Nelson Mandela, politician of reconciliation
//Summary - Level-C2//
Nelson Mandela, a revered African leader, transformed South Africa through his commitment to democracy and reconciliation. His leadership dismantled apartheid, promoted non-racialism, and fostered economic liberalization. Despite his departure from politics, Mandela's legacy endures, though contemporary South African politics faces challenges of corruption and division, contrasting sharply with Mandela's principled governance.
Introduction:
1)
I once visited Nelson Mandela at his residence shortly after his inauguration and met him for a 30-minute interview with a television station. He was smiling and appeared relaxed and composed, but my impression was not of a politician but a "virtuous high priest" who had undergone rigorous training and had been stripped of all superfluous things.
2)
Mandela is the greatest hero in African political history and the most respected and loved African politician by Africans and people worldwide. His footprint on South Africa and Africa was enormous, and his contribution was immeasurable: the most powerful politician to promote freedom and democracy at the end of the 20th century was the African Mandela.
3)
Mandela's emergence transformed the World's reputation and restored confidence in African politics, which had been mired in confusion and stigma for so long. He showed the World that democracy can only be founded on national reconciliation.
4)
All loved Mandela, especially the World's heads of state, who revered him. To them, Mandela seemed to embody their ideals as a politician and national leader.
1. liberal Mandela
5)
Mandela was a student at the University of Fort Hare, the only black university established in the colonial era, when he met Oliver Tambo, later President of the African National Congress (ANC), and entered the political movement. He later moved to Johannesburg, where he met Walter Sisulu. Sisulu became the ANC Secretary-General in 1949 and was an aggressive anti-apartheid fighter.
6)
Mandela was endeared to these predecessors, absorbed their teachings and developed his ideology as a 'classical' orthodox liberal. Mandela's ideological development was also formative in the ANC's organisational thinking when it experienced the conflict between non-racial liberalism and African nationalism and ultimately chose the former.
7)
The ANC grew as a non-racial liberal organisation, including whites and Indians, rather than African nationalism. Under the apartheid regime, South Africa had all democratic institutions, including parliament, elections and the separation of powers.
Still, they were applied differently according to race, i.e. only fundamental human rights were lacking. So, the ANC exploited apartheid's greatest weakness under the banner of fundamental human rights based on liberal ideology.
8)
After studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, he passed his bar exam and, with Tambo, opened the first law firm for blacks.
This is where his great success began. Mandela was an intellectual, physical and expressive star for black people. In the treason trials that started in 1956, Mandela and other ANC detractors won courtroom arguments against the government.
9)
But he was arrested again in 1963 in the Rivonia case, sentenced to life in prison for treason and imprisoned on Robben Island off Cape Town. He spent the next 27 years in prison.
10)
His imprisonment did not affect his ideological struggle against loneliness and anguish as he developed his character, which is detailed in his autobiography, The Long Road to Freedom.
Mandela's unyielding determination to fight against difficulties, unaffected by despair and without losing his self-reliance and ideals, is reflected in his autobiography, The Long Road to Freedom. Mandela's autobiography is a rare documentary with the flavour of a German-style culture novel and the excitement of a British adventure novel.
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It is essential reading for students of modern South African history. The growing anti-apartheid movement in the international community was in part a movement to demand Mandela's release, and in 1986 a Commonwealth delegation was allowed to meet him, where he spoke of his vision of a democratic South Africa based on democracy rather than socialism.
12)
Incidentally, among the delegation was Obasanjo, who was responsible for the democratisation of Nigeria. The ANC's original liberal ideology was preserved on Robben Island and returned in the 1990s. He preserved and returned in the 1990s to lead the democratisation process.
2. leadership brilliance
13)
After his release in 1990, Mandela appeared again in front of the World's media, looking leaner, keener and more dignified than his younger days. He would go on to show remarkable leadership in the dismantling of the apartheid regime and the negotiations for democracy.
