws. Sixty-nine were shot dead, many of them in the back as they tried to flee. Mandela chose this site for the signing of the South African Constitution in 1996.
Nelson Mandela was born on 18 July 1918. He was educated at missionary schools and the University of Fort Hare, where he met Oliver Tambo. After moving to Johannesburg in 1941, he met Walter Sisulu, who later said: “I marked him at once as a man with great qualities, who was destined to play an important part.” In 1952 Mandela and Tambo established South Africa’s first black law firm and helped launch the nonviolent Defiance Campaign. When the ANC was banned after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, Mandela went underground, helping to establish the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. In 1963, he and nine others were charged with sabotage after police discovered an arms cache on Liliesleaf farm in the Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia.
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1918 1963 MANDELA IN 1937, AT THE AGE OF 19 A student at Healdtown Methodist school in the Transkei, he had started to forge close friendships with other pupils who would later join the ANC. Though still “a country boy”, his sense of style is already evident.
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IN ADDIS ABABA, 1962 Then in hiding, Mandela was smuggled out of South Africa and reunited with his exiled colleague Oliver Tambo (left) in Addis Ababa, where he spoke at the Pan-African Freedom Movement. Afterwards he went to Algeria to receive training in guerrilla warfare. THE AFRICA REPORT
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DECEMBER 1963, DURING THE RIVONIA TRIAL Winnie Mandela (left), with relatives and friends of the accused, outside the Pretoria Supreme Court. In June 1964, Mandela and eight other defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island, where he was to spend 18 of his 27 years in prison. •
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Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
1964 1994 The threat of the death penalty hung over the Rivonia trial. It ended in June 1964 with life sentences after Mandela made a compelling speech from the dock saying he was prepared to die for the ideal of a non-racial South Africa. Mandela’s leadership and discipline encouraged camaraderie, learning and debate among the political prisoners, even when younger activists were sent to Robben Island after the Soweto clashes in June 1976. In April 1982, Mandela and Sisulu were moved to Cape Town’s Pollsmoor Prison. The call to free Mandela grew louder. On 11 February 1990, Mandela was released. In the first non-racial elections, on 27 April 1994, the ANC won 62.6% of the vote. Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa on 10 May 1994.
SOUTH AFRICA NATIONAL ARCHIVE
FROM PRISONER TO PRESIDENT
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MANDELA DEFIANT AT ROBBEN ISLAND, 1977. Twenty-five journalists were flown to the island in an attempt by the apartheid regime to disprove allegations that political prisoners were being mistreated. “The reporters and cameramen stormed down upon us like excited visitors to an agricultural show,” the prisoners complained to the governor.
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PARIS, 1986. In the 1980s, the ‘Free Mandela’ campaign was gaining momentum in South Africa and internationally. Mandela’s dignified and uncompromising refusal to accept the regime’s offer of a conditional release in 1985 led to intensified efforts by governments, antiapartheid groups and the UN Security Council to join the call for his unconditional release.
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RELEASE FROM PRISON, 11 FEBRUARY 1990. Nelson Mandela addresses South Africans on the day of his release, from City Hall, Cape Town. “I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.”
FUNERAL OF STEVE BIKO, 25 SEPTEMBER 1977 in King William’s Town. The Black Consciousness leader died in police custody on 12 September 1977 of head injuries after torture by the police. His death was widely publicised and caused the West to distance itself increasingly from the South African regime. THE AFRICA REPORT
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Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
HEALER OF A CONTINENT
After taking the presidential oath on 10 May 1994, Mandela concentrated on healing social divisions, encouraging forgiveness and serving as an extraordinary ambassador for South Africa. In 1995 he established the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Divorced from Winnie in 1996, on 18 July 1998, his 80th birthday, he married Graça Machel. In 1999 he stepped down as president and established the Nelson Mandela Foundation. A revered elder statesman, he continued to work hard to win support for those with HIV-AIDS. On 1 June 2004, he announced his retirement from public life to spend more time at his homestead in Qunu. His last public appearance was in July 2010 at the closing ceremony of the FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg.
