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Nelson Mandela in 2007. Daniel Berehulak/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Opinion
Column The equality struggle didn’t end with Mandela’s prison release, it must continue
Mandela did not topple white rule single-handedly – nor did he ever claim to, writes David Cronin, who says that while he retains a deep admiration for Mandela, he did turn his back on some of his beliefs.
11.30am, 10 Dec 2013
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This article was originally published on 25 June 2013.
TEN YEARS AGO this summer I embarked on a road-trip dedicated to Nelson Mandela.
I went to the house in Soweto where he and Winnie lived in the 1950s; the Indian restaurant in Johannesburg where he dined as a young lawyer; the cell where he was incarcerated on Robben Island. When I heard there was a museum dedicated to him in Umtata, I hopped on a bus there, arriving at an empty station in the middle of the night. My travelling companion was a copy of his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.
Over three weeks in South Africa, I encountered great warmth and humour. Staying with a family in a township, I was given a basin of water to wash with each day. “Here is your jacuzzi,” the young man who delivered it would announce, chuckling.
I witnessed some efforts being made by the authorities to improve the lot of the poor: by, for example, providing shack-dwellers in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, with proper homes. But I also got depressed when I visited an uncle of mine, who then had an apartment near Durban. His friends and neighbours were exclusively white. One of them was a policeman who told jokes about killing kaffirs, a pejorative term for black people. Another was so ill-informed he didn’t know that Rhodesia was now called Zimbabwe (a country right beside South Africa).
It was shocking to see how mentalities forged by racial stratification persisted. No sooner had I entered one particular taxi than the coloured driver exclaimed “This used to be a wonderful country; then the blacks took over”. Was this the “rainbow nation” Mandela had celebrated so eloquently?
Deep Admiration
I retain a deep admiration for Mandela; anyone who was imprisoned for taking on an odious regime merits respect from people of conscience everywhere. Yet I no longer revere him the way I used to. That is because he abandoned principles that were at the very core of the liberation struggle to which he devoted most of his life.
Mandela took part in the 1955 Congress of the People in Kliptown (part of Soweto). The Freedom Charter agreed at that gathering stated that the banks, minerals and industry of South Africa would be nationalised once apartheid was vanquished.
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Both the spirit and the letter of the charter were broken by Mandela following his release. One of his worst U-turns was to embrace the owners of the mines, who had quite literally treated the indigenous population as slaves. In 1994, Mandela went so far as to submit the African National Congress’ economic programme to Harry Oppenheimer for his approval. Oppenheimer had been the chairman of De Beers and Anglo-American, two mining firms that had provided crucial economic support for apartheid.
I have no doubt that Mandela was put under enormous pressure by the world’s leading politicians and businessmen to behave in the way they wanted. By his own admission, the ripping up of the commitment to nationalise South Africa’s mines was the result of his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Almost certainly, South Africa was threatened with losing investors if Mandela went about putting the Freedom Charter into effect.
Mugged
Representatives of the European Union effectively mugged his people.
As president, Mandela oversaw the conclusion of a “free trade agreement” with the EU. It was grotesquely unjust. South Africa was required to remove taxes levied on 81 per cent of food and other agricultural goods from the Union. As most of these goods benefit from generous subsidies, there was no way that South African farmers could be expected to compete with them.
Of course, Mandela could not be blamed for the endurance of racist attitudes. Nonetheless, he and other senior figures in the ANC helped usher in a slightly modified form of apartheid. The wealthy white were allowed hold on to their cricket clubs and other privileges, provided they allowed a few black entrepreneurs – epitomised by Mandela’s one-time confidant Cyril Ramaphosa – to join their ranks. The vast majority of the population was, by contrast, condemned to poverty. Unemployment almost doubled between 1995 and 2000.
