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| No Easy Walk to Freedom |
The first thing that strikes one as one reads the pages of
Nelson Mandela’s speeches, letters and transcripts collected in ‘No Easy Walk
to Freedom’, is that he and his generation of ANC and ANC Youth League leaders
were political giants compared with the current cohort. During the “dark times”
[1] of apartheid, the Mandela generation was far more visionary, intellectually
astute, open to new ideas and far wiser.
Someone who occupies a position of authority and holds and
exercises power is not always necessarily a leader. Leadership is about the
quality of an individual’s actions, behaviour and vision. During the “dark
times” of apartheid and colonialism, the Mandela generation offered a kind of
leadership which was apparent in the quality of their actions.
The success of the African National Congress as a liberation
movement during colonialism and apartheid rested on visionary leadership, on
striving to be racially, ethnically and class inclusive, being accountable to
its members, practising inclusive democracy and the exemplary personal
behaviour of its leaders. Mandela’s own leadership during the “dark times”
personified these values.
NELSON MANDELA AND DEMOCRATIC MORALITY
The failure of most African liberation-movements-turned-
governments is the moral corruption of the leaders and parties who hold power,
even if they have a just cause, impeccable “struggle” credentials that give
them the moral high ground and the right policies in government.
Suddenly finding themselves with state power and all its
trappings – from a position of extreme poverty, powerlessness and
marginalisation to access to fabulous wealth, unlimited power, often over life,
death and the fortunes of others – has corrupted many
liberation-movements-turned-governments, whether in Africa or Eastern Europe.
Often leaders and parties have seen themselves, because of their newfound
power, not only as above the law, but above the strictures of good, responsible
personal and moral behaviour. Mandela, when he was president of South Africa,
was that rare leader who did not allow newfound state power to corrupt his
personal and political morals and behaviour.
Amilcar Cabral, one of the great thinkers of African
liberation ideology, said that the success of African liberation movements that
become governments depends more than anything else on the personal moral
behaviour, decency and honesty of their leaders and members. [2]
What kind of morality are we talking about? In the context
of political parties, governments and leaders, we are talking about democratic
morality which transcends narrow religious and cultural traditions and ethnicities.
Implicit in democratic morality is personal behaviour that is both ethical and
honest, a sense of duty, and governance according to the values of the
constitution and in the interests of the widest number of people rather than
for personal enrichment or the interests of a small elite. In practice,
democratic morality means that where traditional and cultural practices
undermine democratic values, individual dignity and rights, such practices
should be set aside.
MANDELA’S MORAL LEADERSHIP
The ANC’s success was to turn the struggle against apartheid
into a moral struggle: in fact, to turn it into a global moral struggle. This
strategy could not have succeeded without leaders with huge moral authority
who, by their individual ethical and moral conduct, reinforced the moral
dimensions of the struggle. The current reality is, embarrassingly, quite the
opposite. This is illustrated in the wide difference between the moral
authority of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo or Walter Sisulu – all members of the
Mandela generation – and the murkiness of Jacob Zuma, the ANC president, and
the populism of Julius Malema, the expelled ANC Youth League president. The
fact that the morally flawed Zuma could be elected to the presidency by the ANC
is in itself testimony to the moral regression of the party.
The hardships suffered by victims of colonialism, apartheid
and other terror regimes meant that being moral was almost a luxury. Under
apartheid and colonialism “human actions [were] dictated by social conditions
and racial heritage, not by the will of the individual”[3]. These regimes
refused to acknowledge the individual worth of those they oppressed. [4] For
the victims of colonialism and apartheid, these regimes were a “great test of
moral strength” and “everyday morality”.[5] In fact, “these extreme conditions
[made] it possible to destroy the social contract at its very foundations and
to obtain from human beings purely animal reactions”.[6]
Apartheid, slavery and colonialism aimed to break black
people as individuals. In another context, which is applicable to the South
African case, Bruno Bettelheim described how terror regimes break the
individual’s ability “to regulate his (or her) own life.”[7] To prevent such
regimes from succeeding in breaking the inner spirit of the individual, the
answer is “to maintain one’s dignity”. [8] One of the ways to do this is to
choose one’s “own attitude” in “any given circumstance”, even in “extreme
conditions” which seem “totally beyond one’s ability to influence them”.[9] Dignity
in this context is the “capacity to satisfy, through one’s actions, criteria
that one has internalised”.[10] Mandela, as evidenced by the letters and
speeches in ‘No Easy Walk to Freedom’, undoubtedly retained his dignity during
the “dark times”.
