Dare Not Linger

by Nelson Mandela

  ‘I pointed out that I had always admired men and women who used their talents to serve the community, and who were highly respected and admired for their efforts and sacrifices, even though they held no office whatsoever in government or society.

  ‘The combination of talent and humility, of being able to be at home with both the poor and the wealthy, the weak and the mighty, ordinary people and royalty, young and old – men and women with a common touch, irrespective of their race or background, are admired by humankind all over the globe.

  ‘The ANC has always been rich with talented men and women, who preferred to remain in the background and to push forward promising young people to positions of eminence and responsibility, to expose them early in their political careers to the basic principles and problems of leadership, and how to manage such problems. The kind of leader has always made a formidable impression on many of us. Comrade Walter Sisulu is such a man; that is why he has always towered above all of us, irrespective of the offices we occupied in the movement or government.

  ‘I urged the three senior leaders that I would prefer to serve without holding any position in the organisation or government. One of them, however, put me flat on the carpet.

  ‘He reminded me that I had always advocated the crucial importance of collective leadership, and that as long as we scrupulously observed that principle, we could never go wrong. He bluntly asked whether I was now rejecting what I had consistently preached down the years. Although that principle was never intended to exclude a strong defence of what one firmly believed in, I decided to accept their proposal.

  ‘I, however, made it clear that I would serve for one term only. Although my statement seemed to have caught them unawares – they replied that I should leave the matter to the organisation – I did not want any uncertainty on this question. Shortly after I had become President, I publicly announced that I would serve one term only and would not seek re-election.

  ‘At meetings of the ANC,’ Mandela continues, ‘I often stressed that I did not want weak comrades or puppets who would swallow anything I said, simply because I was President of the organisation. I called for a healthy relationship in which we could address issues, not as master and servants, but as equals in which each comrade would express his or her views freely and frankly, and without fear of victimisation or marginalisation.

  ‘One of my proposals, for instance, which generated a lot of sound and fury, was that we should reduce the voting age to fourteen, a step which had been taken by several countries elsewhere in the world.

  ‘This was due to the fact that in those countries, the youth of more or less that age were in the forefront of their revolutionary struggles. It was that contribution which induced their victorious governments to reward them by giving them the right to vote. Opposition to my proposal from members of the National Executive Committee was so vehement and overwhelming that I retreated in order. The newspaper, The Sowetan, dramatised the issue in its cartoon column when they showed a baby in napkins voting. It was one of the most graphic manners of ridiculing my idea. I did not have the courage to insist on it again.

  ‘There have, however, been cases where I did not consider myself bound by the principle of collective leadership. One example was when I summarily rejected the decision of a policy conference that the Cabinet should be appointed by conference. I also rejected the ANC’s first list of negotiators with the apartheid regime, which was sent to us by the leadership in Lusaka. Out of the eleven names, eight belong to one black ethnic group, and there was not a single woman amongst them.

  ‘To sum up, the principle of collective leadership, of teamwork, is not an inflexible or dogmatic instrument to be mechanically applied irrespective of the circumstances. It must always be examined in the light of the prevailing conditions. But it is an essential guiding principle if we’re going to promote unity and mutual confidence among comrades. We deviate from it only in extraordinary circumstances.

  ‘As President of the ANC and of the country, I encouraged members of the organisation, the Cabinet and Parliamentarians to be outspoken at ANC and government meetings. But I invariably warned that to be outspoken did not at all mean one should be destructive or negative.

  ‘One should never forget that the main aim in a debate, inside and outside the organisation, in political rallies, in Parliament and other government structures, is that we should emerge from that debate, however sharp our differences might have been, closer and more united and confident than ever before. The removal of differences and mutual suspicion within one’s organisation … should always be our guiding principle.

  ‘This is comparatively easy when we try, to the best of our ability, never to question the integrity of another comrade or a member of another political organisation who has a different point of view from ours.

  ‘During my political career, I have discovered that in all communities, African, coloured, Indian and white, and in all political organisations without exception, there are good men and women who fervently wish to go on with their lives, who yearn for peace and stability, who want a decent income, good houses, and to send their children to the best schools, who respect and want to maintain the social fabric of society.

  ‘Good leaders fully appreciate that the removal of tensions in society, of whatever nature, puts creative thinkers on centre stage by creating an ideal environment for men and women of vision to influence society. Extremists, on the other hand, thrive on tension and mutual suspicion. Clear thinking and good planning was never their weapon.’5

  The ANC – or, more precisely, President Mandela – needed to think clearly and plan well. Without this capability, it would be difficult to synthesise the old, security-oriented, bureaucratised civil service, a carry-over from the insular legacy of apartheid, and the new, somewhat inexperienced personnel, some of whom had recently graduated from overseas academies where they had received crash courses in administration and the rudiments of running a modern economy. While De Klerk had a functioning administrative office staffed by people who had worked with him for years, Mandela and his deputy, Mbeki, had to start from scratch. The only experience favouring the ANC in the public service was in a small but significant number of people in foreign affairs and the security forces – mainly defence and intelligence – who had been involved in extensive joint planning for integration. For Mandela, therefore, building the office entailed first bringing in senior liberation-movement figures to head sections and act as advisers and, second, refraining from rushing to change the structure or dispense with staff from the old order.

