History in the hands of irresponsible politicians proves combustible; it tears apart societies. They can do it because as the popular saying goes: history influences the future, but the present influences history. The history of apartheid South Africa was particularly brutal. A.E Houseman had written in a different context: ‘They say my verse is sad/ no wonder its narrow measure spans/tears of eternity and sorrow/ Not mine but mans’.
He might well have written these lines for apartheid South Africa. Irresponsible use of this history during the transitional period to majority rule in the early 1990s could have sparked bloodshed. International commentators predicted civil war.
Nelson Mandela defied these predictions when he came out of South Africa’s dreaded prison system on 11 February 1990, after 27 years spent in Robben Island, Pollsmoor and Victor Verster. He had been jailed in 1964 along with his colleagues in the famous Rivonia trials, after the military arm of the African National Congress Umkhonto Wa Sizwe had launched five attacks on power stations and government buildings. He had gone into prison as an advocate of violence. He came out of prison a pacifist.
In prison Mandela had ample time to think about the future of South Africa. The cell, he wrote in his autobiography, is perfect for reflection. And when allowed, he debated with other political prisoners. He came to the conclusion that the only way out of the mess that was his country was negotiation with the white regime.
He resisted the notion of ‘victors’ justice’, that was the outcome of the Nuremburg Trials. This was no solution to the problem of human kind. It led to nothing but the endless shedding of blood. It was a wise decision. We have to accept that terrible things were done to people and decide not to do these things again.
Mandela’s homecoming was not comfortable. For one, the world had been turned upside down. The Fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the end of actually existing socialist societies. The Soviet Union that had been committed to liberation struggles was poised to disappear. This was a world moving towards the rule of the market and liberal democracy, the end of ideology and the end of history.
Two, South Africa had changed in these 27 years. In 1960, in Sharpeville 69 demonstrators were massacred by the police. This was the time the world began to take notice. In June 1976 10,000 school children marched in protest against the imposition of the Afrikaner language. The police shot 100 protestors. The country was on the boil.
The rising crescendo of protest and violence since the 1970s among black workers, urban slum dwellers, contractual and ill paid labour, and students sent a strong message-no more.
Demonstrations, boycott of rents and service charges, political strikes, stayaways, protest marches, huge gathering at funerals and fiery orations were the order of the day.
Three, the early years of the 1990s was one of the bloodiest periods in inter-black relations. Inkatha cadres clashed with ANC cadres in Natal, and the cycle of violence was spinning out of control. Natal had become a killing field.
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Mandela went to Durban and spoke to a 10,000 strong crowd in Kings Park. He pleaded with them to lay down arms, to take each other’s hands in peace. “Take your guns, your knives, and your pangas and throw them into the sea. End this war now! But my call fell on deaf ears”. Violence had been internalised as Fanon had predicted.
Four, the whites were determined to hold onto power by any means. Black Africans wanted the whites to leave. The stakes in the transfer of power were high on all sides. Passions were inflamed to the point of explosion and in the middle of spiraling tensions, Mandela brought the rare virtues of compassion, farsightedness, prudence, forgiveness, wisdom and acceptance of all people living in the country as equal citizens of a democratic South Africa.
His task was not easy.
On occasions he walked alone the long walk to freedom. He was reviled for selling out to the whites, for going soft on the oppressor, and having let down his own people many of whom planned Nuremburg like trials after the country transited to majority rule.
But Mandela insisted that the ANC was a broad church of all colours, ideologies, and classes united in their fight against apartheid and racial prejudice. The objective was a constitutional non-racial state.
His answers in press conferences were a model of sane and cool politics. To drive the whites away would ruin the country. They are fellow citizens and we have to appreciate their contribution to society. In any case where will they go? South Africa was their home.
The Afrikaners had little to do with their home country-Netherlands. They will live here, stated Mandela, provided they abandon apartheid. He had struggled against the domination by the whites; he did not want this replaced by the domination of Black Africans.
His policies were embodiments of generosity. He became President of the ANC in 1992 succeeding Oliver Tambo. During the transitional phase, he led the negotiations with the white government from 1992-1993. In 1994, the ANC swept the polls winning 60.6 per cent of the vote share.
He set up a coalition including the National Party against which his cadres had carried out the struggle. In 1996 he formed a coalition with his rival the Inkatha party. Under his leadership the negotiations for a transfer of power were handled successfully.
The London Financial Times of 18 July 1994 referred to the regime change as one of the most extraordinary political transformations of the twentieth century where people defied the logic of the past, and broke all the rules of social theory.
The success was largely due to his patience, and the ability to listen to other points of view with respect. After he was elected as President, he established a multi-racial cabinet. De Klerk, the previous head of state, became one of his deputy presidents. Under his leadership the government turned to crafting inclusive symbols of nationhood.
A new flag was designed to represent all groups and symbolize unity. The national anthem combined a popular liberation song ‘God Bless Africa’ with parts of the old anthem. The two anthems were not sung sequentially but combined into an integrated version.
