Remembering Madiba is a bittersweet affair
Today, the world joins South Africans in observing the 10th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s death. Yet the country he fought and suffered so much for — and his dream of creating a nonracial, nonsexist, democratic and prosperous nation — is facing an existential crisis.
Our energy utility Eskom cannot keep the lights on. Transnet, the state-owned freight logistics company, is failing to move commodities to export markets, and its ports are too congested to receive imports. It is hammering our economy and heaping unbearable strain onto an already frayed social fabric.
Crime and corruption are rampant, as are poverty, unemployment and inequality. Race relations, an emblematic project when he became president, are sometimes still uneasy.
In a way, SA’s decline mirrors the dysfunction of Mandela’s own legacy projects. His foundation, the custodian of his legacy, is without a full-time CEO. His museum at his native Mthatha has yet to properly memorialise him, the iconic children’s hospital is running suboptimally while thousands of children need hospital beds. His family often makes news for the wrong reasons.
Mandela’s family problems cannot be blamed on his ANC. However, most of SA’s problems are largely attributable to the ANC of the past 15 years.
None of today’s problems should ever diminish our memory of Mandela’s contribution to giving life to an SA free of apartheid and colonialism. His achievements mean he is remembered as one of the most consequential figures of our era. When he was released from prison, he accepted the unimaginably hard task ahead with the fortitude of a rare great leader.
At the price of great personal sacrifice, Mandela’s most important contributions centre on five themes: bringing back the country from the precipice of a race war in 1993; steering the country towards a relatively peaceful transition to all-race democracy; negotiating a liberal constitution; championing reconciliation; and fixing apartheid’s chaotic public finances.
Few would forget how Mandela expended his political capital in 1993 to prevail upon angry ANC and SACP supporters after the murder of Chris Hani. During pre-election negotiations he made critical concessions that moved SA towards the polls: “sunset clauses”, elements of federalism, a mixed economy and more.
Once in power, he proved accommodative to his opponents with whom he shared political and administrative power. He preached and lived genuine reconciliation. On the economy, he showed pragmatism and quick adaptation. He held back his Communist, trade union and nationalist allies from wholesale nationalisation of mines, banks, land, free education and chemicals.
Ten years after his death, SA is crying out for a principled leader of such pragmatism, decisiveness and humanity. Regrettably, they don’t come around very often.