Features
Mandela as South Africa's metaphor
Andile Mngxitama
2008-07-16, Issue 389
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/49491
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Mandela is, in some ways the perfect embodiment of post colonial Africa, a continent blessed with so many possibilities but consistently producing so much disappointment. The African dream of liberation has become a long nightmare. As Mandela turns 90 the country he helped found some 14 years ago is in a mighty mess. Its hatred of black people has reached the apex with the mass slaughtering and displacement of black Africans (apparently a good 20 or more of the more than 60 dead are South Africans). Post 1994, has been much celebrated for the benefits it bestowed upon a few, silence has befallen the fate of the black majority which has been bequeathed a bestial existence.
Mandela’s 85th birth day was a Coca Cola affair. The multinational corporation was given full rights to throw a party for our founding father. Coke milked his name dry, everything was branded, serviettes to programme - the whole affair was televised live. This forced a friend to remark that we need another “Free Nelson Mandela Campaign." At 90 Mandela must be allowed his well deserved rest. But it’s hard to think of this likable man of the 20th century Africa outside politics. He is resistance, Robben Island, freedom, magnanimity, compromise and hope for many, but what is his real legacy?
A few years ago Chinweizu wondered loudly about the icon of liberation who voluntarily builds his house as a replica of the prison house he was kept him during the last days towards his release. Who build a prison for a house? Our Mandela is a symbol, like his country, of things shiny and good and things horrendous.
Prof Wole Soyinka was moved to comment on the “soulless truly horrendous” sculpture of Mandela which presides over the Mandela Square in Sandton our Mecca of consumption, which lives cheek by jowl with the sprawling Alexandra township. Sandton feeds on the blood of Alexandra, the place from which the recent spade of Negrophobic attacks emanates. Cornel West, firstly praised Mandela as a the Socratic spirit of “going against the grain” then on reflection from the distance of the USA he warned against the “Santa Clausification of Mandela - Big smile, domesticated, tamed, defanged with toys in a bag."
At 90 Mandela is all these things, but more, he is the African dream that never became. His 90th bash will be held in London, what the official website says is his second home, images of Toussaint Louverture perishing in the loving embrace of his friend Napoleon Bonaparte flashes by. Now we wait for Barak Obama to conclude a circle started in 1994 in South Africa, White Supremacy today needs a little melanin too. Black suicide is endemic, 1803 it was Haiti, 1994 South Africa, and maybe 2008 December the USA. Happy 90 Tata!
*Andile Mngxitama is a Johannesburg based land rights activist and member of the We write editorial collective.
*Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
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Andile Mngxitama's piece is supposed to hold a mirror up to the struggles of Nelson Mandela and the nature of his statesmanship on the African continent - and the world at large, but rather than do that, it foreshadows an antinomy of a sort: what is wrong with the present crop of African leaders. Though a good piece, it does not point a flambeau to the way of moving South Africa from the doldrums of national asphyxiation, which Mandela's essence epitomises. Wole Soyinka's reference to Mandela's statue as evident in the article, as ''soulless'', adumbrates the mess made of his fight to have a new South Africa - filled with the bliss of post-Apartheid as well as inter-racial brotherhood. The realities effulgent in today's South Africa, are a far cry from what Mandela and his comerades figured out. Also, the writer's friend who reckoned in the wake of world's celebration of Mandela phenomenon, that we should sing ''Free Nelson Mandela Campaign'', should rather spare a thought for what I call ''Free African Leaders's Campaign''. African leaders serve as a foil to Mandela's statesmanship. The sqandering of Africa's bounties and the mortgaging of its future by African leaders in the marketplace of global one-upmanship and continental malaise, are a disturbing pattern that sends shivers down my spine as I reflect on our journey so far as a continent. For me, a more fitting title for Mngxitama's piece should be ''Mandela as South Afrca's Foil''. This titular reconstruction, would underscore more pointedly the meat of his preoccupation in the article.
In an interview which Mandela granted on his last visit to the United Kingdom - as a run-up to his 90th birthday celebration, he was asked what was his reading preference: the sort of books he reads. His answer was strikig. On top of the list was Tolstoy's ''War and Peace''. No doubt, African leaders would prefer Machiavelli's ''The Prince''. The logic of this book, underwrites their inhuman activities on the continent. I make haste to suggest Henry Kissinger's ''Diplomacy'' to African leaders. Its proemal gambit distils a road map to the philosophy of statesmanship. There is a lot to gather from Bill Clinton's ''Between Hope and History'' as well as other books that deepen the debate on moving humanity (Africa) from the margin to the centre. Mandela's senility and possible departure will mark a watershed in (South)Africa's liberation from the menacle of neocolonialism, class attrition and prebendalism. Mandela is no metaphor for South Africa; he is rather a sheer irony of today's South Africa - a spooky antinomy that haunts South Africa, nay, the continent of Africa. Uzoechi Nwagbara, London.
UZOECHI NWAGBARA
Your honesty is harsh but it can't be denied. The vast wealth of the country must be redistributed as soon and as as fairly as possible. All Africans everywhere rejoiced at the initial victory of majority government,however those of us who continue to watch know there are urgent things to be done. The appearance of a small black middle-class was not the goal.Hopefully Mr.Zuma will make steps to correct current problems. When Chris Hani was murdered our enemies knew what they were doing.
Wallace