Mandela turned his back on other beliefs, too. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in 1992, he argued that “the trade in weapons of death will have to be reduced to an absolute minimum”. Two years later he was asked by John Major, then Britain’s prime minister, to consider buying a large consignment of weapons from the UK. Tony Blair followed up on his predecessor’s overture when he visited South Africa in 1999. The pressure paid off: a multi-billion dollar deal was clinched that year; its chief beneficiaries were the arms firms BAE Systems and Saab.
Rekindle the spirit
I am ashamed of the way journalists have covered Mandela’s declining health, affording no privacy to his loved-ones. The focus on Mandela is symptomatic of a more profound problem. He did not topple white rule single-handedly – nor did he ever claim to. Lavishing him with praise carries the risk of ignoring the countless others who have suffered.
Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Mandela is to rekindle the ideals of the Freedom Charter. Triumphing over inequality requires constant dedication; unforgivably, some of his comrades in the ANC forgot this message as soon as their fortunes grew.
The struggle did not end when Mandela was released from prison. It cannot end with his death. In one form or another, it must continue. And it will.
David Cronin is a journalist living in Brussels. His blog can be viewed here. This article was first published by New Europe.
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So Martin, you’re saying black people can’t be racist?
I’ve spent a lot of time in that part of the world. My mother is black (and Namibian) and I’m mixed race. Believe me, the “blacks” in SA are well capable of being racist towards me, and treat me a lot differently to my mother. Of course, in the past, when she lived there, she was on the bottom rung. Now there’s a lot of blacks who’ve decided it’s payback time. If you think racism is as simple as whites being mean to blacks then you’re the one who hasn’t a clue
It was two renowned Englishmen, Cecil Rhodes and Winston Churchill, who at crucial moments planted the seeds that were to ripen into policies which deprived black people of democratic rights in South Africa. A third, Jan Smuts – an Afrikaner by birth who became a committed supporter of the British Empire – was also an architect of laws which were later to become the framework of apartheid. Like Churchill, Smuts has a statue in Parliament Square, but in South Africa both will go down as men who destroyed rather than built democracy in the country.
Having lived briefly in South Africa, I feel I never really understood the complexities of the post-apartheid era, and how race affects everything there. Going on a road trip, with a book, doesn’t quite cover it.
The Marxist overtures of this article seem to me to be bit naive & outdated.
The coin had merely flipped. South Africa is as racist as it ever was with discrimination between different black tribes, however the people that bear the brunt of it now are the white people, and not the people that were responsible for the regime, but young people that never had a hand or part in apartheid. This article is based in fantasy I am afraid.
Agree. I’m always disturbed by those who think that massive discrimination is terrible (it is) but when it’s against white Europeans it’s ok. Growing up in SA now for young white people is nightmarish, facing open discrimination when applying for jobs and college places in “retaliation” for something they never had a hand in, and everyone overseas – particularly in the countries where their ancestors came from – thinks that’s just fine. It is also, incidentally, not what Nelson Mandela had in mind with the ‘rainbow’ business.
Coming up with bullsh*t Marxist technical jargon to justify discrimination does not cut it.
Probably the most stupid article I have ever read.Three weeks in South Africa ten years ago and he knows it all. It might surprise this fellow to learn that there are black cricketers and rugby players representing South Africa. They did not get there by being refused membership in white only clubs.
As for the shack dwellers in Khayelitsha being given houses, there are hundreds of thousands living in shacks, politely termed “informal”settlements, without any of the amenities one would expect for civilized living. This after nearly 20 years of ANC rule. This cannot be blamed on the white people. Recently the renowned academic Mamphele Ramphele descibed the standard of education being worse than in the days of Apartheid.
The fact is that Mandela, who was President for only five years. cannot be blamed for this.
Colonialism was an unofficial form of apartheid. This article is certainly an outdated view of South Africa. Having been back there recently after having lived there for many years, all I can say is it corrupt, and sadly the rich get richer and the poor get poorer ( in fact Ireland has many similarities with our corrupt fat cat politicians and cronies). Mandela did as much as he could considering his short stint as President and his progressing age.