Colonialism and apartheid left behind broken individuals
with a damaged sense of self, leading to fractures in the fabric of society
which continue to influence South Africa to this day. In fact, apartheid and
colonialism left black South Africans with massive “existential insecurity”,
meaning, in the words of Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart,[1] “a persistent,
generalised sense of threat and unease” because their survival was
systematically threatened on every level – personal, familial, communal,
cultural and national.
This sense of “existential insecurity” leaves a deep void.
Genuine democrats would want the void to be filled by new democratic values,
mores and cultures – and by the best (most democratic) elements of existing
cultural, religious and spiritual values. However, in the South African
situation this “existential insecurity” has generated “illiberal attitudes” in
the wider citizenry: violent crime, a low level of tolerance for differences,
xenophobia, social conservatism and so on.[12]
In many African post-independence societies, the leaders of
independence movements have spectacularly failed to provide leadership in the
context of both broken societies and broken individuals, most of them lacking
the imagination to do so.
South African businessman Reuel Khoza rightly argues that
before African leaders can offer such leadership, “they must have emotional
intelligence, self-knowledge and the ability to self-reflect. They must like
Nelson Mandela, the former South African President, be attuned to their own
‘feelings of rage and impotence’, and yet be able to overcome this”.[13] Martha
Cabrera, the Nicaraguan social psychologist of the revolution in her country,
said: “What we need is leadership that starts with the personal, leaders who lead
from their own values, their own life”.[14]
For Mandela, as ‘No Easy Walk to Freedom’ shows, the moral
integrity of a leader was crucial. President Jacob Zuma’s appalling statement
during his rape trial in 2006 that he could see by the way a woman dressed that
she was looking for sex, is indicative of the decline in moral integrity of our
leaders. Unable to secure respect by behaving with integrity, Zuma’s
supporters, specifically the SACP in KwaZulu-Natal, have called for a law to
“protect the dignity” of the president. In contrast, because of his moral
integrity, personified by his exemplary personal behaviour as leader, Mandela
was respected even by his opponents.
MANDELA’S DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP
In the ANC of the 1940s, 50s and early 60s – in which Mandela
cut his political teeth – the democratic spirit was premium. The ANC’sYouth
League statement of policy which was developed in the mid-1940s called for
“true democracy” in South Africa and Africa.[15] Even as a young ANC Youth
League leader, Mandela was more democratic in outlook than many of the current
ANC leaders, a number of whom seemingly appear to believe in a very narrow
version of democracy. Even during the 1960s, Mandela had strong views on the
kind of democracy he envisaged for a free South Africa. He argued for a
parliamentary system, a Bill of Rights, the doctrine of separation of powers,
as well as the independence and impartiality of the judiciary which “never
fails to arouse my admiration”.[16]
This is truly revolutionary as many African independence and
liberation movements and their leaders have viewed democracy in its narrowest
sense, sometimes wrongly insisting that democracy only meant holding elections.
Others argued that democracy was not African; it was “foreign” and “Western”.[17]
Of course, scholars such as the celebrated Indian economist Amartya Sen[18]
have comprehensively rebutted such narrow-minded views, saying our “ideas of
political and personal rights have taken their particular form relatively
recently, and it is hard to see them as ‘traditional’ commitments of Western
cultures”. Many elements of democracy are found in both traditional Asian and
African cultures, as well as Western ones.
Again, some African leaders argued that pursuing democracy
was an expensive luxury, given the staggering development backlogs in their
newly independent countries. They insisted that economic development must come
before democracy. Damningly, the record speaks for itself: they have achieved
neither development nor democracy. Both Amartya Sen[19] and the Turkish
political economist Dani Rodrik,[20] in separate research across developing
countries, show the contrary; democracy is not only compatible with growth and
poverty reduction but may be crucial to both.
