It is unlikely
that this will be the first time that you are hearing this. It is not going to
be the last time either. Mankind it seems is always looking for a hero, and on
finding such a one determined to defend him against all reason.
As such essays
go, my arguments must be prefaced with admiration for Nelson Mandela, for his
untiring efforts at charity work, his voice of reason against the venal, poisonous
global war empire and most of all for his guardianship of South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid and into
majority rule - or as many insist on saying, independence.
Nelson Mandela
is regularly feted as the greatest living human, and with the demise of the
Pope, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana the last surviving saint of the 20th
Century. Only minutes ago, I heard Will Smith go on and on about him on a
late-night television. Fitting perhaps for Nelson Mandela is nowhere more
skilful than on the stage, displaying for all of us an endless intercourse with
celebrities from David Beckham, Bono, Tony Blair, Naomi Campbell, Oprah Winfrey
and the South African rugby team. They bask in the reflection of his halo,
which is in turn fuelled by the intensity and constancy of their endless glib
adoration.
More than
anything, Nelson Mandela is celebrated as a contrast to the stereotype of the
African head of state; especially for his one term transitional presidency and
for the spirit of conciliation and forgiveness that he bequeathed South Africa. Even today, across the world,
wherever there is a prolonged political conflict, the cry goes out, ‘where is Northern Ireland's Nelson Mandela?', ‘Where is the
Israeli/ Palestinian Nelson Mandela?' His embrace is now the fountain at which
those whose bodies are stained with authoritarianism cleanse themselves, a long
line of penitents from those absolved by actual contact like David Cameron to
those like Raila Odinga who arrogate the great man's laurels onto their egos.
But is Mandela
worthy himself of these laurels or is he a creation of the media and the cult
of celebrity that has taken over our times? Whenever it is pointed out that
Mandela is nowhere near worthy of his accolades, voices are raised in protest. ‘Every
community needs its heroes,' these voices say, ‘no one is perfect' or even, ‘his
single act of not permitting the black people of South Africa to rise against
the oppressive economic system allowed a smooth, orderly and bloodless
transition from apartheid to democracy'. These are valid extenuations, indeed
Mandela himself has been at pains to point out his infallibility and his
discomfort with his elevated station.
But it is not
with Mandela the man that we must deal with, for he no longer exists. What we
must address is the suitability as a role model for future leaders of Nelson
Mandela the saint, the hero. What do people mean when they say they aspire to
be like Nelson Mandela, why is he so revered, and at what cost has such
reverence come? If Nelson Mandela is the standard behind which so many are
ranged, what does this standard represent and is it worthy of its place?
Apartheid South Africa created a cruel world for South
Africans, not just because it pitted the black and white people against each
other in a brutal existential conflict, but also because of the extreme
differences in the economic standing of the two races. It is this reality, more
than the warm fuzzy feeling of conciliation and forgiveness that faces the
people of South
Africa
each day and it is this which true leadership must face. Instead Nelson Mandela
and the ANC, elected to take a path that in the words of Mandela's biography
sought to realise the goodness of the people on the other side. At the end of
the feel-good trip of Mandela's presidency, South Africa had stayed the same, denied its chance
at healing and for millions of its poorest and downtrodden the situation only
got worse. Actually, save for a few well placed economic beneficiaries, things
have got worse for everyone, even as those wielding the gilded whip were now
black.
What the ANC
and Mandela had succeeded in doing, what they had been preparing to do from the
1980s was to bag the emotions of the South African people, wrap it all up in
the West's racial guilt and put an end to the revolutionary process. They
agreed to become the tools of the foreign and corporate interests, they risked
nothing, and they gave it all up to the same oppressive forces that had long
shackled South Africans black and white in a system of haves-and-have-nots. The
ANC's old ties to the poor, to the workers and the subsistence farmers were
lost and the greatest achievement of Mandela and the government he led was to
entrench and intensify the wealth divide, even as a façade of majority
government kept a racially sensitive world in a spell.
And it is not
just in South
Africa
that Nelson Mandela's leadership has represented a desire to follow expedience
rather than provide leadership. In the immediate aftermath of September 11
attacks on the USA he backed, along with popular opinion
carried away by the enormity of the terror, the invasion of Afghanistan without the UN's approval. Only one
and a half year's later as the US and the UK sought to invade Iraq, he had remembered the UN and was
again with popular opinion in denouncing the attacks and pointing out the
wrongs of America's foreign policy. During his term as
South African president, the great statesman and his government stood out globally
for their inactivity in the wake of the scourge of HIV and AIDS. Millions of
South Africans died as his government was caught up in arguments on the real
cause of AIDS, chasing wild conspiracy theories where it could have been saving
lives. It is true that the former South African head of state has admitted this
grand failure and that he is now at the forefront of the effort to sensitise
the world population on AIDS related issues but on the more important issue of
addressing the dire state of the South African black man, his inaction in
government persists to this day. In its place is a determination to do right by
the corporations, and to create a new class of black people to take over where
the wealthy whites left off.
In Nelson
Mandela and his sainthood was an opportunity for the world to lay to rest the
myth of the servile African leader, one who was always more eager for
conciliation and the approval of the West than he was for the long term good of
his people. It presented an opportunity for an exhibition of leadership that even
as it eschewed needless global confrontation and sought to maintain global
alliances would always keep the interest of his people first, and especially
the most vulnerable, those who are ignored both by the wave of globalisation
and the rise of the middle class. It was in Mandela that an African leader was
best able to establish the delivery of a better future for his country's
citizens, especially with the advantage of South Africa's global standing, her immense mineral
wealth, her regional dominance and the goodwill of the entire planet. Sadly,
that is now all opportunity cost, and the great example of his elevated status
is gone in the halo of his global approval. While statues are named in his
honour in London, and parks in Toronto and Kingston, in South Africa his legacy remains his side-stepping
of the reality of the great tragedy of his people's existence.
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We should be grateful Mandela didn't become a maniac like many of them. 
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