Mandela is still the dearest friend I have never known

THERE is an old struggle song that asks, “Have you seen Mandela?”

I know it seems impossible in this modern world of global media, but as a child born white and in apartheid South Africa, I never knew who Nelson Mandela was until I was in my twenties.

Born in 1957 when the Nationalists had been in power for nine years, I was raised in a “white by night” dompas country with a “white-is-right” mentality.

This meant I was taught to see black people as inferior and black people with political aspirations as downright dangerous.

I started school at the age of six in 1963 and by then the Republic of South Africa was two years old and out of the British Commonwealth. Mandela was already in prison.

In the winter of Second Grade while I played freely with my white friends in “whites only” parks and rode on “whites only” buses, Mandela was jailed on Robben Island.

Throughout my entire Christian Nationalist education I never once heard his name. This despite studying history to Grade 12.

There was no reason for me to know of Mandela or any of the other Rivonia trialists, for these were the days of myopic nationbuilding and as white children we were being groomed to take charge and lead this white nation under the ironic slogan, “Unity is Strength”. That, of course, meant unity among whites only.

On finishing school, I was conscripted into the national defence force and trained as an officer in the armoured corps.

I was taught about the evils of communism.

I was told that it was my duty to fight against terrorists and communists, but these enemies were all faceless and as ill-defined as the black faces on the targets we used on the rifle range.

On completion of my one-year military service, I began my studies to enter the ministry of the Methodist Church. It was only then that I began to hear and experience the side of South Africa that had been concealed to me while growing up.

The very first church synod I attended was in Johannesburg Central Methodist Church, the very church that today houses thousands of Zimbabwean refugees. Back in 1976 it was a largely white inner-city sanctuary.

The synod commenced on June 17 1976, which was one day after the Soweto uprisings began.

Day after day as the synod attempted to do its business as usual, ministers from the townships would arrive with stories of marching and massacre, troubles and teargas. It was the end of my cocooned white dream.

As the troubled years of the 1980s dragged on and the Pretoria government became more and more beleaguered, culminating in the first world sanction campaign, I was able to augment my sterile white education with some colour from people of colour.

I engaged with the struggle for liberation and was humbled at the willingness of the oppressed communities to welcome this “whitey” in.

So when in 1992 I finally saw Nelson Mandela walk out of the gates of the Victor Verster Prison, I had also been on my slightly shorter walk to freedom from the brainwashing of apartheid.

It is the miracle of Mandela that even oppressors were welcome as South Africans.

After the general election of April 27 1994, towering above the new nation was the figure of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

He still stands above us all. In prison, in parliament and even in the frailty of retirement, he has continued to inspire.

I never knew Nelson Mandela, but in life, and perhaps soon in death, he remains the dearest friend I’ve never known.