Abstract
Nelson Mandela, speaking in Johannesburg in November 1998.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela concludes his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom: “We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. … I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my walk is not yet ended.”
The walk is not over but it will soon take a different direction. Mandela, president of South Africa since 1994, will not stand for president in the general elections in April. Even though the country's new constitution allows presidents to serve two five-year terms, he announced early in his presidency that he would serve just one. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki is expected to assume the presidency.
In recent years, Mandela has been a larger-than-life figure in South Africa, for whites as well as for blacks. How will the nation fare after he leaves office? Early last year, a member of the Cape Town city council–and of the African National Congress (ANC)–who had been pulled over by a white traffic officer said in a moment of anger, “When Mandela goes, you whites are going to die like flies.”
That irresponsible language was widely condemned and the council member censured by the ANC. Nonetheless, the words played upon both white fears and white guilt. While scarcely anyone believes that South Africa will descend into race war after Mandela leaves office, it is likely that as Mandela fades from the political scene, tensions in South Africa will increase.
Even under Mandela's presidential guidance, there is a widespread feeling among blacks that the socio-economic transformation of South Africa has failed, and that the process has been frustrated by whites.
Reconciliation
In the 1970s, church elders invariably closed prayers by commending “those in jail” to God. I was a young boy then in South Roodepoort, near Soweto, and I thought of prison as a place for criminals. It puzzled me that prisoners should be mentioned in prayers. The oblique references to Mandela and his fellow political prisoners on Robben Island were completely lost to me.
My generation knew little of Mandela in the 1960s and 1970s. The apartheid government's unjust security laws made it the ultimate crime to talk of Mandela or other liberation leaders. The secret police maintained a web of spies in the black townships, which made people suspicious of each other.
Despite government strictures and the informers, my generation began learning more about Mandela in the 1980s. We learned of his “illegal” trips abroad in the late 1950s and early 1960s as he sought international support to wage the fight against apartheid. We also learned that he was generally ignored by Western governments.
Although condemned to life in prison in 1964 for plotting to overthrow the government by violence, Mandela had come to assume the stature of a first-rate statesman by the time of his release in 1990. He used that stature to pressure then-President F. W. de Klerk to make concessions to the ANC. When necessary, he also used his liberation bona fides to get his supporters to accept unpalatable compromises reached with de Klerk.
Following his election to the presidency in 1994, Mandela said in a press conference that he was relieved that the ANC had received less than 65 percent of the popular vote. The ANC would have become arrogant and less sensitive to the concerns of the minorities, he said, if the vote had been even more overwhelming. Since his release from prison, Mandela's overriding concern has been to help create a climate conducive to nation-building, not merely to serve the interests of the ANC.
According to many black South Africans, undue concern for the white minority has been Mandela's greatest undoing. For instance, my cousin Ayanda says Mandela “bends over backwards too much to please the whites and does not do the same for the suffering black masses.”
He has robbed the struggle of its momentum, she adds, because “after his release from prison he no longer served as a galvanizing force for the struggle.” My older brother Zolisa agrees. He thinks Mandela was freed by the apartheid government in an effort to derail the momentum of the surging “revolutionary” forces in South Africa.
Zolisa's mother-in-law explains Mandela's “failure” to deliver this way: Mandela is a black, so he cannot be seen to be doing things for the black people. He is a Xhosa, so he cannot be seen to be doing things for the Xhosas. He is from the Transkei, so he cannot be seen to be doing things for the Transkeians.
Despite his conciliatory policies toward whites and the resulting criticism from some blacks, Mandela is still the one South African leader who enjoys great support among blacks and whites. In the black townships, it is common to hear people use the term “utata” (Xhosa for father) when speaking of Mandela, or Madiba (his Thembu clan name).
The harshest criticisms of Mandela are those directed at him as the head of the Government of National Unity. Perhaps many black South Africans had expectations that were too high. Those who are most dissatisfied with the Mandela government's record of delivering on electoral promises are threatening not to vote in April's general elections.
Mandela warned the black majority on many occasions that the masses should not “expect to be driving a Mercedes the day after the election. … Life will not change dramatically, except that you will have increased your self-esteem and become a citizen in your own land. … You might have to wait five years for results to show.”
Indeed, Mandela's government faced great odds in transforming the South African society. International economic factors beyond the government's control were–and are–at odds with the government's celebrated reconstruction and development program. This has led the government to adopt a growth, employment, and redistribution policy that features strict budget deficit reduction and modest social expenditure.
