New book paints a different picture of Nelson Mandela

Books, movies and documentaries on Nelson Mandela constitute an industry showing no signs of diminishing. Four years after his passing, new publications keep tumbling out. And the centenary of his birth approaches.

Chances are that very little that is new or fresh will emerge. For it is in the nature of the industry to keep repeating the well-known dominant narrative. It is also in the nature of the industry that it is dominated by white voices.

This is one of the contexts within which the Nelson Mandela Foundation is working with Mandla Langa on a new book, an account of the Mandela presidency using Madiba’s own unfinished memoir and a myriad archival sources not previously accessed.

Titled “Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years”, the book will be released internationally in October. In it, Langa tells a story that fundamentally deconstructs the dominant narrative of Madiba’s presidency. In the dominant narrative, of course, Madiba was a more or less symbolic leader, focusing on “nation-building” and “reconciliation”, while the clutter of day-to-day government was left to his deputy Thabo Mbeki.

The archive tells a different story. What emerges is Nelson Mandela the CEO – a leader who was very hands-on in a number of areas (notably security) and who could even slip into the dangers of micromanagement.

Also pa rt of the dominant narrative is Madiba the benevolent figure of authority, the almost saintly leader who was able to stay above the rough and tumble of politics.

Again, the archive tells a different story. If anything Madiba was a politician’s politician – an astute reader of the dynamics of power, and a craftsperson adept at using the tools of the trade. Like charm. And bluff. And opportunism.

As the world embraces another Mandela Day, it is perhaps timely that we consider the need to reckon with a Nelson Mandela not represented in the dominant narrative. Madiba was far more complex, both as a leader and as a human being, than the portrayal to be found in “the industry”.

It is time, in short, to reckon with the archive. For, in doing so, we will learn lessons that are of critical importance for South Africa today. And, in doing so, we will find a Madiba at once more fallible than we have imagined and more admirable.

So, for instance, in the archive we can find Madiba admitting to sometimes being bossy. Or reflecting on his own long struggle with male chauvinism, and conceding that it was an outstanding team of female personal assistants in the early 1990s which enabled him, finally, to deal with his prejudice.

And the archive, no surprise, provides insight into Madiba’s engagement with a whole range of issues which preoccupy South Africa 20 years later – like the arms deal, the question of presidential prerogative, cabinet ministers’ powers to appoint officials, the protection of traditional leadership, and the creeping of corruption.

Also no surprise, the archive reveals Madiba in the late 90s convinced of Jacob Zuma’s outstanding leadership potential.

No one is infallible.

‘ ‘ The archive tells a different story – of Nelson Mandela the CEO