Yes, it sounds like Mr. Cronin would like the ‘struggles’ to continue until all the white people are dead… This article makes me angry. Let him live there for a few years, I sincerely doubt that his opinion would stay the same.
Im S.African I might be a bit biased.
Mandela did not set out to be a politician, he was pushed towards it after the end of apartheid (so you can somewhat forgive the man who was held captive on an island for 30 yrs, who must have been so tired but became the president soon after and maybe made a few mistakes)
Nelson Mandela fought for social equality, he wasnt fighting as a political figure.
race is a big part of it because black people were educated to the level of being a labour, their schools were given like +/- 10c per kid, indians and mixed race were given a bit more and white people were given the highest and best education.
For the nonwhites you were also told you could only study certain uni courses unless a uni was brave enough to take you, you left sa and studied elsewhere.
marrying a white person was illegal- the white person’s land/wealth would be taken away.
Besides the law, black people (especially them) were easy targets for cruel jokes by White people.. stories I was told (by people who actually did it) who threw snakes on their gardener..others firecrackers towards a group of black people and farmers who would make their workers run out on the field and shoot them (for fun).
Police would for fun just decide to torture and kill a black person. .. and nothing would be done -
You couldn’t do anything if your son/father etc didnt come home one day,
We were all targeted and pitted against e/o and given social value. So I today appreciate were sa is
I’d worry that the purist approach would have led to civil war. And wanting to strip white people of their cricket clubs smacks of vindictiveness rather than a desire to build a country for everyone. Should the desire be to reduce white South Africans to the economic and social levels of black South Africans or raise black South Africans to the levels enjoyed by whites?
Fundamentally though, the question is whether as a politician it’s better to be a pragmatist who may only achieve 50% of what you want to achieve or a purist who resolutely sticks to ideology, but probably achieves nothing. It can be easy to accuse the former of selling out or hypocrisy, but at least at the end of their career, they have some successes to claim
Had there been a civil war the South African Defence Force would have wiped the floor with them. I expressed this opinion manyyears ago to an Afrikaner teacher. He agreed with me but said that it would be unthinkable as it would be unChristian. That is why the majorityof Whites voted in a referendum to give the vote to black Africans.
If the blacks were so “enslaved” and denied education; how did Mandela manage to become a lawyer in the 1950′s?
There were black men who became millionaires in South Africa during appartheid because they were willing to get off their backsides to work and not just sitting there waiting for government hand-outs.
If you want to compare different races progress during the 40 years of appartheid; look at how well the Indian South Africans did; a lot of them became stinking-rich because they are good businessmen; they also had the same odds stacked against them as the blacks.
Another small detail the mainstream media failed to mention while campaigning against SA.
While Mandela achieved some great milestones for South Africa the economic policies he was responsible for authorising were disastrous for South Africa.
Mandela himself, as John Pilger often said would not allow journalists to grill him on his economic policies and would get very defensive when any managed to do so.
A nephew of Mandela was appointed to jointly run a mine with a friend of Zuma. Both had no previous mining experience yet they beat other tenders in the process. Pure corruption. The name of the mine slips my mind but Johann Hari covered the story in great detail.
Whatever promises he wasn’t able to deliver, he will be remembered as a great man. Anyone prepared to go to jail for what he or she believes in has got to be respected, and remember he could have been released much earlier, but declined this offer because he didn’t agree with the conditions attached. If only Ireland had just one man with 1% of Mandelas courage!
Yes, Mandela figured out that communism was a bad idea – why does this require explanation? and why is it to be considered a failure on his part?
Mandela’s refusal and unwillingness to go around nationalising everything and taking away people’s cricket clubs (wtf!?) is a strength, not a weakness. He grew out of socialism, and others need to as well. He, like other socialists, grossly miscalculated how much wealth was in the country, and how it has to be created before it can be spread around. That’s why nearly all the political leadership quickly backtracked on all the redistribution nonsense – and news coming from uncle Bob next door brought reality crashing down on them too.