In Mandela’s ANC decisions were made through consultation,
negotiation and discussion and recognised the equity of all. As the ANC
celebrated its one hundredth anniversary, anti- democratic leaders, groups and
factions appeared to have a stranglehold on the party and democrats seemed to
be in retreat. Key ANC leaders participated in the writing of South Africa’s
constitution which set a clear democratic, rights and values framework for
post-apartheid South Africa and was widely considered among the most
progressive in the world. Incredibly, some leaders are now saying that the
country’s constitution, particularly its provision for freedom of expression,
“undermines” development.[21]
In 2007 Judge Chris Nicholson heavily criticised former
President Thabo Mbeki for his government’s apparent manipulation of democratic
institutions for political ends. Zuma and his supporters, in their campaign to
quash corruption charges against him (Zuma), attacked the judiciary, democratic
institutions, the media and other critics. During his campaign to secure the
presidency of the ANC at the party’s 2007 Polokwane conference Zuma remained
silent when his militant supporters, like former ANC Youth League president
Julius Malema, said they would “kill” to ensure that the corruption charges
against him were dropped and to make sure Zuma became the country’s next
president.
Under both the Mbeki and Zuma presidencies, watchdog
institutions, such as the human rights commission (called “chapter 9”
institutions in South Africa), have been cowed into sub- mission by patronage
appointments and threats by government leaders that their funding and resources
would be withdrawn if they criticised the government or the ANC.[22] The Zuma
presidency is now pushing through a draft Protection of Information Bill that
will give the government broad powers to classify almost any information
involving an agency of the state as “top secret”, not to be reported on or
divulged in the interests of “national security”.
The draft bill prescribes penalties of up to twenty-five
years in prison for those trying to uncover such “protected” information,
disclosing such information, found in possession of such information or
refusing to reveal their sources. The public’s right to access government
documents would also be restricted. Clearly such a law will cover up official
corruption and punish whistle-blowers and the media who expose wrong- doing. It
is poor governance, the inability by the government to redress poverty while
leaders enjoy extravagant lifestyles funded by public money and corruption and
dishonesty of leaders that are the biggest threats to the stability of South
Africa – not exposing these despicable actions.
MANDELA AND CIVIC NATIONALISM
The strength of the ANC during the Mandela era was its
ability to portray itself as a more racially inclusive alternative to the
racially segregated colonial and apartheid ruling parties of South Africa. As
shown in this collection, Mandela did not respond to narrow Afrikaner
nationalism with narrow African nationalism. His African nationalism was far
more embracing and inclusive and non-racial in outlook than the narrow
Africanism espoused by many leaders in the ANC and ANC Youth League today.
During his campaign to secure the presidency of the ANC at
the party’s 2007 Polokwane conference Zuma was silent when supporters wore
“100% Zulu” T-shirts and the inclusive, non-tribal and non-racial ethos of the
ANC’s hundred-year-long struggle effectively went out of the window. Playing
the tribal card, whether openly or subtly, especially in times of political
trouble or in leadership battles, is dangerous. It allows for grievances to be
expressed along ethnic lines and makes ethnic mobilisation and violence easier.
During his campaign for a second term ahead of the ANC’s 2012 Mangaung national
conference, Zuma again remained silent while supporters mobilised Zulu-speakers
to vote for him on the basis of ethnicity rather than on his performance in
government and in his party.
Mandela’s 1962 statement in the dock during his political
trial for inciting resistance against the apartheid government neatly stated
that South Africanness cannot be defined in relation to an ethnic majority. In
his autobiography, written clandestinely in the Robben Island prison in 1974,
Mandela appealed to the best of African traditions, culture and custom to argue
that “a minority was not to be crushed by a majority”.[23] Mandela, a fierce
opponent of apartheid, was also a fierce opponent of the abuses, corruption and
autocratic behaviour exhibited by fellow black leaders. For him, black
solidarity stopped when his fellow black leaders behaved undemocratically or
were corrupt or uncaring.
From Mandela’s speeches it is clear that, for him, Michael
Ignatieff ’s concept of “civic nationalism”[24] was applicable to his vision of
a future South Africa. In “civic nationalism” the glue that holds different
communities together is equal rights and shared democratic cultures, values and
institutions, rather than ethnic nationalism, which uses ethnicity as the main
principle of belonging. In South Africa’s case, Mandela saw such a “civic
nationalism” as a more appropriate tool to overcome divisions based on race,
gender, class and access to resources.