  Jakes Gerwel was the first senior appointment, bringing gravitas to the presidential staff. He also brought his extensive political background as a leader of the United Democratic Front and his engagement with the ANC in exile. As vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, a position from which he was about to retire, he had led the transformation of an apartheid university into an intellectual home of the left. Mandela’s endorsement of Professor Gerwel shows the high esteem in which he held him. It’s even more remarkable that Gerwel came from the black consciousness tradition and wasn’t a card-carrying member of the ANC. Many years later, Mandela wrote of him:

  ‘Professor Jakes Gerwel was Secretary of the Cabinet as well as Director-General during my presidency, positions he held with distinction. He is now Chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), the Institute for [Democratic Alternatives] in South Africa (IDASA) and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.

  ‘He is also active in the private sector, being Chairperson of Brimstone Investment Corporation, Africon Engineering International, Educor-Naspers, Director of Naspers, Old Mutual, David Philip Publishers, Western Province Cricket Pty Ltd., member of the South African Academy of Science and six other private sector organisations. He was a former Chairperson of the Committee of University Principals. Academically, he acquitted
himself exceptionally. He passed the Bachelor of Arts Degree, Bachelor of Arts Honours, Dr Litteratum et Philosophiae, all cum laude. He had no less than six honorary degrees from local and overseas universities.

  ‘He has been honoured with the South African Order of the Southern Cross, Gold, by the President of South Africa (1999), King Abdulaziz Sash, Minister Rank, by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (1999) and the Order of Good Deeds by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya (1999).

  ‘His publications include a variety of monographs, articles, essays and papers on literary, educational and socio-political subjects. He is an impressive and fearlessly independent thinker who rose to the position of Rector of the University of the Western Cape and now Chancellor of the University of Rhodes.

  ‘In the field of human relations, he clearly emerges as a true leader who is devoid of paranoid tendencies and who encourages principled discussions. He constantly draws attention to those aspects among comrades, which are designed to strengthen rather than weaken human relations.

  ‘As Chairperson of our Foundation, he is a linchpin in keeping all of us working together harmoniously, and he nips in the bud any incipient developments towards any form of infighting among comrades.

  ‘Few people are aware that he is also a polished negotiator on the international level. It was he and His Royal Highness Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington, who were responsible for the Lockerbie breakthrough.*

  ‘As long as there are men and women of this calibre and vision, world peace and stability will continue to be the cornerstone of national and international relations.’6

  At the time he appointed Gerwel, Mandela had formed a reasonable idea about how he wanted his office to look. Like all obsessively orderly people – at one point he wanted to make his own bed in a hotel – he couldn’t function without a solid base. Having Gerwel at the helm served this purpose. He respected Gerwel and would take his advice. Masekela later commented on this aspect of Mandela’s character.

  ‘I think it requires a certain amount of humility and self-interest to want the best advice and to take it. He was a little too much admiring of educated people, I would say. He really was seriously impressed by degrees, and so on, and if you expressed some scepticism about someone like that it would be very difficult to convince him.’7

  Not that anyone would have expressed scepticism about Professor Gerwel, or, for that matter, about Ahmed Kathrada, who was there from the very start as a presidential adviser. Much later, Kathrada was appointed to the post of parliamentary counsellor. A long-time friend and Mandela’s fellow prisoner, he had turned down a suggestion that he become a cabinet minister.

  ‘What happened,’ Kathrada said, ‘is that the papers had published beforehand their cabinet, and my name was there. I then wrote to Mandela saying that although my name had been mentioned, I’m not interested in being in the cabinet … Fortunately there was this bartering with the IFP, which wanted one of the security portfolios, which we couldn’t afford to give them, so the easiest thing was to give them mine – correctional services.’8

  Mandela’s whole life had been dedicated to the transformation of the apartheid state into a non-racist, non-sexist constitutional one, where all people enjoyed equality before the law. But these were abstract ideals that could only be made real – or translated into reality – by the effort of talented and committed men and women. His office, then, had to be an engine to galvanise the membership. The choice of Nicholas ‘Fink’ Haysom as legal adviser came as no surprise; like the other members of Mandela’s office, Haysom came with impeccable credentials. A law professor who had been active in combating vigilante and state-sponsored violence a decade earlier, Haysom had played a central role during the negotiations. His expertise was invaluable, given South Africa’s evolution into a constitutional state and the need to devise a legal framework to transform the country and re-enter the international community (in this circumstance, Mandela was signing some 800 executive orders each year – on average, two each day9).

