19/07/2008 14:59 - (SA)
Rare gift indeed
Khathu Mamaila
I DO not have a strong affinity for Nelson Mandela and I choose the worst time to say this – when everybody is showering the old man with accolades on his 90th birthday.
Here are the reasons why I do not like Mandela.
As a young, aspirant revolutionary Mandela was the mythical icon. He was to the revolutionaries for freedom what the Pope is to Catholics – the ultimate.
We had listened to speeches by the eloquent Martin Luther King Jr, the firebrand Malcolm X and the militant Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael. And we used to say to each other: Wait until Mandela is free to deliver his address. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, as they say in America.
So when he was released in 1990 I was ready for the political address that would shake the country and the world. What an anticlimax.
In a frail voice, Mandela said: “Comrades, friends and fellow South Africans, I greet you in the name of peace, freedom and justice for all ...”
I concluded: this man should never have been arrested. There was nothing militant about him.
I then remembered that even in his most famous speech, Mandela had said: “I have cherished the ideal for 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.”
Why did he not add: “I am also prepared to kill?”
From then I began to classify Mandela as a Gandhist – those people who believe you can change your enemy by loving him. They believe that love is the best weapon to kill your enemy.
Mandela was later to confirm my worst fears about him. He believed in negotiations. As we were being shot at by the apartheid regime of PW Botha in the mid-1980s, Mandela had started dialogue with the same racist regime.
He understood what I failed to understand – that negotiations have to happen between enemies.
There was more. He went on a charm offensive to reassure whites, especially Afrikaners, that they too were as South African as he was.
Who can forget the symbolic gesture of his visit to Betsy Verwoerd, the widow of apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd?
He went a bit overboard. He authorised research into the viability of an exclusive Afrikaner state.
How could he do that? How could he indulge white supremacists in their quest for an exclusive homeland? How could he, who had fought so much for racial integration, allow such a thing?
He went further. He led the ANC into signing the sunset clauses that allowed white bureaucrats to retain their jobs for five years.
There was more. The new democratic government would share power with the losing National Party. There was more. The new government would be expected to honour apartheid debts.
There was more. The government would respect the sacred clause of respecting private property. In other words, white wealth acquired through the exploitation and oppression of Africans would be retained by the owners.
And there was more. In his enthusiasm to foster reconciliation, Mandela agreed to the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
In terms of the legislation governing the TRC, freedom fighters and those fighting to retain apartheid would be treated as equals.
There was no prosecution of apartheid agents despite the fact that the system was internationally condemned as a crime against humanity. Justice was compromised and those seeking it were dismissed as seeking revenge.
For me, the greatness of Mandela is that he did all this without protests. That is leadership. He has the Madiba magic. It is as though he hypnotised the entire nation to embrace reconciliation. No wonder he is missed a lot.
I hate Mandela for making me admire him so much.
Happy birthday, Tata.
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