It was an austere but ambitious plan that sought, among other things, to attain an annual economic growth rate of six percent by the year 2000. South Africa will fall far short of that goal. South Africa's average annual economic growth rate has been about 3 percent since 1994, and it slowed greatly in 1997 and 1998. But in light of the fact that economic growth had been stagnant for many years, the current growth rate has been a welcome improvement.
Retirement
Given his vigor and still immense popularity, Mandela could have chosen to remain in power for another term. But he turned 80 last year, he remarried, and he says he has a simple wish: to retire and spend more time in his rural home with his grandchildren.
Mandela has set a remarkable example in Africa, where presidents often become presidents-for-life–either dying in office or forcing the opposition to mount a coup or even a civil war to get rid of them. “There was no Zaire before me,” Mobuto Sese Seko was fond of saying, “and there will be no Zaire after me.”
No one worries about what will happen to the United States when there is a change of administrations. The same holds true of other democracies. Taking into account that South Africa has three independent branches of government, an independent and vibrant civil society, and a vigilant press, are concerns about the future of the government without Mandela warranted? Probably not. Unlike Mobuto and other leaders of similar hue, Mandela has never encouraged a cult of personality.
Although he let Thabo Mbeki run much of the government, there was no doubt in the minds of most South Africans that Mandela was firmly at the helm. But will he not be forced to continue, even in retirement, to be the champion of national reconciliation? Will he not be required to quell the situation if South Africa were to become ungovernable once more?
There probably will be an increase in racial tension after Mandela leaves office. But thanks in large part to the influence of Mandela, multi-party democracy is well established in South Africa. There is genuine freedom of the press and vocal and vigilant opposition. These gains are not likely to be reversed. Future governments will seek to uphold the image of the new South Africa. There will be continued promotion of racial reconciliation, although it will not be the overriding concern of the Mbeki government as it was for the Mandela government.
It is noteworthy that last year a delegation of Afrikaner youth sought an audience with Mbeki. At the end of their meeting, they summed up their hopes about South Africa's future: “Yesterday is a foreign country–tomorrow belongs to us.” And by “us,” they clearly meant everyone.
Having experienced poverty himself, Mandela has been acutely aware of the plight of the poor. While the international community praised him for his role in bringing democracy to South Africa, he warned that South Africa could never be complacent:
“We are intensely conscious of the fact that the stability of the democratic settlement itself and the possibility actually to create a non-racial society, depend on our ability to change the material conditions of life of our people so that they not only have the vote, but they have bread and work as well.”
Mandela has often called on the developed countries to invest in the post-apartheid South African economy to relieve millions who in their daily existence contend with the “despair that comes with deprivation.”
Not only have investments trickled in at a disappointing rate, big South African companies, such as the Anglo-American Corporation, a mining-based conglomerate, have announced they will relocate their headquarters to London after Mandela retires. That is an ominous trend, a kind of no-confidence vote on the future of the South African economy, according to trade unionists who have long accused South African companies of being unpatriotic.
The ANC government explains the trend differently. For example, it suggests that Anglo-American is relocating so that it may compete globally and to avail itself of a better international investment climate.
Is the government merely putting on a brave face? The Anglo-American decision is a serious blow to the government's job-creation efforts. However, because Anglo-American has promised to keep many of its South African operations running, the move is less likely to affect the company's unskilled and semi-skilled miners.
Deputy President Mbeki has surrounded himself with a new generation of pragmatists. One is Trevor Manuel, who has gained the confidence of decision-makers and opinion shapers in international financial circles. Meanwhile, he has retained strong allies in the union movement.
Mbeki is aware of the problems that face him. But he can derive solace from the fact that he does not have to start from square one. He is already well acquainted with them, having grappled with them for the past five years.
Mandela says the ANC government has done more in the last five years to improve the lot of the majority of South Africans than the nationalist governments did in 46 years. That sounds like a Mandela vote of confidence for Mbeki.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, the good that Mandela has done for South Africa will not be interred with his bones. While his shoes may prove too large for his successors, he has–with the help of many, white and black–established a politically stable foundation for South Africa. It is useful to recall a portion of Mandela's statement from the dock in 1964 as he was being sentenced to life in prison:
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
That ideal has not yet been achieved. But it is incomparably closer to realization because of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.