MANDELA WAS MORE PRAGMATIC AND LESS IDEOLOGICALLY RIGID
The young Mandela’s views on nationalisation, for instance,
were nuanced, pragmatic and strategic. In contrast, the current ANC debate
around nationalisation has been a dogmatic calling for nationalisation for
ideological reasons rather than a discussion of whether it would be a practical
move. Mandela based his decisions on whether it was strategic and practical,
emphasising that his and the ANC’s policy of partial nationalisation would
follow that of the National Party’s gold mine policy after the Second World
War. In contrast, the ANC Youth League has of late been calling for
nationalisation for populist reasons or to bail out indebted black economic
empowerment allies who are unable to pay back loans elicited to pay for their
bee shares in mining companies.
Successful East Asian states have shown that it is not
active state involvement in the economy per se that counts, but rather the
quality of state involvement, and the quality, capacity and intelligence of
state institutions. Nationalisation for ideological reasons, or the argument
that merely because a company is state-owned it will be a better corporate
citizen, is simply daft. The more strategic approach towards nationalisation
would be to accept that South Africa already has a huge nationalised sector
which is wasteful, often led by incompetent political appointees and rarely
delivers effective services. It has drained rather than boosted growth. New
nationalised companies are likely to follow the same route. Ultimately,
managing existing state-owned companies and all spheres of government more
effectively, honestly and accountably, and in the interests of all rather than
a small elite, would be far more beneficial than blind nationalisation.
Significantly, Mandela emphasised the importance of private
enterprise and the creation of a prosperous black middle class: “The ANC has
never in any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the
economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection,
ever condemned capitalist society.”[25] In their 1949 Programme of Action
document, adopted by the ANC’s 1949 national conference, the ANC Youth League
generation of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Anton Lembede and Walter Sisulu
made African economic self-help available through the setting-up of
African-controlled businesses and cooperatives. The document also emphasised
the creation of indigenous private companies and the expansion of a black
middle class as core planks of the liberation struggle.
Mandela’s views on how to resolve black poverty appear to
differ fundamentally from many of those of the current ANC and ANC Youth League
leadership. Mandela argued that there were two fundamental routes to lift
blacks out of poverty: first, through formal education and, second, to ensure
that blacks quickly acquired new skills. Currently the ANC is focused primarily
on redistribution through black economic empowerment and extending social
grants to blacks, who were excluded from them during apartheid, rather than on
education and skills acquisition.
Thabo Mbeki introduced black economic empowerment which is
quite simply the wrong policy because it empowers a small elite, mostly because
of their political capital – their close ness to the ANC – rather than their
proven ability to set up and manage bricks and mortar businesses. A better
solution would be to pursue policies that will empower large numbers of the
black majority through mass quality education and technical skills transfer, as
Mandela advocated, and to empower the more than five million black small
businesses.
MANDELA’S ANC GENERATION CONSISTED OF THE BEST TALENTS
AVAILABLE
The ANC and ANC Youth League during the 1940s and 1950s
elected their leaders through open, competitive and democratic elections.
Wisdom, integrity and intellectual dynamism were qualities that were prized.
Because of this, a number of very capable leaders – such as Mandela, William
Nkomo, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, A.P. Mda and Anton Lembede – were produced
in the same generation; all individually could have successfully led the ANC.
In the contemporary ANC, the top leadership is usually selected by very small
cliques and presented to branches and national conferences for rubber-stamping.
Leaders are elected not for their overall merits, but for how best they can
balance factional interests.
Worse, since the ANC’s 2007 Polokwane conference,
presidential candidates are mobilised around a slate of candidates that is
submitted to the ANC’s National Executive Committee. Then, in 2007, the slates
were limited to one for then-president Thabo Mbeki and one for Zuma, with one
candidate for each position on either the Mbeki or the Zuma slate. This meant that
individuals were not elected on merit but on the basis of their allegiances. In
such a situation, mediocre candidates are usually elected. Thus, while the ANC
may have quality leaders they will never rise to the presidency. The existing
system favours patriarchy and older leaders, or younger leaders who mimic the
old guard in their thinking and behaviour.