14)
The problematic, often obstructive, and frustrating democratisation negotiations would never have succeeded without Mandela's presence. It was also the first time the World witnessed an African politician's integrity and skill.
15)
Mandela was older than any of the democracy negotiators, taller than any of them, and more dignified than any of them. While the ANC in exile had drifted towards communisStruggle armed Struggle, the 1990s democracy negotiations were led by the liberal Mandela.
Without Mandela's strong leadership, which led to the armed Struggle and the elimination of the armed factions, there would have been no dawn of a democratic South Africa.
16)
In April 1993, I was sent to the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where Mandela also studied. The purpose was to observe South African democracy on the ground. A week after settling into the university guesthouse, Chris Hani, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, the second most popular black politician after Mandela, was assassinated.
17)
The World was in uproar, and the whole country, not the university, came to a standstill. South Africa, which had just emerged from the rotten shell of apartheid and was still without a new system, so to speak, was in its greatest crisis.
18)
It was Mandela, not then-President de Klerk, who took the lead in appealing to the people to remain calm. Mandela overcame the crisis by rallying the people's anger and anxiety towards holding democratic elections, which were decided a year later.
Mandela's spirit at this time was uncanny. Everyone in South Africa, black and white, was convinced that only Mandela could save South Africa.
19)
In this climate, the then-ruling National Party, which was forced to abandon its line of opposition to the ANC, turned around and began to align itself with the ANC.
Guided by Mandela's leadership, the process towards the first national regular elections gradually built up. Armed groups were hunted down, individually isolated and rounded up, and excluded from the democratisation process.
20)
Mandela showed no mercy against them. The final obstacle was the Zulu, the largest population group in South Africa (Mandela, incidentally, is from the second most populous group after the Zulu, the Causa).
The Zulu had a politically influential royal family, and the Inkatha Freedom Party stood for Zulu nationalism. Zulu were always involved in political disputes between blacks. The current President, Zuma, was recruited to win over the Zulu. Zuma was the highest-ranking Zulu in the ANC.
21)
In October 1993, Mandela and President de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandela said he received the award on behalf of his predecessors in the liberation struggle and that it must have taken such harsh repression to create such a noble people.
22)
Tambo, an ally of the ANC in exile, handed over the ANC presidency to Mandela in 1991 and died in April 1993, burning out without seeing the birth of Mandela's government.
Another ally, South African Communist Party Chairman Joe Slovo, who saved the country on numerous occasions during the crisis of democratic negotiations, also died in 1995, as did Sisulu in 2003.
Mandela sometimes spoke of the loneliness of being left alone.
3. As President.
23)
1994, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa's first-ever national universal election.
He said: 'Never again shall man oppress man in this beautiful country.'
I vividly remember many people crying as they listened to the new President's words in his inaugural address.
24)
It was probably the best time in South Africa's history. Mandela's thoroughgoing politics of human rights and national reconciliation also influenced his mediation of African conflicts.
Mandela was very tough on African politics at the time, which was a disaster: he recalled the ambassador from Nigeria after the execution of social activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, and in his mediation of the Burundi conflict, he harshly reprimanded the armed groups, calling them 'a disgrace to Africa'.
25)
African nationalism, which underpinned the African colonial liberation movement, aimed to regain economic interests in the hands of Africans. Still, Mandela's goal was to coexist with white society based on a thoroughly non-racialist creed.
26)
He repeatedly stated that "white South Africans are South Africans" and defended their rights, as well as those of oppressed blacks. He continued to preach to blacks to 'forgive whites' and promoted a politics of reconciliation. South Africa's economic liberalisation policy had been underway since the 1980s when the country was under apartheid.
27)
Economic sanctions against South Africa became more arduous, and foreign capital withdrew. The economy lacked dynamism and was dominated by several conglomerates that had swelled by absorbing the interests of the withdrawn foreign capital.
South African companies trapped in the narrow domestic market were on the verge of suffocation. The government of the time was committed to liberalisation to revive an economy suffering from low growth.
