“I’m no angel,” Mandela liked to remind me. Behind his acts of forgiveness and magnanimity he remained a politician to his fingertips. He still had a brilliant sense of showmanship and timing; and he could appear as the ultimate postmodernist leader, the master of imagery and performance, as he popped up in a Springbok jersey on the rugby field, or outwitted de Klerk by taking his hand at the end of a televised debate. He knew instinctively how to work a room or flatter a journalist: he was the master of the photo opportunity, the sound bite, the intimate handshake and the rapturous smile. He could mix politics with showbiz almost too enthusiastically, as he favored the Spice Girls or Michael Jackson over a visiting head of state.
But he had a moral authority and concern for the truth with which few could compete, as a rock of continuity in a discontinuous world. Through his three decades in jail he had remained true to his principles and beliefs in the face of all pressures and temptations, at a time when politicians in most countries were becoming more opportunist and changeable, and heroes and great causes were fading into history. He had been right about one big issue when so many had been wrong. His persistence had a difficult downside: he could be very stubborn in thinking he was right about everything, and sometimes remained loyal to doubtful allies who brought him much criticism. But his loyalty to his own principles and friends gave him the edge over other world leaders who had forgotten what they stood for.
Mandela was not so much postmodern as premodern. He belonged to the much older tribal tradition in which he had been brought up, of a chief representing his people and accessible to them. He still recalled the boy Mandela sitting at the feet of his guardian, the Regent, watching him hearing his tribesmen’s outspoken criticisms and settling their disputes with careful courtesy, making them all feel part of the same society. His rural roots remained a crucial ingredient in his makeup: it was noticeable that he wrote best about his home territory. He still genuinely saw himself as the “country boy” who had a sense of his own belonging and ubuntu, and his own rural values: it was no accident that his life would end as it had begun, in his tribal village of Qunu. But Mandela was no ordinary country boy: he remained the son of a chief. His princely style could strike chords with white as well as black South Africans; and in Britain it could even help to reassure the Queen. He could evoke an earlier era when monarchs were identified with their people and there was no distinction between the imagery and the reality of kingship. Mandela’s monarchic instincts could have drawbacks in running a complicated industrial state beset with economic problems and urgently in need of modern management. He could be devastatingly candid about his government’s shortcomings, but he seemed in no hurry to rectify them. In his detachment from bureaucracies and diplomatic complexities, from economists or managers, Mandela sometimes seemed to belong more to the nineteenth than the twenty-first century. But his sense of leadership straddled the centuries, and he personified a country looking to the future.
In fact, for most of his presidency, as he often said, Mandela saw himself as a ceremonial head of state rather than a chief executive. He was more like a constitutional monarch, submitting himself with a strong sense of duty to the disciplines of party democracy through the cabinet or the ANC National Executive. He was not always obedient, and could often interfere, like Queen Victoria rather than Queen Elizabeth II; and he was often torn between being the democrat and the autocrat. But he was totally committed to democracy, and was determined—unlike most African leaders—to appoint a democratically elected successor: he allowed his deputy Thabo Mbeki, as he explained, to be chosen by the party leaders and their allies without revealing his own preference; and Mbeki was effectively running the country for most of Mandela’s presidency. On some critical issues, particularly on crime and corruption, Mandela was strongly criticized for not intervening more decisively. But there was a built-in contradiction between the roles expected of him: to use his personal authority to the full, but also to establish a democratic tradition in which no single leader could prevail.
As head of state he saw a clear priority: to consolidate the new nation, to hold it together and transform it into a multiracial democracy in which all citizens could live at peace. He knew that without that peace the machinery of government and the economy was useless; and the horrific civil wars which were breaking out again in nearby countries like Angola and the Congo provided fearful warnings. He was uniquely suited to the task of nation building after his extraordinary journey through his country. He could relate personally to the very different communities through which he had moved over his eight decades: to rural tribesmen, to mine workers and streetwise city slickers, to African nationalists and freedom fighters, to Indian and white comrades, to Afrikaner warders, to international businessmen or to heads of state.