Many of the ANC and ANC Youth League leaders of Mandela’s
generation were professionals, editors of newspapers or practising as lawyers
or medical doctors.[26] For instance, Mandela and Tambo ran a busy law firm in
central Johannesburg. Today, many of the ANC’s key deployees in government have
never actually worked professionally beyond the ANC. In their jobs in
government they are often put in charge of sophisticated enterprises, agencies
and departments with hundreds of employees, more often than not with disastrous
consequences. Furthermore, the fact that many local ANC leaders may not have
had alternative careers means that holding on to a job as a councillor or
securing a nomination as a candidate not only often assumes life-and-death
dimensions but leads to them putting principles aside by either uncritically
backing flawed superiors, keeping silent when they find evidence of wrongdoing
by their superiors lest they lose their jobs or using government jobs corruptly
to enrich themselves to ensure they will have an income should they lose these
jobs in the future.
MANDELA’S GENERATION WAS NOT ANTI-INTELLECTUAL OR ANTI-
LEARNING
There appears to be an anti-intellectual, anti-new ideas and
anti-innovation culture in the current ANC. The leaders appear to be closed to
outside ideas, stuck in received thinking. There is a link between the rampant
anti-intellectualism in the country and poor educational performance. Zuma
recently attacked black people “who become too clever”, saying “they become the
most eloquent in criticising themselves about their own traditions and
everything”.[27]
In poorer black communities education is not seen strongly
enough as an escalator out of poverty. Of course it does not help that many
black learners see matriculants wandering township streets, unemployed because
they did not graduate with the right sort of subjects – mathematics, science or
commerce – or because they did not perform well enough. But the truth remains,
as Mandela argues in this collection, education is the single most effective
black economic empowerment strategy or redistribution tool to reverse the
crippling apartheid legacy of deliberate underdevelopment of black communities.
The continuing decline in standards of black education simply entrenches
apartheid patterns. There is a perception abroad in some sectors of the black
community that education does not matter, or that one can advance without
education if one joins the ANC, becomes a loyal cadre or links up with a local
party boss and stays loyal to him or her, and so on. Of course, leaders who
rose up through the ANC via this route cannot be expected to value quality
education. However, not only is education a staircase out of poverty for poor
blacks, but quality education – if it is shared by all – is one of the
fundamental ways to foster a common identity[28] between different South
African communities.
MANDELA’S GENERATION WAS MORE HONEST
The Mandela generation was more politically honest to
themselves, their party and their supporters. It appears that in the current
ANC the values of hard work, honesty, decency and unselfish service to society
count for little. The Mandela generation did not go for easy populism. For the
likes of Mandela, Luthuli, Tambo and Sisulu, decency, politeness and respect
for others, even if one disagreed with them, were fundamental values. Zuma, in
contrast, has become notorious for tailoring his message to whatever crowd he
addresses.
In reading the speeches of Mandela in this collection one is
struck by his honesty about his own political shortcomings. Mandela had the
ability of self-reflection, which is only possible if one is open to criticism.
Sadly, the current generation of ANC leaders is more defensive – perhaps
because they know that they are not very accomplished.
The lack of honesty in South Africa’s political, economic
and social debates has become so severe that it is undermining effective
delivery of public services, the country’s economic prosperity and the
consolidation of democracy itself. If one listens to the public statements of
many senior ANC, Cosatu and SACP tripartite alliance leaders, it is apparent
that double- speak, empty rhetoric and talking in code has now, sadly, become
the dominant culture of politics. One no longer knows what the genuine policies
are of leaders and organisations within the ANC family. Leaders say one thing,
but do another. Some leaders maintain that they are pro-poor yet they drive
million-rand motorcars paid for with scarce public money. Others call for
strong measures against corruption yet their own behaviour is suspect. Still
others defend gender equality while in the same breath making outrageously
sexist comments.
These leaders are quick to blame their shortcomings on so-
called “opponents” of “transformation” or even on apartheid, rather than take
responsibility for their own failings in government. President Jacob Zuma often
invokes so-called African “culture” and “tradition”, knowing that this defence
will silence criticism from those who share his “culture” or “tradition”
because they do not want to be seen to oppose their own culture or traditions.
Those from different cultures and traditions will also be silenced because they
do not want to cause offence.
The American scholar of race Cornel West [29] warns against
the pitfalls of what he calls a resort to black “authenticity” politics,
whereby everything is reduced to “racial reasoning”. As if speaking of Mandela,
Sisulu and Tambo, West rightly argues that we must “replace racial reasoning
with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair
of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical
principles and wise politics”. Mandela makes it clear in this collection that
only the democratic elements of African culture and tradition should prevail.