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1994 2013
RETURN TO THE TRANSKEI 30 SEPTEMBER 2004, NQADU GREAT PLACE, EASTERN CAPE Nelson Mandela returns to the land of his birth. Xhosa King Xolilizwe Sigcawu awards Mandela the ancient warrior’s honour of the Isithwalandwe Sesizwe on behalf of the “Xhosa people and of the African masses whom he relieved of the yoke of oppression and colonialism”.
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LONDON, 12 JULY 1996. On his first state visit to Britain Mandela waves from South Africa House, Trafalgar Square, which for 35 years was the focus of Anti-Apartheid Movement protests. Queen Elizabeth received him at Buckingham Palace, universities gave him honorary degrees, and he addressed Parliament and met business leaders and politicians.
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INAUGURATION 10 MAY 1994 UNION BUILDINGS, PRETORIA After the ANC’s landslide election victory, Nelson Mandela takes the presidential oath: his daughter Zenani is on his left and Vice-President Thabo Mbeki is on his right. During his five years in office, Mandela used the presidency to encourage national reconciliation and promote greater social equity.
RUGBY WORLD CUP FINAL, 24 JUNE 1995, ELLIS PARK STADIUM JOHANNESBURG After South Africa wins the tournament, sporting the Springbok jersey, President Mandela presents the Webb Ellis Cup to Springbok captain Francois Pienaar. A profoundly unifying moment for the country, the Springboks’ victory over New Zealand was attributed to ‘Madiba magic’, with some players saying they were consciously playing for Mandela. THE AFRICA REPORT
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Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
LEGACY
Madiba’s moral authority
As president, Mandela pushed for democracy within the ANC and wider society as well as leading the drive for national reconciliation in South Africa, but his attempts at a more ethical foreign policy were sorely tested in his interventions in Nigeria and Zaire 1997, Zaire: Mandela mediated between warring leaders Mobutu and Kabila
By William Gumede* in Johannesburg and Patrick Smith in Cape Town
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elson Mandela – African nationalist, freedom fighter, radical internationalist, traditionalist, visionary democrat, and supremely confident and transformative leader – was an intensely complex man, both politically and personally. Born the son of a hereditary chief on 18 July 1918 in the small village of Mvezo on the banks of the Mbashe River in the Eastern Cape, Mandela blended his cultural tradition of consultation and debate with contemporary political realities. He showed this in the handling of disputes within the African National Congress (ANC)andinrelationswithotherpolitical
organisations. He went out of his way to consult with opposition party leaders and supporters – within and outside parliament. This set some strong democratic standards from the start of the new order. Addressing its national executive committee after he was elected ANC president in 1991, Mandela said he didn’t want the committee members to be lapdogs. “I want people who are going to criticise me so that, when we go out, we have looked at the matter from all angles and we have the maximum support of our people, including those who have reservations. Once their point of view is expressed without fear or favour, even if it is rejected, a person is satisfied. So THE AFRICA REPORT
we must allow that free debate”. Such enthusiasm for debate wasn’t always part of Mandela’s political makeup. Initially, he was strongly sceptical about the value of cooperation with minority groups and whites opposed to apartheid. He was also critical of the influence of the South African Communist Party over the anti-apartheid movement. ANC President Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu, who would later become the ANC’s general secretary, worked hard to persuade Mandela to take a more flexible line towards allies in the struggle. Mandela explained to others that he had learned “to think with his brains rather than his blood.” •
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Later, on Robben Island, Mandela would find himself called in to adjudicate on disputes between prisoners belonging to rival political organisations: the ANC, the Pan-Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Black Consciousness Movement. It was here that his role as both struggle leader and conciliator-in-chief developed. EVERYBODY’S PRESIDENT
Indeed, it was this dual role, along with Mandela’s moral authority, that mattered so much when he came out of jail in 1990. As Joe Slovo, leader of the South African Communist Party, remarked: “Without Mandela, South THE AFRICA REPORT
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African history would have taken a completely different turn.” Mandela’s espousal of liberal democratic institutions and procedures, in a country where there was little support for either, helped define the transition from the decaying apartheid regime to a new non-racial democracy. His willingness to make compromises on specific issues in the short term to achieve longer-term goals was critical to the success of the ANC’s negotiating strategy and its ultimate victory. The respect that Mandela enjoyed among anti-apartheid activists, nationalists and communists enabled him to win support for the negotiating strategy at
