A man among men who became a man of the people
During his rebellious youth, Nelson Mandela embodied the heroic martial tradition, but in later years he evoked an image of warmth and inclusiveness and rejected macho posturing, writes Raymond Suttner
THE main biographies of Nelson Mandela do not consider him as a gendered subject. Yet in these times of widespread violence perpetrated by men, we may learn from Mandela’s model of masculinity the type of man he represented.
But he changed a lot, as his conditions altered and he changed as a human being. Consequently we are not dealing with a person whose identity as a man can be reduced to one quality that endured over time.
Men have always dominated the ANC at a formal political level. The discourse of the organisation has reflected masculine idioms. Mandela was part of the rebellious youth league tradition, which attacked the ANC leadership of the time while embracing the same mas- culinist imagery, one of overcoming the “emasculation” of African men and “recovering manhood”.
Mandela came to embody a heroic, martial tradition in the underground and military activities of the ANC, an image he shared later with younger people such as Chris Hani.
This fighting image is foreshadowed in the notion of Mandela being a boxer, a role with wide township appeal, in some ways akin to the admiration for tsotsis. And Mandela was a flashy dresser, like the tsotsis and the musicians of the 1950s.
At one of his most heroic moments, as he faced the possibility of the death sentence, Mandela directly related the willingness to die to his manhood: “If I must die, let me declare for all to know that I will meet my fate like a man.” We can’t take the use of “man” here only literally. In the context of apartheid subjugation, which made “boys” of men, such a reference to manhood was also a statement of personhood, of someone with dignity and agency otherwise denied by the white ruler, who saw Africans as children in relation to “adult” whites.
Mandela acted out what has been called a “heroic masculine project”. This refers to men leaving home to embark on courageous deeds such as war and conquest, leaving their womenfolk behind to care for the children and undertake domestic tasks. At the same time, his wife, Nomzamo Winnie Mandela — along with many other women in South African political history — refused to conform to the conventional image of the wife waving her husband goodbye. Whatever the ambiguities, ambivalences and controversy attached to her activities, Winnie carved out an independent political identity, both underground and publicly.
As for Winnie and his family, Mandela felt he had not been there to fulfil a conventional protective role because of his incarceration from the early 1960s. He told his biographer Anthony Sampson that “it is not a nice feeling for a man to see his family struggling, without security, without the dignity of the head of the family around”. This gels with what the historian John Iliffe claims are near-universal concepts of honour and manliness, involving the “capacity to sustain and defend a household, to maintain personal autonomy, to avenge insult or violence”.
But Mandela’s notion of manhood changed over time. In the early days, he evoked the image of toughness. Toughness was needed to deal with an enemy who would not respond to reason. When it became possible to secure peace through talking, Mandela adapted. After his release in 1990, he evoked an image of warmth and inclusiveness, embracing those who feared majority rule and even his former enemies.
When Mandela danced along with others at political rallies, his shuffle dance carried a very gentle, affable meaning. The toyi-toyi that others performed derives from war-times and war zones, and was probably learnt by MK soldiers from Zimbabwean comrades in the camps, or possibly even from Algeria. It is a dance that was initially performed mainly by men, by soldiers, and its words are aggressive, directed at the apartheid
Mandela’s qualities as a man need to be studied carefully for our society’s benefit When Mandela danced at political rallies, his shuffle dance carried a very gentle, affable meaning
regime, with repeated reference to hitting and killing. Mandela refashioned the imagery of this dance, especially during his presidency. In his performance it came to suggest someone with whom you could feel safe and affirmed. The imagery was nonmilitaristic.
Compare this with the way the dance, as well as the songs, of the freedom struggle have been deployed by Jacob Zuma, notably in the context of his rape trial. He revived the song Umshini Wam’ — “Bring me my machine gun” — which is obviously both militaristic and evocative of phallic imagery. In contrast to Mandela’s toyi-toyi, Zuma’s performance was part of a discourse that created a sense of danger, that projected a figure to be feared. One of the undertones was that women, especially those who supported the rape complainant, did not have reason to feel safe.
Mandela’s qualities as a man need to be studied carefully for our society’s benefit. In the first place, he demonstrated a willingness to learn and change over time. His was a continually evolving masculinity. There was nothing macho about the mature Mandela. We need to reflect on this and impress on the youth that there is no value in trying to instil fear in others, and that courage is quite compatible with tenderness.
This is an edited extract from Suttner’s Recovering Democracy in South Africa, published by Jacana Media. Suttner is a former political prisoner and leader. He is currently a professor attached to Rhodes University and Unisa