NEW MANDELAS ARE NEEDED FOR OUR UNCERTAIN TIMES
The expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema is not
a factory fault. He represents a new generation of ANC members who have come
through the party’s kindergarten system, from its Pioneers, to Youth League, to
full adult membership. They bring with them new ways of behaviour: slinging
insults at those with whom they differ, double-speak, claiming that they are
advancing the interests of the poor but living opulent lifestyles using the
very resources meant for such an advancement and often generally seeing the anc
as a career.
They have been fed on the same struggle slogans, songs and
language as Mandela’s ANC. However, these have now become empty tokens which
are often used to camouflage undemocratic behaviour, self-enrichment and
self-advancement. New ideas cannot prosper and nor can there be co-operation
across racial, ideological and religious divides if we cannot disagree without
angry shouting, insults or attempts to humiliate others into silence.
The fact that the ANC party leadership factory appears to be
now increasingly churning out Mini-Me Malemas, Mini-Me Zumas and Mini-Me John
Blocks, is a clear indication that Mandela’s ANC is now a fading memory. South
Africa is a broken society, battling with the consequences of broken families,
communities and individuals. Addressing these issues demands extraordinarily
capable leadership, fresh ideas and renewal. Yet the ANC, Africa’s oldest
liberation movement, appears to have run out of ideas, quality leadership and
the inspiration to deal with the complex problems our country faces in an
increasingly complex, dangerous and volatile world. In fact, such is the
leadership vacuum that the courts are now being asked to pronounce on most of
the difficult moral issues of the day.
We are living in terrifyingly uncertain times. The accepted
“truths” that we were raised on, whether political, cultural or about identity,
are limited or outdated and cannot guide us.[30] We cannot succumb to the
temptation to retreat to the old slogans, rhetoric and ideas of the past to
deal with the complex problems of the present. Getting South Africa moving
forward requires a mobilisation of the energy, talents and ideas of all South
Africans, over a wide front, no matter their colour. It demands a more
inclusive approach – like that of Mandela’s generation. Yet it appears that in
this crisis the ANC, instead of reaching out for new ideas, leaders and
direction, not only from within the party itself but on a broader front as
well, is increasingly closing ranks and doing so around dubious personalities,
policies and ideas.
In confusing periods like this, there is often a demand for
racial solidarity, to rally even behind questionable individuals merely on the
basis of their blackness, whiteness or ideology, rather than their capabilities
or moral values. However, if South Africa is to be steered in a different
direction then this is not the moment to retreat into laagers. Nor is it the
time to be cynical, or to withdraw from politics, as some do, arguing that as
individuals they cannot make much of a difference.
Mandela’s generation shows that individuals – whatever the
odds against them – can make a difference. To follow Mandela’s example,
individuals must become more involved in public activities, whether it is
sitting on school boards, attending meetings of local municipalities or supporting
community organisations and charities, with money and time.
Volunteering to teach in a poor school, whether it is
teaching mathematics, life skills or a sporting skill, mentoring a poor child
or funding his or her education, will make a difference. Individuals must form
lobby groups to protest about everything from potholes to corrupt policemen and
laws that do not make sense.
Within the ANC family conscientious leaders, members and
supporters must create a strong counterbalance, perhaps in the form of a
pro-democracy lobby, to the increasingly populist tendency that is exploiting
the vacuum of ideas, leadership and direction in South Africa.
Outside the ANC, individuals, civil society and opposition
parties must also do so. Such coalitions were pioneered by the Mandela
generation and the blueprints of the society they envisaged would spring from
them can be seen in Mandela’s speeches and writings from the 1950s and 1960s.
To prosper, in these troubling times, South Africa needs
dynamic developmental or growth coalitions in every industrial sector, at
municipal, provincial and national levels, between government, business,
labour, civil society, communities and citizens. Mandela’s generation overcame
“dark times” because of their honesty, their decency, their pragmatism, the
participatory, consensual and inclusive nature of their solution-seeking
methods, their openness to criticism and their emphasis on wide-ranging debate
before decisions. ‘No Easy Walk to Freedom’ not only positions Mandela as one
of the greatest political strategists of his generation, but also offers us an
opportunity to examine his methods of engaging with difficult political,
economic and social realities and overcoming them. ‘No Easy Walk to Freedom’
remains as relevant today as it was when it was first published and its
timeless revolutionary thought contains the seeds that can help us overcome our
contemporary troubles.
