Mandela gets belated London honour
A LONDON borough council has made a U-turn on Nelson Mandela, but it has taken 23 years.
Brent Council, whose jurisdiction includesWembley Stadium, has decided to award Mandela the freedom of the borough after it was first proposed in 1990.
The original proposal was made by Labour Party councillors, but it faced opposition from the Conservative Party and was shelved.
The honour included a scroll bearing Mandela’s portrait, which would have been presented to him during a visit to London shortly after his release from jail.
When someone at the council stumbled on the scroll during a move to new premises, it was decided to renew the proposal. This time, councillors from all parties endorsed it.
The council said in a statement that it had decided to award the honour to Mandela, now in a critical condition in a Pretoria hospital, “for his outstanding contribution to human rights, democracy and freedom of speech”.
Suresh Kamath, who was chairman of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the borough in 1990, said the proposal had required a two-thirds majority to pass.
“I think the Conservative Party generally regarded the ANC as a terrorist organisation,” said Kamath.
“Margaret Thatcher criticised the ANC for being a terrorist organisation and Nelson Mandela in the same light. So a lot of the Tories in Britain did not regard Mandela as a symbol of freedom, like the rest of us did.”
Thatcher, who died in April this year, resigned as leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister in November 1990.
“There were a lot of people in the Conservative Party who were actively campaigning against the ANC and freedom in South Africa,” Kamath said.
“They were supporting the apartheid regime. At the time I was quite angry that the borough that I lived in wouldn’t give Mandela what I thought was rightfully deserved. He had been a great champion for democracy, for freedom and for giving everyone the right to vote.”
However, he said that the present Tory leader, Prime Minister David Cameron, had condemned Thatcher’s views on South Africa.
Asked why the award had not been granted back in 1990, a spokesman for Brent Council said the proposal had not gained the necessary two-thirds majority. It appears that the campaign to award Mandela the freedom of the borough petered out after a few years.
Kamath said the scroll had been found by chance. “They found the scroll in the process while moving out of the old town hall to a new civic centre.”
He said the decision to resurrect the freedom-of-the-borough proposal was taken before Mandela was admitted to hospital early last month.
“He wasn’t seriously ill and it was a genuine attempt, I think, by the Labour group to right a wrong that was done so many years ago. I think the councillors in Brent genuinely wanted to right a wrong that’s been there for two decades.”
Xolani Xala, an ANC representative in London, welcomed the Brent Council’s gesture.
“It is quite clear that you can’t rub out history,” he said. “The Tory councillors at that time wanted to bury the history of Mandela while he was still alive. History has proven them wrong. We recognise the contribution of the British people in making South Africa a better place.”