  Joel Netshitenzhe was a member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee and National Working Committee with a strong background in communications and strategic analysis. Deceptively casual and with an aversion to formal dress, Netshitenzhe – working with media liaison officer Parks Mankahlana, who’d come from the Youth League – operated a brief that went beyond writing Mandela’s speeches: he was also the unofficial link to the various ANC and government constituencies. Trusted by the media, mainly because he exuded confidence and candour – and was known to have the ear of the president – he worked hard to simplify the more complex policy positions in various forums.

  ‘Before Professor Jakes Gerwel became the Director General of the Presidency and began to draft my speeches,’ Mandela writes, ‘a task which he still performs to the present day, my speeches were drafted by Comrade Joel Netshitenzhe, later assisted by Comrade Tony Trew.

  ‘As is the case in many parts of the world, South Africa has produced a harvest of bright stars, even geniuses, who have helped to transform our country from its painful past, and made it world famous. It is these women and men right across the colour line, who surprised the world in the nineties, a world which hailed South Africa as a miracle country. That response from the international community confirmed once again what we have repeatedly said before, namely, that our wealth does not depend only in our minerals, but also in the calibre of our women and men. Joel Netshitenzhe, Head of the Government’s Communication and Information System (GCIS), is an integral part of that wealth.’10

  In addition, Netshitenzhe’s communication unit monitored and analysed government performance across the departments, compensating for the initial absence of capacity, due to a lack of resources, for policy coordination, evaluation and implementation in the presidency.

  He ‘could be polite and controlled in the face of unbearable provocation,’ Mandela continues. ‘In the numerous meetings I attended with him as President of the ANC and the country, I have never seen him once losing his temper. In this regard he worked cordially with Thabo [Mbeki], who sometimes would volunteer to help write the speech.

  ‘When Rusty Evans retired as Director General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, I requested Joel to succeed Rusty. Joel was polite as usual. But he said that if I insisted, he would consider the offer, but added emphatically that he would prefer to remain in Communications. I tried hard to pressurise him. But, with a broad smile across his face, he persisted in his courteous refusal. I then appealed to the Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, to persuade him to accept the offer. But the Deputy President advised me to withdraw the offer. Joel had been consistent in exile in his determination to cling to communications. I accepted that advice.’11

  In an interview with Aziz Pahad in July 2010, Jakes Gerwel said that he had meant to keep the size of the bureaucracy of Mandela’s office ‘as lean as efficiency allows’ and with a focused task.12 However, when writing to the Department of State Expenditure, Gerwel admitted that, when they entered the office in May 1994, they ‘inherited the apartheid-era Presidential office’. They had to accommodate the exigencies of ‘the dramatically enlarged democracy, the rapidly burgeoning international relations, the historical position and stature of President Mandela.’ All of these had ‘profound implications for the functioning of the Office of the President’ and could not have been ‘taken into consideration at that stage’.13 An analogy that comes to mind is of parents providing a layette for a single birth, only to be blessed with quintuplets.

  * * *

  Most political leaders make decisions with a view to minimising threats to their own political survival. Even though he actively participated in meetings and consulted with his advisers, Mandela was confident of his own opinions on issues; once he had adopted a position, this could sometimes pose difficulties. However, he was not inflexible to the point of obduracy when he realised that he wasn’t changing people’s minds.

  Jakes Gerwel remembered his boss’s
ability ‘to simplify and get through a thing. Madiba was very straightforward.’ As Gerwel had spent his entire life in universities, ‘theorising comes naturally to me,’ he said. ‘I am suspicious about simple answers, but I had to hear so many times: “Jakes, it must be simpler than that.” … Madiba could see the essential core and make things simple. He could therefore make a crucial decision – within five minutes, if necessary.’14

  But Mandela needed more than the cold, crisp analyses of his advisers; he also drew on the counsel of others in the ANC. Having started a practice of marking Mondays as ‘ANC day’ in his diary, he would spend that day at the ANC head office with the top officials and others, also attending NWC meetings. He had no set timetable, however, when consulting other ANC leaders close to him, like Sisulu.

  ‘Me, in particular,’ Sisulu said, uncomplainingly, in a 1994 interview, ‘he likes to ring. He wakes me up, one o’clock, two o’clock, doesn’t matter, he’ll wake me up. I realise after he has woken me up, this thing is not so important – well, we discuss it, but it didn’t really require that he wake me up at that time.’15

  Mandela’s involvement in cabinet, however, changed over time. Early in his tenure, Mandela was more hands-on, keeping himself informed on almost all aspects of policy in order to maintain the coherence of the ANC in the GNU, a measure demanded by the intricate process of transformation. Manuel remembers how, on the eve of cabinet meetings, Mandela convened ANC ministers and their deputies in an ANC cabinet caucus at his Genadendal residence in Cape Town.* This he did, Manuel says, ‘so that we could caucus positions that we wanted to take and be mutually supportive. It afforded comrades [an environment] to have a discussion that was quite free.’16