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a time of heightened national tension after decades of state oppression and exploitation. As president of South Africa, he stood out as Africa’s most globally appealing and recognisable leader, a politician with leadership qualities unparalleled among his peers. At Mandela’s farewell speech to parliament on 29 March 1999, those peers paid tribute to him after he had told them that “the long walk to freedom continues.” Mandela’s successor as ANC president, Thabo Mbeki, called him “our nearest and brightest star to guide us on our way.” Leader of the New National Party Marthinus van Schalkwyk ● ● ●
Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
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SOURCE: WORLD BANK, IMF, STATISTICS SOUTH AFRICA, UNESCO
Mandela’s South Africa
1994
41m (1996)
87% voter turnout GDP/capita Adult literacy
53m South Africans 77% voter turnout (2009)
3.2%
GDP growth
$3,547
GDP/capita
GDP growth
82.4% (1996)
●●● described Mandela as “everybody’s president.” Even the leader of the right-wing Freedom Front, General Constand Viljoen, said: “Mandela has always acted as a lord to me.” And Tony Leon, the leader of the Democratic Party and fiercest critic of the ANC, saw Mandela as a leader like Gandhi, both “born with a special kind of grace that seemed to transcend the politics of their age.” Such tributes reflect the power of Mandela’s personality and its imprint on South African politics. Like other anticolonial leaders in Africa, Mandela had to build up his leadership and his party to confront the ideological, economic and military power of a racist regime. That meant giving heart and pride to Africans who had been bludgeoned by the apartheid system: it also meant that Mandela and the other anti-apartheid leaders would have to personify an African dignity that became an important part of the liberation struggle.
MORAL AUTHORITY DEFINED HIS POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
Although Mandela’s growth from militant nationalist in the 1940s to international statesman of the 1990s was shaped by the sacrifices of the struggle and the experiences of building a mass political organisation, his belief in political leadership based on moral authority remained firm. That unwavering moral position was best reflected in Mandela’s speech from the dock in the Rivonia Trial in 1963: “During my lifetime, I have devoted myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities […] it is an ideal
the political, social, economic and cultural renewal of the whole African continent. Later on, Mandela’s successor as president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, would speak of the African Renaissance, which had its roots in these principles. That courage and those moral principles – based on justice and inclusiveness – were perhaps the most powerful legacy of Mandela and his comrades on Robben Island.
2013
Adult literacy
2.8%
$8,070
PRINCIPLES PUT TO THE TEST
However, those principles were severely tested when the ANC was unbanned and finally came to power after the first non-racial elections in April 1994. For example, Mandela and his colleagues argued over how post-apartheid South Africa’s diplomacy would have to change. How would the ANC go about integrating its political principles, such as the promotion of human rights, peace, democracy and ethnic inclusivity into its diplomatic policy? Mandela argued stronglythattheANC’spositionondemocracy and justice should trump all other interests. Other senior party members wanted to redefine national interest and use South Africa’s diplomatic celebrity to promote its commercial interests. There were similar arguments over domestic policy. How would the ANC meet the expectations of its electoral supporters who were expecting substantial economic improvements after 1994? Given the debt-ridden and shrinking economy
93% (2011)
which I hope to live for and achieve but if needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Not only did the speech show the tremendous courage that all the Rivonia trialists shared – the willingness to die for a just cause – but it inspired the antiapartheid movement for the next three decades. From there, the ANC could focus its campaign on both fighting the injustice of apartheid and promoting its jailed leader, Mandela, who had set out in court so clearly the moral principles of the struggle. For Mandela and his comrades, it was important to invest the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the last African independence struggle, with a deeper historical signficance. They wanted the defeat of the apartheid order to usher in
TOUGH CALLS ON AFRICA POLICY MANDELA WANTED ‘the last African independence struggle’ to promote renewal on the African continent. He believed moral authority – human rights, democracy, ethnic inclusivity – should be the basis both at home and abroad. But those ideals quickly bumped into reality. In 1995, Mandela tried to persuade Nigeria’s military ruler General Sani Abacha to free political prisoners such as former leader
Olusegun Obasanjo and Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, and to hand over to an elected government. Abacha responded with obfuscation, lies and sullen obstruction. Then, accusing the ANC of being ungrateful for Nigeria’s support, Abacha ordered the hanging of Saro-Wiwa and tried to have Obasanjo murdered in his cell. A furious Mandela called for Abacha’s overthrow and backed sanctions against him.