I spent three years in South Africa travelling, working and doing research and I still don’t know nearly all there is to know about the place. An Irish friend visiting observed that one Cape Town suburb was “still” mostly white – what exactly are we expecting? massive forced integration?
This article makes me angry, not because the author is not entitled to an opinion, or his experiences, but I refuse to believe they are fairly described here. Does the author think the guy who referred to Zimbabwe as Rhodesia did so because he was “ill-informed”? really?
I know right? If you take the annual gross product of all the gold mines in SA, and divide the proceeds amongst the 40-some million of it’s population, every man, woman and child might get up to two whole hundred dollars each! if you add platinum and some other metals, maybe everyone could have a new TV in a few years.
Assuming current levels of efficiency of course. I think, and I’m open to correction here because I can’t be bothered checking, but SA exports almost as much dollar value of car parts as it does gold. It’s maths like that Madiba and his mates did back in the 90s and worked out that the country needs to do more than just dig stuff up. It’s a common misconception that plagues many African (and other) societies but there is much light at the end of the tunnel.
Who ever said it could be the sole source of their wealth? You’re arguing against a point nobody made.
It’s quite simple really: should the citizens of SA own their resources or should some MNC own them, throw a few jobs to locals, and repatriate profits to the US or wherever?
You seem to consider the former outdated or daft. Maybe try to think outside the bounds of conventional wisdom.
But it would have to be the sole source of their wealth if they went about seizing mines and farms, including foreign assets, because those actions have consequences don’t they? Whether the citizens own the mines or not, it was clear the ANC upon taking control that there was more to the country’s wealth than digging up diamonds, and that the people would need other kinds of economic activity, so they had to safeguard both investment and their relationship for foreign countries who might have been less willing to give them a chance had they turned communist.
Good level-headed analysis. Mandela is a hero, no two ways about it, but nobody record is unblemished and he is not beyond criticism. The neoliberal sharks were the big winners in SA, sadly.
David. You may not have noticed but Marxist/Leninist/Maoist communist economics has been an utterly failed experiment across the Globe with only a few die hard governments refusing to let go. Maybe you would like to see Mandela act more like Mugabe and run SA into the ground like he did with Zimbabwe. Even in your own piece you say a “Coloured” Taxi driver stated that ” this used to be a wonderful country. And then the Blacks took over”.
What does this statement tell you. A non white wishing the return of a white government.
The biggest problem in SA at the moment is that the ANC have no counter balance. They have ruled SA for the past 20 years as virtually one party state. And this has allowed corruption to become endemic.
No – it has not been an utterly failed experiment across globe . What was practised in USSR was centralised socialism – and it made JFK and Mc Millian become worried that USSR had come from a basically peasant state to a industrial power in one generation .
Cuba – if Communism was such a bad idea – why did the US not allow Cuba have it – and after 4-5 years say – look – this is a failed economic system- but no Communism petrified the USA – and they attacked Cuba with an invasion and chemical weapons spraying disease on their crops and put in place inhuman sanctions .
Maybe u have been away for some time – and have not noticed what Capitalism has done to planet earth – especially these last 30 years or so – and Ireland – and USA itself are broke .
Capitalism is a failed system – but humans seem incapable of co-operating..
Capitalism has brought Ireland from a basically peasant society to a bankrupt country in 80 years approx. – some system
Jim. If Communist economics is so great why have the Chinese communist party dumped it? They dumped it because they had the sense to know it was an utter failure. When people have no incentive to better themselves they just give up.
If Joe Blogs works is guts out night and day but ends up getting paid the same and living the same shitty apartment as Peter Lazy who does the bare minimum then Joe is going to say to hell with this I am going to do the bare minimum too because I get nothing extra for it.
But if Joe Blogs can use his hard work and enterprise to get rich and give himself a better lifestyle he will and in doing so will create jobs for others.