Mandela had learned the hard way about the difficulties of reconciliation, and he had seen how narrowly the country had avoided a bloodbath. He did not believe, like many idealists on the left, that people of different races would readily abandon their communal loyalties to become members of a color-blind nonracial society. But he had progressed from his early exclusive African nationalism to work closely with white and Indian colleagues and to trust them completely; and in jail he had seen how Afrikaners could be changed, as he put it, by 180 degrees, and how the same people who could not bear to touch black flesh could be reassured by a handshake. With all this personal experience he was uniquely able to establish a “rainbow cabinet” which was one of the few genuinely multiracial governments in the world; while he gave no indication of his own racial preferences. He seemed above race.
Mandela’s life story had become central to his nation’s story. He had been brought up with stories of the humiliations of his own tribe, before the nation of South Africa—the union between Afrikaners and English speakers—had been established only eight years before he was born, creating a democracy from which Africans were excluded. He had lived through the rise and fall of apartheid, and seen how it controlled people’s attitudes and lives. As President he had seen the persistence of apartheid attitudes, and how many strongholds of racialism remained—in the military, in business or in the media. But his experience had persuaded him that reconciliation could be achieved. He was effectively refounding a nation, stamping it with the concept of racial tolerance and cooperation as firmly as his predecessors had stamped it with intolerance and segregation.
Mandela remained a master of symbolic images, but they had become part of his own personality and history, acquiring more universal appeal as he retired from politics to become an ordinary old man. He had survived the most testing challenge to his reputation when he emerged from jail to face up to his overwhelming global icon; and he did so by presenting himself as a fallible human being. His biography in the end converged with his mythology; and it was his essential integrity more than his superhuman myth which gave his story its appeal across the world.
Notes
1 Country Boy: 1918–1934
1. R. S. Conco, letter to Mandela, July 27, 1987
2. Mandela to Richard Stengel, 1994
3. Mabel Mandela, interview for Joe Menell and Angus Gibson, Mandela (film), 1994
4. Mandela to Richard Stengel
5. Mabel Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film); Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope, p. 4
6. Mandela, interview with author, Aug. 8, 1997
7. Mandela, Jail Memoir (unpublished)
8. Mabel Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
9. Jail Memoir
10. Meer, op. cit., p. 7
11. Mabel Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film); Heidi Holland, The Struggle: A History of the African National Congress, pp. 13–14
12. Mabel Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
13. Jail Memoir
14. Clive Menell, Memoir (unpublished)
15. Archbishop Desmond Tutu (ed. John Allen), The Rainbow People of God, p. 122
&nb
sp; 16. Mandela, interview with author, Aug. 8, 1997
17. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 27
18. Mandela, The Struggle Is My Life, p. 141
19. Frank Welsh, A History of South Africa, pp. 74–5, 503
20. Noel Mostert, Frontiers, pp. 203, 716
21. J. B. Peires, The House of Phalo, p. 166
22. Mostert, op. cit., pp. 1222, 1254, 1237
23. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
24. J. A. Fronde, Lord Beaconsfield
25. Z. K. Matthews, Freedom for My People, p. 58
26. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
2 Mission Boy: 1934–1940
1. Long Walk, pp. 31–2
2. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
3. Long Walk, pp. 34–5
4. Jail Memoir
5. Rev. Arthur J. Leonard, A Brief History of Clarkebury
6. Nosipho Majeke, The Role of Missionaries in Conquest, pp. 34–5
7. Leonard Thompson, A History of South Africa, p. 172
8. Independent, April 29, 1993
9. Mandela, speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, July 11, 1997
10. Fikile Bam, interview with author, July 30, 1997
11. Jail Memoir
12. Rector H. M. Nyali, Clarkeburg, interview with author, March 11, 1997
13. Jail Memoir
14. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
15. Mavis Knipe, interview with author, Feb. 2, 1998
16. Mandela, letter to M. Knipe, undated
17. Mandela, speech at Clarkebury, Nov. 19, 1993
18. Jail Memoir
19. Long Walk, p. 42
20. Healdtown, 1855–1955: Centenary Brochure
21. Phyllis Ntantala, A Life’s Mosaic, p. 66; Jack Dugard, “Fragments of My Fleece” (unpublished)
22. Enid Webster, interview with author, Feb. 19, 1998; Leslie Hewson, “Healdtown” (unpublished thesis)
23. Rev. A. A. Wellington, letter to Rev. George Ayre (London), Feb. 5, 1936 (Methodist Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