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Mandela’s relations with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe were also tempestuous. Mandela privately referred to Mugabe as “Comrade Bob”, which the Zimbabwean leader found belittling. He also bristled at Mandela’s private advice to him to step down to preserve his liberation legacy. Finally in 2008, Mandela publicly decried “the tragic failure” of leadership in Zimbabwe. ● P.S.
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that the National Party bequeathed to the ANC, there were tight limits on what the new government had the money to do – without raising taxes or targeting the many highly profitable companies. The first response was the radical stateled Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), pledging to build more houses, schools and clinics. But the position of the wider economy remained parlous as the state deficit worsened while national revenue stayed relatively stagnant. A more pragmatic team led by Mbeki and finance minister Trevor Manuel developed a replacement programme known as the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) plan. As his colleagues debated the merits of these conflicting models, Mandela tried to engineer a consensus. But he and his colleagues failed to win over the trades unions, which opposed the new plan’s proposals to commercialise some stateowned enterprises and relax some of the protection measures that the ANC had promised for workers after 1994. These economicargumentsshowedthelimitsof Mandela’s political influence at home but established the basis for successive governments’moremarket-orientedpolicies. ONE-TERM PRESIDENT, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE
For both personal and political reasons, Mandela wanted to limit his presidency to one term. He was determined to avoid the freedom-fighter-turned-autocrat syndrome. In several African states, once-popular leaders overstayed their welcome and appointed weak deputies to block any serious challenge. The President Mandela-Deputy President Mbeki government broke that mould. It was a carefully crafted division of labour. After the 1994 elections, Mandela combined his presidential role with that of ambassador-at-large. If anyone was able to convey the philosophy of South Africa’s negotiated transition and national reconciliation, it would be Mandela. South Africa’s foreign diplomats tried to propagate these ideas on conflict resolution and power-sharing. In diplomacy, Mandela’s moral authority rapidly came up against realpolitik. Mandela was staunchly loyal to allies: defending countries such as Cuba and Libya, which contributed to the ANC in the 1980s when most Western governments would not. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others were initially highly sceptical when Mandela THE AFRICA REPORT
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announced that he would open negotiations with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over lifting UN sanctions. But they changed their position once Mandela had persuaded Gaddafi to hand over two Libyan men suspected of involvement in the plot to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. Yet it was Mandela, using the ANC’s historical link, who opened up negotiations on the trial and then for Gaddafi’s brief re-entry into international diplomacy in the 2000s. That partly explains the South African government’s anger when it was sidelined by Europe’s military campaign against Gaddafi in 2011. There were rows within the ANC about the party receiving funds from undemocratic regimes such as Indonesia under Suharto or Malaysia under Mahathir. The government’s policy shifts on Taiwan proved particularly difficult for Mandela. He had initially insisted that South AfricawouldjointlyrecogniseTaiwanand Beijing. That changed as Beijing stepped up the bidding. By November 1996, Mandela announced his “agonising” decision
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1996, Sharpeville: Mandela signs into law the new constitution, watched by Cyril Ramaphosa
to end diplomatic ties with Taipei, despite its historical role as an important financier of the ANC. However, that same year, Mandela invited the Dalai Lama on an official visit, in spite of the heavy pressure from Beijing. Those ethical dilemmas for South African diplomacy have intensified since the late 1990s and Mandela’s exit from the political scene. The growing power of the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICS) club of emerging powers, which South Africa has now joined, both brings together the old alliances that the ANC forged under Tambo and Mandela’s leadership, and is symptomatic of far-reaching geo-political shifts. South Africa is entering an era in international relations when the legacy of Mandela’s moralauthoritywillbe neededmorethan ever for the country’s national identity. ● *William Gumede is author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC
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Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
