Dare Not Linger

by Nelson Mandela

  On 9 May, following his historic and unopposed election as president by Parliament – and mindful of the symbolism of the gesture – Mandela went with Archbishop Tutu, De Klerk and Mbeki to address the people of Cape Town from the same City Hall balcony from which he had greeted South Africans on the day of his release in February 1990.

  ‘The people of South Africa have spoken in these elections,’ he said. ‘They want change. And change is what they will get.

  ‘Our plan is to create jobs, promote peace and reconciliation, and to guarantee freedom for all South Africans. We will tackle the widespread poverty so pervasive among the majority of our people. By encouraging investors and the democratic state to support job-creating projects in which manufacturing will play a central role, we will try to change our country from a net exporter of raw materials to one that exports finished products …

  ‘To raise our country and its people from the morass of racism and apartheid we require determination and effort. As a government, the ANC will create a legal framework that will assist, rather than impede, the awesome task of reconstruction and development of our battered society.

  ‘While we are and remain fully committed to the spirit of a government of national unity, we are determined to initiate and bring about the change that our mandate from the people demands.

  ‘We place our vision of a new constitutional order for South Africa on the table not as conquerors prescribing to the conquered. We speak as fellow citizens to heal the wounds of the past with the intent of constructing a new order based on justice for all.

  ‘This,’ he concluded, ‘is the challenge that faces all South Africans today, and it is one to which I am certain we will all rise.’37

  * * *

  An important element of Mandela’s greatness was his inability to take anything – or anyone – for granted. Perhaps more than a quarter of a century in prison had taught him that he was a blank page, a substrate on which the new reality of the country would imprint itself. There was a big gap in terms of detail between the world that had formed him before his incarceration and what that world had changed into on his release. As his personal assistant, Duarte saw Mandela as someone who listened a lot and talked less. She and Masekela had a great deal of interaction with him. He had sought ANC member and politician Frene Ginwala’s counsel in appointing his office personnel.*

  Mandela had already checked with the National Working Committee (NWC) of the NEC responsible for the day-to-day running of the party about the allocation of posts to the National Party and IFP in the new Government of National Unity. He was also thinking about his inauguration.

  Duarte remembers that Mandela had a hand in who would be there, both from other countries and South Africa:

  In the first week after the count had come out, we were then preparing for the inauguration. What touched me was Madiba looking with Thabo Mbeki and Aziz Pahad at the list of international guests.*

  There were people that he insisted had to be invited, must be – ‘I’m not going to have this without [Fidel] Castro.’ He always went back to those people; those were friends. And he had to have Yasser Arafat at his inauguration. He said, ‘I don’t care how we do it, my brother Yasser Arafat must be at my inauguration.’ That was a big challenge because the poor man couldn’t leave Tunisia; he was going to be arrested. He had a view that every African leader who could possibly come should be invited. He said, ‘We need to be part of what Africa is going to look like, and shape it and build it.’ He wanted to know ‘So who said they’re not coming?’ and then he’d pick up the phone – ‘Oh, my brother, I believe you can’t make it but you know I’d really like you to be here’ – and people couldn’t say no, and they did come.38

  Mandela’s inauguration was rich in symbolism and emotion. Watched by a global television audience of about a billion people, almost 180 heads of government and foreign dignitaries, and over forty thousand local guests of all races congregated in the amphitheatre and gardens of Pretoria’s Union Buildings. Resplendent in dress uniforms, military and police forces whose historic mission had been to thwart exactly this moment, were now securing the conditions for a peaceful transition.

  Sworn into office by Judge Michael Corbett, Mandela stood to attention with his hand across his breast for the anthems.† The military – some generals wearing medals awarded for wars of aggression – saluted the president and pledged allegiance. In the moment between the singing of ‘Die Stem van Suid-Afrika’ (‘The Call of South Africa’ in Afrikaans), the anthem of the old, discredited South Africa, and the singing of ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ (‘Lord Bless Africa’ in isiXhosa), the anthem of liberation, the new South African flag unfurled.

  Crafted by a team headed by Mbeki – always a dab hand at drafting speeches – and aimed at South Africa and the world at large, Mandela’s speech matched the symbolism provided by the inauguration and its accoutrements. For that brief moment on the podium, if he had been tall before, he was now taller, surer of his ground, addressing all South Africans and leaders representing varying degrees of power, from the wealthiest to the most abject of the world.

  He said: ‘Today, all of us do, by our presence here, and by our celebrations in other parts of our country and the world, confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.