24. Dugard, op. cit.
25. Mandela, letter to Dr. Michael Kelly, 1980
26. Mandela, letter to Kepu Mkentane, Feb. 25, 1987
27. Mandela to Richard Stengel
28. Jail Memoir
29. Ntantala, op. cit., p. 67
30. Dugard, op. cit.
31. Ntantala, op. cit., p. 66
32. Jail Memoir
33. Dugard, op. cit.
34. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
35. Dugard, op. cit.
36. Mqhayi (trans. Robert Kavanagh), “The Prince of Britain” (1925), in The Making of a Servant and Other Poems, pp. 14–16
37. Meer, op. cit., p. 9
38. Margery Perham, African Apprenticeship, p. 44
39. Alexander Kerr, Fort Hare, 1915–1948, p. 217
40. Z. K. Matthews, op. cit., p. 62
41. A Short Pictorial History of the University College of Fort Hare, 1916–1959
42. Z. K. Matthews, op. cit., p. 82
43. Kerr, op. cit., p. 31; Z. K. Matthews, op. cit., pp. 119–21
44. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
45. Noni Jabavu, The Ochre People, pp. 21–8
46. Z. K. Matthews, op. cit., pp. 230, 54, citing Mandela, letter to Frieda Matthews, Oct. 1, 1970
47. Alfred Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” The Poems of Tennyson (ed. Christopher Ricks), pp. 861–2
48. Ralph Bunche (ed. Robert R. Edgar), An African-American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J. Bunche, p. 126
49. Kaiser Matanzima, interview with author, March 12, 1997
50. Meer, op. cit., p. 9
51. Matanzima, interview with author, March 12, 1997
52. Mandela, letter to Fatima Meer, Feb. 25, 1985
53. Joe Matthews, interview with author, Aug. 5, 1997
54. Mandela, letter to F. Matthews, 1985; Frieda Matthews, Remembrances, p. 100
55. Mandela, letter to Winnie Mandela, Sept. 2, 1979
56. Jabavu, op. cit., p. 90
57. Long Walk, p. 55; Godfrey Pitje, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
58. Jail Memoir
59. South African Native College, “Report of the Governing Council for the Year Ending 31 December 1940”
60. Govan Mbeki, Student Politics at Fort Hare, 1916–1959
61. Long Walk, p. 58
62. Mary Soames, conversation with author, July 25, 1997
63. Jail Memoir
64. Mandela, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
65. Long Walk, p. 61
66. Meer, op. cit., p. 9
67. James Kantor, A Healthy Grave, p. 145; Long Walk, p. 64
68. Jail Memoir
3 Big City: 1941–1945
1. Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country; Peter Davis, In Darkest Hollywood: Exploring the Jungle of Cinema’s South Africa, pp. 21–31, 38–47
2. W. K. Hancock, Smuts: The Fields of Force, 1919–1950, pp. 479, 475–6, 488, citing Smuts, speech to the Institute of Race Relations, Cape Town, Feb. 1942
