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BACK when the groundswell for Nelson Mandela’s freedom from incarceration began gathering momentum across the West in the 1980s, it wasn’t unusual for supporters of South Africa’s racist regime to dismiss him as a communist and a terrorist.
In Britain, the student wing of the Conservative Party reportedly was distributing posters and stickers that called for Mandela to be hanged. Margaret Thatcher called the African National Congress (ANC) a “typical terrorist organisation”.
Ronald Reagan said in 1981 the regime in Pretoria deserved American support because South Africa “has stood by us in every war we’ve ever fought [and is] a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals”.
Four years later he noted: “They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our country…” In 1986, the US Congress had to override the delusional president’s veto in order to impose sanctions.
Three decades later, praise for Mandela in the wake of his demise last week has been more or less universal, with only a few organs revisiting the communist-terrorist angle in a denigrating manner.
Most of the paeans and eulogies have predictably steered clear of awkward facts and focused instead on the deceased leader’s undeniably lofty moral stature and conciliatory nature.
But it’s important to remember that Mandela did once embrace armed struggle — including terrorist tactics that targeted symbols and uniformed representatives of the apartheid regime, rather than civilians — and it has lately been confirmed that he was not only a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) but sat on its central committee.
The violence planned or perpetrated by the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), was a direct response to the racist regime’s brutality, exemplified by mass shooting and targeted assassinations as well as arrests and torture.
The SACP was closely aligned with the ANC, and a party spokesman declared last Thursday that it wasn’t just Mandela but all the activists who were in the dock at the notorious Rivonia trial in 1964 were communists.
In his celebrated speech at that trial, Mandela noted that “for many decades communists were the only political group in South Africa prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us, talk with us, live with us and work with us. They were the only group which was prepared to work with the Africans for the attainment of political rights and a stake in society”.
He also denied being a member of the SACP — evidently a tactical canard, albeit one that may have made the difference between indefinite incarceration and rapid execution for Mandela and his comrades.
Interestingly, the SACP has betrayed few qualms about the neoliberal agenda that the ANC adopted in post-apartheid South Africa, abiding by its part of a deal with local and international capital that ostensibly accounted for a relatively peaceful transition from minority rule to one man, one vote.
As a consequence, poverty remains entrenched among the black majority, while former ANC stalwarts feature prominently among a relatively tiny African elite of multi-millionaires.
Would it be unfair to see this, too, as a part of Mandela’s legacy? It’s more complicated than that, of course, although the adoration he inspires at home is occasionally tempered by the perception that the awe-inspiring political strides he facilitated as well as his successful focus on the cosmetics of reconciliation overshadowed a failure to relentlessly pursue social justice, and his loyalty to the ANC precluded criticism that may have helped to curb some of its excesses.
It is, meanwhile, also commonplace to gloss over the crucial role that the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign played in convincing the pillars of apartheid that business as usual was no longer a feasible option. This may in part reflect the fear that too vivid a reminder of its effectiveness might encourage a push for action on a comparable scale against Israel.
Speaking of which, let us also not forget the fraternal relations that existed between Israel and the apartheid state, stretching to cooperation on the security front and, amid even greater secrecy, collaboration in producing nuclear weapons.
Nor should we overlook the fact that among those attending Tata Madiba’s funeral rites this week, there are some who were less than thrilled when, on his first overseas trip after he was set free, Mandela insisted on personally thanking the likes of Fidel Castro and Muammar Qadhafi for their unstinting solidarity with the ANC’s struggle — and others who bristled when, after completing his presidential term, he found no reason to mince his words in lashing out at the aggression against Iraq.
The radical edge that Mandela never completely lost was as much a part of his complex personality as the disarming smiles and gentle sense of humour that charmed the doting multitudes. The flirtation with violent resistance and communism (there’s no evidence that his opinions in the latter context were ever doctrinaire) was arguably crucial to his evolution.
As late as 1985, he turned down an offer of freedom in return for renouncing violence with the words: “Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”
Mandela never claimed to be a saint or a miracle-worker, and in retrospect a beret may conceivably suit him better than a halo sponsored by any of the clay-footed politicians and celebrities who are seeking one more time this weekend to wallow in his radiant aura.
Let us hope the authorities will at least honour his wish that only a simple stone should grace his final resting place, bearing only the name “Mandela”. That should suffice for generations to come, provided it is spared the indignity of a whitewash.