INTERVIEW
Ahmed Kathrada ANC activist and former prisoner on Robben Island
Madiba was stronger than all of us An activist in the South African Communist Party, Kathrada was imprisoned with Mandela on Robben Island in 1964. He spoke to The Africa Report in April 2013
TAR: What are your earliest recollections of Mr Mandela? AHMED KATHRADA: It was in Johannesburg in 1945 or 1946. I was still at high school and he was a law student with Ismail Meer. It was in Ismail’s flat in Market Street. I would visit and see Madiba there. At first, we just got to know each other, and then more through our activities when I was in the [South African] Indian Youth Congress and Madiba was in the ANC Youth League. From then it went up and up. He used to wear a blazer and look very smart. In those days if you saw someone who wasn’t white wearing a blazer you would be in awe, but because I’d met him through these chaps I didn’t worry about it. What was your relationship like in the early days? You had a heated argument once? Yes – our one and only clash, that was in 1950. At that time the ANC Youth League – separately from the ANC – didn’t believe in cooperation with other organisations. They were not racist, but exclusivist. In 1950 the ANC and the Communist Party jointly organised a strike against the imminent Suppression of
Communism Act. I bumped into Madiba in the street and I asked him why he opposed the strike. I am 11 years his junior, and I challenged him. It became heated, he got very angry… We had a friendlier clash later over the Market Street flat, which I took over. In 1960, when Oliver Tambo was sent out of the country, the Tambo-Mandela legal firm closed, so Madiba used to practise from my flat, sometimes for weeks on end. He was a very popular lawyer and all three rooms were often full of his clients and I only had the kitchen! So I teased him and threatened to evict him! What was the secret of your resilience, the three major trials you had to cope with . Was it the struggle that kept you bonded? Well we must also take into account when the youth league changed its policy of non-cooperation with other organisations. By the time the defiance campaign came in 1952 they’d already changed. What had happened is whilst the Indian Congress in 1946 already had resorted to a non-violent resistance, the ANC didn’t – they still believed in the policy of deputations, resolutions and petitions right up to 1949!
FROM RIVONIA TO ROBBEN 1929 born in Western Transvaal 1950s As young activist started to work with Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu 1963 One of the accused alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial – sentenced to life and sent to Robben Island 1989 Released from prison 1991 Elected to the ANC National Executive Committee 1994 Elected as MP in first free elections. Appointed as Mandela’s political advisor
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When the youth league – and they all admit this in their books, they were influenced by the Indian passive resistance here – passed what they called the programme of action, they used this as an example. If the Indian Congress could do it here, why can’t we? Why should we just stick to this policy of delegations and resolutions – they were a failure, we got nothing out of it, so let’s now switch to non-violent passive resistance. That’s where the defiance campaign came from. For the first time now there was this joint ANC-Indian Congress passive resistance. Madiba, who had just started his practice as a lawyer, was appointed the national volunteering chief, which meant that he had to travel round the country and so forth just before he was banned. That already was a spirit of volunteerism. Now if you go
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to anybody and say this has to be done and this has to be done, they’ll say how much? The whole spirit of volunteerism is gone. Circumstances have changed. People go for money now, but not in the olden days. There was the Congress of the People which had 3,000 delegates plus a thousand observers – everything was done by volunteers! People came from all over South Africa, there were no hotels at that time. People opened their houses – they stayed in houses as guests. Madiba had been banned already in 1953 and I had been banned in 1954, but we worked quietly organising this thing, and there was only one motor car that organised this campaign! All these types of things brought us together and taught us this whole thing of volunteerism... that of course you see much later in the prison. THE AFRICA REPORT
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Talk about the time leading up to the Rivonia Trial… The ANC was banned in 1960, and Madiba was asked to go underground. The television interview with the BBC [in 1961] was when he gave the first hint that, with the ANC and individuals banned, our non-violent political struggle had to be strengthened with an armed struggle. That led to the formation of Umkhonto [we Sizwe] – again under his leadership.