28)
Meanwhile, while in prison, Mandela believed that at least the mining sector needed to be nationalised to help the black masses, who had been forced into poverty by inhuman racist policies. He intended to use the revenues to fight poverty.
29)
However, after his release, he met with business people at home and abroad and, after listening to their views, appears to have decided that such a policy would lead to a loss of confidence in the economy's management and would be detrimental to the building of a democratic South Africa.
30)
The Mandela government continued the policies of the previous white government, particularly in terms of economic policy, and instead accelerated deregulation, exchange rate liberalisation, and the privatisation of public corporations. Liberal economic policies were also in line with Mandela's ideology.
31)
After democratisation, South African companies were freed from the yoke of democracy, expanded into Africa and around the World, and globalised rapidly. Among them were BHP Billiton, the World's most significant resources company; SAB Miller, the World's second-largest beer company; Standard Bank, Africa's largest bank; and MTN, Africa's largest mobile phone company.
32)
These companies have moved their primary listing to London and have grown into global companies, underpinning Africa's overall economic growth since the resource boom in the 2000s.
33)
Mandela was also active in attracting investment. Among Japanese companies, he made numerous love calls to Toyota Motor Corporation, one of South Africa's largest manufacturing companies. Toyota decided to expand its investment in 2000, doubling its production capacity and catapulting the automotive industry into South Africa's leading industry. Toyota is probably the Japanese company closest to Mandela.
34)
The Mandela administration's economic policies include the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), an ANC pledge in the 1994 elections.
35)
This was a large-scale public works programme centred on the construction of one million housing units and the electrification of 250,000 units, together with the expansion of education and the improvement of health and sanitation services, to help the black masses who had previously been denied access to public services.
36)
However, building a post-apartheid society depended on generating financial resources for the RDP and achieving a vibrant economy. The biggest challenge for the ANC government was also job creation for the black population, 40% of whom were unemployed.
37)
How could the rate of economic growth be raised? The liberal Mandela looked to the market economy for the answer. This created the basis for the current South African economy and companies.
4. post-Mandela.
38)
He left the presidency after one term, citing old age as the reason, and left politics in a stir in African politics, where long-term governments were the norm. In his last speech to the African Union, he told Zimbabwean President Mugabe that 'together we will give way to the younger generation'.
Mugabe appears to have had a fierce rivalry with Mandela and South Africa, but he later became increasingly dictatorial and drove his country into bankruptcy.
39)
Mandela's death is unlikely to cause any political turmoil in South Africa. At an early stage, Mandela retired to prepare a leadership structure for the younger generation. South African politics has been on a post-Mandela path for 15 years.
40)
However, current South African politics has become "politics without principles," with key positions held by the Zuma faction, and it has become a "tribal politics" riddled with corruption and scandal.
41)
The economy is also riddled with corruption and scandal, which has caused growth to slow ahead of that of other African countries.
A disastrous labour-management showdown at a platinum mine in 2012, which resulted in the most significant death toll since democracy, has left the international community with severe doubts about the ANC's ability to govern, with trade union organisations as one of its pillars.
42)
A personality sometimes epitomises history. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the World seems to have been dominated by the 'politics of confrontation'. Will there ever again be a politician in South Africa or the World who can embody harmony and integration after Mandela's death?
Nelson Mandela, politician of reconciliation
https://www.ide.go.jp/Japanese/Publish/Periodicals/Africa/2014_03.html
Film "Invictus"(2009) - 7.3/10
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1057500/
Morgan Freeman - Full Interview on Charlie Rose for Invictus (2010)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmyrr3zW1hg&t=513s
The life of Nelson Mandela and hiStruggleending Struggle against racism: from the World's most famous political prisoner to the first black President of South Africa
https://natgeo.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/news/20/072100435/
Leader of the African National Congress, a black party opposed to apartheid in South Africa. After a lengthy prison term, he was elected the first black President in 1994.
https://www.y-history.net/appendix/wh1703-087.html
Add info)
"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
