Nelson Mandela remains a brilliant subject — a subject that is every biographer’s dream-come-true. His long life spanned the tribal rituals of rural Africa, the Anglicised tenets of the 1940s, the Gandhian ‘formula’ of anti-apartheid battles, a short guerrilla resistance, long imprisonment and, finally, power — power that brought majority rule to South Africa.
More than a mirror reflecting his own image, Mandela [July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013] was the symbol of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. In the process, he was also his country’s most famous person — a name celebrated everywhere, including the portals of education, right from Mumbai to Michigan. His was also a life that underscored a new credo — that a country’s destiny can be shaped by a great man rather than by impersonal socio-economic policies. When Mandela walked free, after spending nearly three decades in prison, he was considered a messiah — a beacon of rapprochement, not intransigence.
Yet, it goes without saying, that, amidst such a jubilant milieu, Mandela’s persona also carried a paradox of sorts: a formidable, albeit an achievable task, juxtaposed by a promise difficult to fulfil in its totality. Because, Mandela, who had spent years behind bars, and away from the public eye, if not mind, was expected to ‘detox’ all the rancour of apartheid like a shaman absolving an obstinate disorder with medicinal herbs and potions? Well, the fact is, Mandela achieved all that — and, something more than what sceptics had visualised as possible. But, not without hiccups. This was inevitable — well, almost. Yet, the overall effect of his magnetic personality was enormous—a triumphant achievement.
Picture this: right from his first press conference, Mandela emerged trumps. He turned his suspicious critics into friends. The blacks began to now look at him — not that they hadn’t thought of it earlier — to talk sense into the white government. The whites looked up to him to keep the communists, and radicals, within black ranks and, at the same time, more or less restrained, if not at bay. The rest is history, although flashes of racial and tribal tensions, compounded by the escalating problems of unrealistic black expectations and bubbling discontent among whites simmered all the same. But, the silver lining was imminent. South Africa was democratic — as democratic as democratic can be — in the circumstances.
There is a plethora of articles, books, and [auto]biographies, on Mandela. Add to that several accounts of him written by an assorted group of writers, and you have a vast canvas. More than just enough material to X-ray the man’s psyche? Or, so you thought. A case in point: Martin Meredith’s thoughtful biography, Nelson Mandela, is a class apart. Meredith says that Mandela remained as enigmatic a figure as any — more so, in his later years. Even for comrades who spent years behind bars with him, Mandela remained a far-away figure — a man they thought they knew, or know, and yet did not really know.
It was not ironical, that, for one who had his first walk to freedom, after decades, Mandela confessed that he was just unable to describe his emotions. He simply said: “I came out mature.” Call it a paradox, again. But, to Meredith’s credit, Mandela’s biography is free of heretical beliefs and prejudice born out of strongly held opinions — or, palpable convictions alone. More than that, the bio provides some exceptional insights into the Mandela personality — the Mandela of the 1940s, and early 1950s, his hallmark being his own brand of unbridled impetuosity. Not what we visualise in him today: “Father of His Own Country” and a disciplined ‘soldier’ with a cause.
Mandela also knew the pangs of the hard, long, winding road that lay ahead. As he articulated in his brilliant autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom: “It was during those long and lonely years [in prison] that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity. When I walked out of prison that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But, I know that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.”
Meredith has Oliver Tambo reminisce Mandela as “passionate, emotional, sensitive, quickly stung to bitterness and retaliation.” Or, as Walter Sisulu, another friend, puts it: “[Mandela] can become very stubborn, very arrogant. His anger becomes extreme.” Good grist. But, Meredith’s perceptive examination of Mandela is well chronicled: a career of startling contrasts. Mandela, says Meredith, as a young ANC firebrand, was highly suspicious of the whites; Mandela as President was quite generous towards them.
Notwithstanding his larger-than-life image, Mandela wasn’t perfect. He’s not infallible. He’s too human, at times. He could, says Meredith, be comically amateurish too — like his rumbling estrangement with Winnie, and his emotional relationship with Graça Mache, the widow of Samora Machel, the first President of independent Mozambique. But, that’s a story for another day. This is because Mandela was truly a man of destiny — a man with a mission. A man of providence. Not a seer. But, let us give his circumstances their due. Without the anti-apartheid cause, Mandela would not have seized the world’s imagination. He would not have been released from prison. He would not have been President.
Yes, Mandela was a product of a nationalist movement — a man without peer in the world. He was a hero, all right. He was humble. He was fair — as fair as humanly possible. He had his pitfalls, yes. Who doesn’t? Yet, he remained down-to-earth, approachable, and enormously modest. He always called himself a ‘humble servant’ of the African National Congress [ANC]. What’s more, he always refused to think of himself as a champion. His simplicity prevailed — and, it only continued to grow from strength to strength. A powerful lesson for all politicians and leaders in the world.
It sums up Mandela — a man who loved his country, and the world, much more than his own sense of self-importance. His life and work also exemplified it all — a veritable portrait of an extraordinary individual in an extraordinary man.
— First published in Financial Chronicle