28 November 2012
END NOTES
1. Hannah Arendt (1983). Men in Dark Times. Harcourt Brace
& Company, p. viii.
2. Amilcar Cabral (1980). Unity and Struggle. Heinemann,
London. 8
3. Tzvetan Todorov (2000). Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in
the Concen- tration Camps. Phoenix, London, p. 38.
4. Jean Amery (1986). At the Mind’s Limits.Translation by
Sidney Rosen- feld and Stella P. Rosenfeld. Indiana University Press,
Bloomington. 5 Tzvetan Todorov (2000). Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the
Concen-
tration Camps. Phoenix, London, p. 39.
6. Tzvetan Todorov (2000). Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in
the Concentration Camps. Phoenix, London, p. 39.
7. Bruno Bettelheim (1960). The Informed Heart. Free Press,
Glencoe, p. 102.
8. Bruno Bettelheim (1960). The Informed Heart. Free Press,
Glencoe, p. 109.
Also see Frantz Fanon (1963). The Wretched of the Earth.
Grove Weiden-
feld, New York.
9. Bruno Bettelheim (1960). The Informed Heart. Free Press,
Glencoe, p. 158.
10. Tzvetan Todorov (2000). Facing the Extreme: Moral Life
in the Concentration Camps. Phoenix, London, p. 61.
11 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart (2004). Sacred and
Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide . Cambr idge Univer sity Press, Cambr
idge.
12 See Pierre du Toit and Hennie Kotzé (2011). Liberal Democracy
and Peace in South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Johannesburg.
13 Reuel J. Khoza (2011). Attuned Leadership:African
Humanism as Com- pass. Penguin, Johannesburg, p. 74.
14 Martha Cabrera (2003). ‘Living and surviving in a
multiply wounded coun- try’, paper presented at the University of Klagenfurt,
Klagenfurt, Germany.
15
SeePeterWalshe(1971).TheRiseofAfricanNationalisminSouthAfrica. University of
California Press, Berkeley.
16 Nelson Mandela (1964). Defence Statement to the Court in
the Rivonia Trial. April 20, Johannesburg.
17 SeeWilliam Gumede (2013). The Democracy
Gap:Africa’sWastedYears. Zed, London (forthcoming).
18 Amartya Sen (1997). ‘Human Rights and Asian Values’, The
New Re- public, July 14-21.
19 Amartya Sen (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
20 Dani Rodrik (2003). Introduction in Dani Rodrik (ed.) In
Search of Pros- perity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth. Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ, p.10.
21 Sapa (2010). Manyi: SA Constitution has flaws. April 29.
14
22 William Gumede (2005). Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the
Soul of the ANC. Struik Random House, Cape Town.
23 Nelson Mandela (1994). Long Walk to Freedom: the
autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Little Brown, Boston & NewYork, pp 18-19.
24 Michael Ignatieff (1995). Blood and Belonging: Journeys
into the New Nationalism. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NewYork.
25 Nelson Mandela (1978). No Easy Walk To Freedom (ed. Ruth
First). Heinemann, London, p. 179.
26 Peter Walshe (1971). The Rise of African Nationalism in
South Africa. University of California Press, Berkeley, p. 350.
27 Adriaan Basson, Sabelo Ndlangisa, Carien du Plessis,
Charl du Plessis and Mandy Rossouw (2012). ‘Zuma scolds “clever” blacks’, City
Press, November 4.
28 See for comparative examples S.Vasoo and James Lee (2001)
Singapore: social development, housing and the Central Provident Fund. Journal
of International Social Welfare. 10: 276-283, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford,
p.279; See also M. Sherraden, S. Nair, S. Vasoo, T.L. Ngiam (1995) So- cial
Policy based on assets: the impact of Singapore’s Central Provident Fund. Asian
Journal of Political Sciences 3 (2): 112-133.
29 Cornel West (1993). Race Matters. Beacon Press, Boston.
30 William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni (eds) (2009). The
Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of the Intellectuals.
Jacana Media, Johannesburg.