  ‘Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

  ‘All this we owe both to ourselves and to the peoples of the world who are so well represented here today. To my compatriots, I have no hesitation in saying that each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country, as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld.

  ‘Each time one of us touches the soil of this land, we feel a sense of personal renewal. The national mood changes as the seasons change. We are moved by a sense of joy and exhilaration when the grass turns green and the flowers bloom.

  ‘That spiritual and physical oneness we all share with this common homeland explains the depth of the pain we all carried in our hearts as we saw our country tear itself apart in a terrible conflict, and as we saw it spurned, outlawed and isolated by the peoples of the world, precisely because it has become the universal base of the pernicious ideology and practice of racism and racial oppression.

  ‘We, the people of South Africa, feel fulfilled that humanity has taken us back into its bosom, that we, who were outlaws not so long ago, have today been given the rare privilege to be host to the nations of the world on our own soil.

  ‘We thank all our distinguished international guests for having come to take possession with the people of our country of what is, after all, a common victory for justice, for peace, for human dignity.

  ‘We trust that you will continue to stand by us as we tackle the challenges of building peace, prosperity, non-sexism, non-racialism and democracy. We deeply appreciate the role that the masses of our people and their political mass – democratic, religious, women, youth, business, traditional – and other leaders have played to bring about this conclusion. Not least among them is my Second Deputy President, the Honourable F. W. de Klerk.

  ‘We would also like to pay tribute to our security forces, in all their ranks, for the distinguished role they have played in securing our first democratic elections and the transition to democracy, from bloodthirsty forces which still refuse to see the light.

  ‘The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.

  ‘We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.


  ‘We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace.

  ‘We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

  ‘As a token of its commitment to the renewal of our country, the new Interim Government of National Unity will, as a matter of urgency, address the issue of amnesty for various categories of our people who are currently serving terms of imprisonment.

  ‘We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward.

  ‘We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, to lead our country out of the valley of darkness.

  ‘We understand it that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.

  ‘Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.

  ‘The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement! Let freedom reign! God bless Africa! Thank you.’39

  For people of Mandela’s age, the symbolism of the celebration must have been even more poignant; not only was the inauguration happening in the precincts of an edifice representing ineffable power, but it was in Pretoria, not far from the Central Prison where many had been executed for daring to imagine that such a moment could ever come to pass. The city’s main station had been desegregated not too long ago and the pavements still held the memory of black feet that had to jump hastily back onto the road in deference to a white person’s approach. Mandela now strode away from the formality of the amphitheatre, across the manicured acreage of greenery, the Botha Lawns of the Union Buildings, down to where tens of thousands of people were gathered.

  ‘Before starting his acceptance speech, Mandela danced briefly to the music of the African Jazz Pioneers, and the crowd danced delightedly with him. Amid the festive carnival atmosphere, a group of youths ran onto the lawn in front of the Union Buildings holding a life-size coffin aloft. “Hamba kahle apartheid” (farewell apartheid) painted on the side of the coffin.’40

  On the stage, he introduced Mbeki and De Klerk as the deputy presidents, lifting their hands to the air in his, like a referee declaring joint winners in a prize fight.

  ‘I will always remember him holding up my hand, and also the hand of Thabo Mbeki, for all to see,’ De Klerk recalled years later. ‘It was symbolic of us approaching the future together.’41 Here, Mandela described Mbeki as a freedom fighter who had sacrificed his youth to work for liberation, and De Klerk as one of the greatest reformers, one of the sons of the soil.

  ‘Let us forget the past,’ Mandela said. ‘What is past is past.’42

  Later, at the inaugural luncheon of invited guests, he spoke in a different idiom, from the heart, as he was wont to do when making an impromptu speech.

  ‘Today,’ he said, ‘is the result of that other force in our country, that of persuasion, that of discussion, that of dialogue, that of love and loyalty to our common fatherland.

  ‘In the days to come this is the force on which we are going to rely. We are still going to have many problems. So,’ he concluded, ‘the government of national unity has to face all these problems. But I have no doubt that we have the men and women in this country, from all sections of the population, who will rise to the challenge.’43

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Getting into the Union Buildings

  Nelson Mandela spent the night of the inauguration at the State Guest House in Pretoria, which would be his temporary home for the next three months while F. W. de Klerk was moving out of Libertas, the presidential residence – Mandela later renamed it Mahlamba Ndlopfu (‘The New Dawn’ in Xitsonga, meaning literally ‘the washing of the elephants’ due to the fact that elephants bathe in the morning).