Known as ‘Kathy’, Kathrada and Mandela stayed firm friends through the struggle and beyond (here with Zindzi Mandela)
“He could relate to kings and queens, but did not look down on less educated people” Already by 1952 there was a close relationship. There was the Defiance Campaign trial, the Treason Trial between ’56 and ’61, and the Rivonia Trial. There were only three of us who
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were in all three trials – Madiba, Walter [Sisulu] and myself – and that brought us closer together. At the Rivonia Trial, Madiba said we must fight it as a political trial. If you go into the witness box, you don’t apologise, you don’t ask for mercy. In fact you proclaim your political beliefs. If there is genuine evidence against you, you don’t dispute it, but you don’t volunteer evidence that is not there. And when there’s a death sentence you don’t appeal! And he made that famous speech – our speech – which we all approved first. He was speaking on behalf of all of us when he said, “This is what I fought for, hope to achieve, and if need be, I’m prepared to die”. At the end, our lawyers told us to prepare for the worst. Until the very last day, all of us went to court expecting the death sentence.
Nelson Mandela 1918-2013
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After your long friendship with Mandela, what do you most admire about him? His personality. He could relate to kings and queens and prime ministers, but did not look down on less educated people, or youngsters. Like the argument we had, it was actually a discussion. He never held it against me. And his spirit of volunteerism, his commitment to the collective, his humility. People keep on asking us what made him the leader. So here’s my explanation: He was born of royalty, as a chief, so from childhood they are taught leadership. So he already had training. Then he joined the youth league and became president of the youth league. Then he joined the ANC and became president of the ANC. So he was already an established leader by the time we were arrested. During all those years on Robben Island, what leadership qualities did he show there? Madiba was regarded as the leader when we got to the island. The first thing he said when we landed there was, “We are no longer leaders; we are ordinary prisoners. All these people who are in exile, they are our leaders.” And he behaved like an ordinary prisoner. He was stronger than all of us because he was also a boxer.
You’d see him on the floor polishing. He kept his cell so perfect and clean. I got more sugar than Madiba because I’m an Indian. Madiba didn’t get bread for 10 years! When he was offered the same food he refused. As an African prisoner he had to wear short trousers, even in winter. They offered him exemption, but he said no. He could have been exempt from pick and shovel work. We worked for 13 years with picks and shovels, and he worked right through. He and Walter also took part in all the hunger strikes. They refused any preferential treatment. They were with us as equals. Naturally the leadership was there. Their job was now about discipline, and to see that we did not waste our time in prison. So Madiba and the leadership said we must have academic and political education. When the post-’76 people came [after the Soweto clashes], they were angry and some said they hadn’t come to jail to study political education. So Madiba and other seniors intervened and eventually they listened.