In a personal mission of reconciliation, he invited his Afrikaner jailors to his inauguration, visited the prosecutor who had sent him to prison, hosted a tea party for white politicians and a dinner party for the former commanders of Robben Island. He called on the wife of the former PM Dr Verwoerd (1958-1966) and also on the former president P.W Botha.
And then there is the famous Springbok case. The game of cricket was identified with English settlers, and that of soccer with Black Africans, Rugby was identified with the Afrikaners. In June 1995 South Africa was to host the Rugby World Cup finals.
Mandela reached out to the captain Francois Piennar of the rugby team Springboks, and asked him to include a black player in the team. He took personal interest in the training of the team. In the final match South Africa defeated New Zealand and people who had not identified with rugby erupted in joy.
This is well depicted in the movie Invictus starring Matt Damon. Wearing the colours of South Africa, Mandela handed over the cup to Pienaar. The white singer P.J Powers wrote lyrics that resounded with the official slogan ‘One mind, one heart/Every creed every colour/Once joined never apart. Today the Rugby team is captained by a black South African.
Let us revisit the three speeches through which Mandela persuaded his people to abandon violence, abjure victors’ justice, and accept a constitutional democracy which had room for all. In the first speech he gave when he came out of prison he committed that each individual will possess the same rights irrespective of race, colour, or creed.
His second major speech was after the assassination of Chris Hani, a prominent and popular communist who was murdered on 10 April 1993 in Boksburg near Johannesburg. He was shot at point blank range outside his home in front of his fifteen year old daughter. The killing was carried out at the behest of a conservative M.P. Clive Derby Lewis.
In their amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by the Government, the killer Janusz Walus and Clive Derby Lewis admitted they had hoped to wreck negotiations for a new constitution by unleashing a wave of hatred and war.
The assassination of Hani sparked off a major wave of protests, arson, and violence. Hani was a popular leader of the South African Communist Party, and it was expected he would succeed Mandela. He was trusted as a man who could keep Black radicals under control during the period of transition. He had rejected violence. His assassination sent off shock waves, and Mandela, determined to stave off another cycle of violence, stepped into the charged atmosphere.
After paying respects to Hani’s parents, Mandela went to Johannesburg on the very day the assassin was arrested. Hani’s white neighbour Retha Harmse had identified the assassin and testified against him. Before Hani was buried the Conservative member Clive Derby Lewis was arrested.
Mandela realised that he was treading troublesome waters, he had to assure his people and assuage their anger even though all communities were submerged in grief. Condolences poured in. This inspired him to deliver a powerful address on television on 13 April 1993.
“Tonight I am reaching out to every single South Africa, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate came to our country and committed a deal so foul that our whole nation teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman of Afrikaner origin risked her life so that we may know and bring to justice, this assassin.”
He skillfully drew attention to the complexities of the case. We cannot essentialise identities based on race or religion or ethnicity or gender or sexual preferences. A white man killed a black man, and a white woman identified the assassin and served the cause of justice. If the former act was racist, the latter was devoted to the cause of justice that transcended racial bitterness and animosity.
All people were united by grief and it is this common sentiment that constitutes the basis of humanity. “Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who from any quarter wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for the freedom of all.” He underlined the proposition that societies are not united by law alone, they need empathy, solidarity, and the ability to grieve together.
He suggested that all human beings are flawed. For Mandela, substantive freedom implied liberation from petty vindictiveness, and from the belief that the past is so important that it shapes the present. The human condition is imperfect and that people are not solely responsible for what they have done. They are prisoners of chains forged by others.
He also suggested that we cannot be captives to history. The wrong doer is entitled to forgiveness, this is the only route to reconciliation and to peace. His speech was seen as masterly because it tapped the right emotions in the listeners, and because he asked people to move beyond pain and courage to fight for the principles Hani stood for.
The main contradiction was not between races but between those who practiced violence and those who yearned for peace. Divisions between people are not based on colour but on beliefs. He turned the political discourse of racism upside down. In the same breath he highlighted the deed of the assassin and the bravery of the woman who identified the white man.
Evil and its redress come from the same source: humanity. This was the day when Mandela was accepted as the undisputed leader of a multi-racial community. This was the time South Africa set itself on the path of healing and dedicated itself to the values of their heroes.
Finally, Mandela made a landmark speech when the ANC won the first all race elections on 27 April 1994. The election, wrote Mandela was of a nation reborn, with people for the first time casting their vote and standing in long lines to do so. He was happy ANC got 62.6 per cent of the vote, The constitution makers could now create not a Constitution of the ANC, but a South African constitution.
That night at the victory celebrations Mandela said that “Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage with a heart full of love for all of you. I regard it as the greatest honour to lead the ANC at this moment in history…I am your servant…It is not the individuals that matter, but the collective…This is a time to heal the old wounds and build a new South Africa.” That was Mandela’s gift to the world.
Neera Chandhoke was a professor of political science at Delhi University.
Note: This article has been adapted from the author’s lecture on Nelson Mandela, organised by the India International Centre, the South African High Commission, New Delhi, and the Working Group on Alternative Strategies, on July 18, the birth anniversary of Mandela. July 18 is celebrated as Mandela Day.
