Nelson Mandela was the last of a great generation of freedom fighters who guided South Africa’s liberation struggle from the early days of the African National Congress Youth League in the 1940s.
South Africans have fond memories of these leaders - men and women such as Albertina and Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Anton Lembede and Govan Mbeki - particularly in today’s political climate, which is characterised by greed and rampant accumulation of wealth, often through corruption. These people demonstrated the kind of morality and selflessness that is lacking in South African political life today. That is why Mandela was loved by the majority of South Africans, black and white.
Each time he was taken ill, this outpouring of love came through clearly from radio talkshow callers and TV vox pops. But that love is not universal in South Africa. There are many white die-hards who still feel he should never have been released. At the other end of the spectrum are the black youngsters who are disillusioned with the “new” South Africa and hold Mandela personally responsible for betraying the revolution.
Mandela fully deserved the legendary stature he enjoyed around the world for the last quarter-century of his life.
He was one of the most extraordinary liberation leaders Africa, or any other continent, ever produced. Not only did he lead his people to triumph over the deeply entrenched system of apartheid that enforced racial segregation in every area of South African life; he achieved this victory without the bloodbath so many had predicted and feared.
And, as South Africa’s first president elected by the full democratic franchise of all its people, he presided over a landmark Truth and Reconciliation process that finally allowed apartheid’s victims a measure of official recognition and acknowledgment of their suffering.
Mandela’s enormous strength of character steeled him for his long struggle and ultimate victory over apartheid. Even deeper resources of political wisdom and courage steered him toward the course of constructive reconciliation over destructive vengeance.
Mandela did not, of course, achieve all of this on his own. The movement he led, the ANC, was sustained by lesser-known activists and martyrs, many of whom did not live to see the day of victory they had dreamed of for so long. And the country’s peaceful transition owes a huge debt to the apartheid era’s last white president, F W. de Klerk, who in 1990 ordered an end to Mandela’s 27-year imprisonment and negotiated with him and others the terms of the political transition. Three years later, Mandela and de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
Having spent the prime years of his life in prison, Mandela was already 75 when he first took office as president in 1994, 80 when he retired in 1999.
His successors, even those he personally supported, have, sadly, not been his equals. South Africa today faces many challenging problems. It will be up to a new generation of South African leaders to resolve these problems. All of them will owe a historic debt to Mandela.