Kathrada (left) with Winnie and Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu at an ANC rally in 1990
death, hanged! That contributes a lot to keeping up your spirit. You may be in jail, you are suffering, but your comrades are not protected. On Robben Island, there is a block of concrete. Somebody scribbled into the cement when it was wet, “ANC is sure of victory, August 1968”. So even in the 60s, the spirit was there! What about the possibilities of Madiba and others being released much earlier than 1990? Madiba had already refused the first offer of conditional release in 1977. Then in 1985, when five of the seven of us had just arrived at Pollsmoor Prison, Madiba was called to the office. He told us they had offered us conditional release. We told him to write a letter saying we don’t want to be released on any conditions and we’d all sign it. How would you discuss ideas? Once we were locked up we were not allowed to talk, that’s why we preferred to go out – even though pick and shovel work was difficult. We had taken the attitude that we’d work as much as we can, not as much as you want us to – you’re not going to drive us to work. The advantages were that you can work in groups, and even though for 15 years we didn’t have
“His legacy is a life-long commitment to a non-racial, non-sexist democratic SA” newspapers, we used to smuggle them in. So in groups was the only time that you could tell the other people what news there was, that was an advantage! And there we used to discuss all sorts of things because they didn’t mind us talking as long as we worked. There came stages where we did no work, but then you see, among the wardens, they all want promotion, so somebody would go and tell their higherups “These chaps are not working”. So they’d take those wardens away and bring a fresh lot, but
How did you keep your spirits up, how did you stay resilient? Prison is bad, it’s no picnic, but in a way you’re protected. Your comrades outside are not! They’re at the coalface of the struggle – they’re tortured to THE AFRICA REPORT
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Do you think the Robben Island experience and the collectivism and volunteerism shaped the post-’94 period, in terms of reconciliation and so on? It certainly contributed to it. The policy of the ANC was through the struggle – the political struggle, the underground work, the armed struggle, the pressure of the international community – to force the other side to the negotiating table. We never envisaged a military victory. We couldn’t have won on the battlefield. So Madiba – in line with ANC policy – forced the enemy to the negotiating table. When he was alone [in Victor Verster prison, from 1988 to his release in1990] he started talking to the other side. That was very bold of him. But he made it clear: “I am a prisoner, I don’t negotiate, I haven’t got the power to negotiate. I want you, the government, to talk to the ANC. Release all political prisoners, un-ban all the organisations – not only the ANC, all of them, and allow all the exiles to come back, then let us talk.” First, some of the old and sickly prisoners got released. Then eight of us, including Walter, got released in 1989, and he came out four months later. Then the talks started. It was a difficult time because it wasn’t only the ANC and the government. There were many other organisations too. So there were ups and downs. Then there was the Bisho massacre [in 1992] and negotiations broke down for a while. That was a very tricky period, but we survived it.
cause people voted from the branch to province and there was the national list, and out of the three or four hundred people, I was number seven on the list. The newspapers started making this thing that the first 10 people will be cabinet ministers. I wasn’t interested in being on the cabinet. I then sent a message with Walter that if my name comes up – I’m not interested, I don’t want to be in the cabinet. The message didn’t reach him. So when he announces the first cabinet – there I am, the minister of prisons. I didn’t want it, so fortunately for me, there was someone else that agreed to be in the cabinet. They needed a place, and it suited me, it suited the ANC also. But after that they had this position for me to be in his office.
What about his time as president? When he became president I was in his office as an advisor. But he had expressed reluctance to be president, because of his age. When the ANC national executive insisted that he was the candidate, he accepted. But he was adamant that he would only stand for one term. He even told the media. Howdidyoufindbeingingovernment? I didn’t like it one bit! In fact what happened was that when [Mandela] became president – or just before that rather, what had happened is that there was the ANC list – it was in order, beTHE AFRICA REPORT
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While we will not forget the brutality of apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument of our hardship and suffering. We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil. A triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness; a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness; a triumph of the new South Africa over the old Ahmed Kathrada •
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And after the presidency, were you in contact? Did you see a lot of each other? Very much! Even when he got sick, I used to go there. I still have free access to him, but I don’t go because he needs to rest. Before he got sick I saw him regularly, and he enjoyed it because he liked to talk about the past, about people, and we could tease each other. There was no agenda, we’d just start talking. And it was very seldom about politics! Finally, Mr Kathrada, what do you think will be Madiba’s lasting legacy? There’s so much. For example, when he became president he gave a third of his salary to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Everybody’s fond of children, but he showed it in practice. His life-long commitment to the cause of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic South Africa, that is not negotiable. But the main legacy is what he said. “We have achieved quite a bit, but there’s a lot to be done. We can only be satisfied when we are sure that every child goes to bed with a full stomach, in a proper house, gets up in the morning smiling with a proper breakfast, proper clothing, goes to school, comes back and they’ve got all the facilities for sports and all the facilities for good health and all that. When that happens, then we can say we have achieved, we are satisfied.” ● Interview by Crystal Orderson in Johannesburg
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they couldn’t drive us to do anything! So once we had spent 13 years there in the quarry, it wasn’t so difficult afterwards.
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation� Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1918-2013