  At about 10 a.m. on 11 May, the day after the inauguration, Mandela arrived at the back entrance of the west wing of the Union Buildings, accompanied by a security detail of the as yet unintegrated units of the South African Police and of MK. Two formidable women – Barbara Masekela and Jessie Duarte – who were at the heart of Mandela’s administration as ANC president stepped along as smartly as they could, laden with paraphernalia for setting up office.

  Forever in the shade, the temperature in the corridors was one or two degrees lower than outside, forcing a somewhat conservative dress code upon the staff and officials. Previously, when Mandela had met with De Klerk, the corridors had always smelled of coffee brewing somewhere. This morning there was no such smell and, except for the few people Mandela met at the entrance to the building, the place seemed virtually deserted and forlorn, devoid of any sense of human warmth. Executive Deputy President de Klerk had taken the whole of his private office with him, leaving only the functional and administrative staff.

  But conviviality and sartorial elegance were the last things on the minds of Mandela’s staff, whose main business on 11 May was the finalisation of the cabinet of the Government of National Unity and the swearing-in of ministers. It was a small team, composed of handpicked professionals, which had to deliver an urgent mandate. As Jessie Duarte observed, Mandela was not passive in the selection of staff. When he sought to enlist Professor Jakes Gerwel as a possible director general and cabinet secretary, she remembers that Mandela ‘wanted to know everything there was to know about Jakes.* He asked Trevor [Manuel] … before he actually sat down with Jakes and said, “If we win, would you come to my office?” He also spoke to quite a number of activists [about] who this Gerwel chap was; who … would go into government with him?’1 A competent cadre in the president’s office was needed to make up for the gap left by the withdrawal of the sixty people on De Klerk’s staff. Moreover, nothing had come out of tasking a Transitional Executive Council sub-council on foreign affairs to plan a structure for the new president’s office, except for the designation of a small temporary team to tide over the new president until a permanent arrangement could be made. At Thabo Mbeki’s prompting, a team headed by Department of Foreign Affairs official Dr Chris Streeter took on the role, with Streeter becoming Mandela’s ‘chief of staff’ until the director general was appointed.

  Mandela was quick to dispel the illusion that he would be getting rid of the old personnel. Although strapped for time, Mandela made a point of shaking hands with each and every member of staff. Fanie Pretorius, then chief director in the office of the president, remembers the occasion:

  He started from the left side and he shook hands with every staff member, and about a quarter along the line he came to a lady who always had a stern face, though she was a friendly person. When he took her hand, he said in Afrikaans, ‘Is jy kwaad vir my?’ [‘Are you cross with me?’], and everybody laughed and the ice was broken. He continued and gave the message to all the staff. There was nothing more and everybody was relieved. He was Nelson Mandela at that moment, with the warmth and the acceptance. Everybody would have eaten out of his hands – there was no negative feeling from anybody after that in the staff, at least that we were aware of.2

  Mandela’s personal warmth towards
people from all walks of life, from gardeners, cleaners, clerks and typists to those in the most senior roles, did not go unnoticed. Those who came across him in the course of their work describe him as generous, self-effacing and easy-going; a man who knew ‘how to be an ordinary person’, with a sincerity demonstrated by his ‘greeting everybody in the same way whether there is a camera on him or not’; ‘there is never the feeling that he is up there and you’re down there’.3

  Mandela was respectful but not in awe of the world in which he found himself. Like all confident people who take their capability for granted, he was unhesitant about the road he needed to take to strengthen South Africa’s democracy. Throughout his political life, he had never shirked responsibility, no matter how dangerous, as evidenced by his role as the volunteer-in-chief in the 1952 Defiance Campaign Against Unjust Laws.* Inspired by the sentiment contained in his favourite poem, ‘Invictus’, ‘the menace of the years’ had found him ‘unafraid’.4 Imprisoned for more than a quarter of a century, Mandela had become the world’s most recognisable symbol against all forms of injustice. He was initially reluctant to become president, perhaps feeling that he had accomplished what he’d set out to do with his stewardship of the heady period from release to the elections.

  ‘My installation as the first democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa,’ he writes, ‘was imposed on me much against my advice.

  ‘As the date of the general elections approached, three senior ANC leaders informed me that they had consulted widely within the organisation, and that the unanimous decision was that I should stand as President if we won the election. This, they said, was what they would propose at the first meeting of our parliamentary caucus. I advised against the decision on the grounds that I would turn seventy-six that year, that it would be wise to get a far younger person, male or female, who had been out of prison, met heads of state and government, attended meetings of world and regional organisations, who had kept abreast of national and international developments, who could, as far as was possible, foresee the future course of such developments.