3. Long Walk, pp. 74–5
4. Anthony Sampson, Drum, pp. 32–3
5. Mary Benson, South Africa: The Struggle for a Birthright, pp. 97–8
6. Mandela to Richard Stengel
7. Walter Sisulu, interview with author, Nov. 29, 1995
8. Meer, op. cit., p. 29
9. Walter Sisulu, interview with George Houser and Herbert Shore, Sept.–Oct. 1995
10. Sampson, The Treason Cage, pp. 156–9
11. Sisulu, interview with Houser and Shore, op. cit.
12. Sisulu, interview with author, Nov. 29, 1995
13. Kantor, op. cit., p. 145
14. Lazar Sidelsky, interview with author, Oct. 23, 1996, citing Mandela, inscription in a book (Jan. 14, 1995)
15. Martin Meredith, Mandela: A Biography, p. 36
16. Tom Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945, p. 19
17. Jail Memoir
18. T. Dunbar Moodie, “The Moral Economy of the Black Miners’ Strike of 1946,” Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, Oct. 1986, p. 15
19. Michael Dingake, My Fight Against Apartheid, p. 56
20. Jail Memoir
21. Mandela to Richard Stengel
22. Mandela, letter to Zindzi Mandela, March 1, 1981
23. Jail Memoir
24. Long Walk, pp. 103, 89, 104
25. Frank Diamond, Portrait of Mandela (film for IDAF), 1980
26. Joe Slovo, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
27. Ismail Meer, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
28. [Johannesburg] Sunday Times, Nov. 10, 1996
29. Bruce Murray, Wits: The Open Years, pp. 54, 56
30. George Bizos, interview with author, Oct. 22, 1996
31. [Johannesburg] Sunday Times, Nov. 10, 1996
32. Long Walk, p. 105
33. [Johannesburg] Sunday Times, Nov. 10, 1996
34. Mandela, interview with author, Nov. 29, 1995
35. Sisulu, letter to author, Oct. 7, 1957
36. Albertina Sisulu, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
37. Es’kia Mphahlele, conversation with author, March 16, 1997
38. Meer, op. cit., p. 40
39. Mandela to Richard Stengel
40. Evelyn Mandela, interview with author, Feb. 24, 1997
41. Leabie Piliso, interview for Menell and Gibson, Mandela (film)
42. Phyllis P. Jordan (Ntantala), letter to F. Meer, 1989
43. Adelaide Tambo, interview with author, Feb. 13, 1997
44. Meer, op. cit., p. 41
45. Sisulu, interview with author, Nov. 29, 1995
46. Long Walk, p. 100
47. Treason Cage, p. 46
48. Treason Tri
al transcript, p. 15,766
49. Treason Cage, p. 68
50. Dr. Xuma, extracts from “Autobiography,” Africa, December 1954
51. Treason Cage, p. 71
52. Long Walk, p. 111
53. Sampson, Black and Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid, p. 75
54. Treason Cage, p. 75
55. Mandela to Richard Stengel
56. A. P. Mda, interview with Gail Gerhart, Jan. 1, 1970
57. Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941, p. 1163
58. Treason Cage, p. 160
59. Thomas Karis and Gwendolen M. Carter, From Protest to Challenge, Vol. 2: Hope and Challenge, 1935–1952, by Thomas Karis, p. 212
60. Meer, op. cit., pp. 32–3
61. Karis and Carter, Vol. 2, op. cit., p. 401
62. Treason Cage, p. 76
63. Karis and Carter, Vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 301–9
64. Treason Trial transcript, pp. 15,762, 15,764
65. Lodge, op. cit., p. 28
66. The Struggle Is My Life, p. 169; Rivonia speech, April 20, 1994
67. James Calata, comments on The Treason Cage in letter to author, July 21, 1957
68. Brian Bunting, Moses Kotane, pp. 138–9
69. Mda, interview with Gerhart, op. cit.
70. Govan Mbeki, interview with author, Feb. 15, 1996
71. Eric Hobsbawm, conversation with author, April 28, 1997
4 Afrikaners vs. Africans: 1946–1949
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