If Communist economics is so great why have the Chinese communist party dumped it? ”
– I don’t know – maybe its just plain greed – it appeals to humans . It works fine in the kibbutz’s in Israel – but one rarely hears about it .
And why do the Irish keep voting neoliberal capitalism – its not in their interest – but the fools do it .
also u present a very inaccurate a/c of communism – but one that appeals to the” people”.
Anyway let them keep their Neo-liberalism – and poverty.
When will the people wake up and smell the rat? The ANC is all about lies and deceit.
Mandela has been brain-dead for months on life-support machines so the ANC government could make “preparations” for his funeral to co-incite with the Christmas holiday-period.
Mandela`s capacity to forgive is undoubtedly his greatest attribute but he was no angel either! As head of the ANC military wing he oversaw countless bombings and many deaths. Ironically it was Thatcher who had the greatest influence on 1) the release of Mandela and 2) the ending of Apartheid. The civil rights movement gave blacks in the US the vote in 1965 and here South Africa was 25 years later still treating blacks as second class citizens. The international community had cut off funding and aid to SA and the country was virtually bankrupt. The only way de Klerk could save the economy and his own political hide was by ending Apartheid and releasing Mandela (as a symbolic gesture to the end of apartheid) and that was all done on advice from Thatcher. She of course had her own interests as British mining companies in South Africa were losing millions from the loss of international trade deals.
Amidst all the adulation for Mandela – it seems to have escaped most people that SA is still a very divided country – and that Mandela in no small way contributed to this via his neoliberal Policies .” Just call me a Thatcerite ” he said .
He went along with IMF and World bank ideology – to cut wages to workers .
EG •
From Patrick Bond s article on Znet
”the Bank’s promotion of water cut-offs for those unable to afford payments, opposition to a free “lifeline” water supply, and recommendations against irrigation subsidies for black South Africans in October 1995, within a government water-pricing policy in which the Bank claimed (in its 1999 Country Assistance Review) it played an “instrumental” role;
• the Bank’s conservative role in the Lund Commission in 1996, which recommended a 44 percent cut in the monthly grant to impoverished, dependent children from R135 per month to R75;
• the Bank’s participation in the writing of the (ultimately doomed to fail) Growth, Employment and Redistribution policy in June 1996, both contributing two staff economists and providing its economic model to help frame GEAR;
• the Bank and IMF’s consistent message to South African workers that their wages are too high, and that unemployment can only be cured through “labour flexibility’;
• the Bank’s role in Egoli 2002, including research support and encouragement of municipal privatisation in Johannesburg (and many other cities and towns); and
• the Bank’s repeated commitments to invest, through its subsidiary the International Finance Corporation, in privatised infrastructure, housing securities for high-income families, for-profit “managed healthcare” schemes, and the now-bankrupt, US-owned Dominos Pizza franchise
Very good articles on video and text by Patrick bond on Znet re Mandela – and what he achieved – and did not achieve’
Video http://www.zcommunications.org/mandela-led-fight-against-apartheid-but-not-against-extreme-inequality-by-patrick-bond.html
The UN recently elected China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba and nine others to fill seats on the Human Rights Council. You can’t make things like this up. Meanwhile Cuba still won’t allow it’s sportsmen to leave the country.
At the end of the white slaughtered natives all over the world. Ever read the book bury my heart at wounded knee. It’s about American whites getting rid of Indians of there lands so they keep of for themselves for gold etc even massacre the Indians. So nelson was a freedom fighter like or Collins and dev to get rid of foreign invaders
And, what foreign invaders was Nelson trying to get rid of?
First off, apartheid happened in the modern era, not the colonial, and was concurrent with Communism in Eastern Europe with which it had much in common. Second, it didn’t involve the “slaughter” of very many people at all, most of Southern Africa’s big wars happened many decades earlier (including the Zulu expansion). Thirdly, whether or not Mandela was a freedom fighter or a terrorist, he renounced violence as a means to an end.
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The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
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