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Written by Ken Fuller
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Tuesday,
08 July 2014 00:00
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Daily Tribune
When he died last December, in the mainstream media there was
wall-to-wall praise for Nelson Mandela the “statesman.” British PM David
Cameron, for example, seemed to have forgotten that his own party (and its then
leader Margaret Thatcher) had labeled the African National Congress (ANC) a
“terrorist organization;” indeed, a younger Cameron had himself supported South Africa’s
apartheid regime. And we were subjected to a string of homespun homilies from
Bill Clinton, who failed to explain — the tame media never asked him to — why
Mandela’s name was not removed from the US “terrorist” list during his
presidency.
This amounted to
an attempt to appropriate a national liberation hero by people who had never
supported that struggle.
In praising
Mandela, the obituary-writers in the conservative press distorted both history
and the meaning of the man’s life. Choosing its words carefully, The Economist
rated him as the “most inspirational” statesman of the 20th century for “many
people, in many lands.” While conceding that he “made some common cause” with
the South African Communist Party (SACP), the journal considered that “his
writings were then full of sub-Marxist drivel.” Thus, the man who entered
prison in 1962 was hardly deserving of praise, whereas it was heaped upon the
man who emerged in 1990, as if some dramatic transformation had occurred on Robben Island.
This left The
Economist unable to explain Mandela’s continuing warmth toward countries like Cuba, Libya
and China,
except by reason that they had supported him and the anti-apartheid struggle.
Downplaying Mandela’s role in the overthrow of apartheid (and of course that of
Cuba is simply ignored), the magazine considers that his “greater achievement
was to see the need for reconciliation, to forswear retribution and then to act
as midwife to a new, democratic South Africa, built on the rule of law.”
The SACP,
obviously alert to this international attempt at hero-appropriation, stated
after his death that Mandela, far from merely making “some common cause” with
the party, had in fact been a member of its central committee at the time of his
arrest. Following his release from prison, Mandela made no attempt to distance
himself from the SACP, speaking to an audience of 50,000 at its re-launch in
late July 1990.
In London in 2003, he unveiled a plaque commemorating Joe Slovo, the late general secretary of the SACP, and his wife Ruth First. Addressing the assembled crowd, Mandela made no secret of the fact that the Slovos had been communists; he went on to praise the SACP for its organizational skills and solidarity.
In London in 2003, he unveiled a plaque commemorating Joe Slovo, the late general secretary of the SACP, and his wife Ruth First. Addressing the assembled crowd, Mandela made no secret of the fact that the Slovos had been communists; he went on to praise the SACP for its organizational skills and solidarity.
While the
mainstream media ignored the role of Cuba
in the liberation of southern Africa, Mandela
was fulsome in his praise and gratitude. In 1975, after South African forces
invaded Angola
in support of the US-backed UNITA, the MPLA government sought Cuban assistance.
Thousands of Cuban troops — all of them volunteers — arrived to preserve the
independence Angola had just achieved from Portugal, and within months the
South African forces were chased into Namibia, then a South African
“protectorate.”
However, UNITA
incursions into Angola continued and when in 1987 Angolan government forces
moved south to crush the pro-Western rebels, the South Africans invaded once
more to support their UNITA allies, and by early 1988 it seemed that they might
inflict a major defeat on the Angolan army, but in March that year Cuban troops
once more arrived and saved the day.
Apologists for
the apartheid regime still claim that their troops won the battle of Cuito
Cunavale; they may well have suffered less casualties than the Angolans and
their Cuban allies, but the fact of the matter is that the engagement sealed
the fate of the regime, which was forced to concede independence to Namibia in
March 1990 and the following year to repeal the apartheid laws, leading to the
first free elections in 1994 at which Mandela was elected president.
Shortly after
his election, Mandela visited Cuba,
telling his hosts that Cuito Cunavale “destroyed the myth of the invincibility
of the white oppressor. The defeat of the apartheid army served as an
inspiration to the struggling people of South Africa. Without the defeat of
Cuito Cuanavale our organizations would not have been legalized. The defeat of
the racist army in Cuito Cuanavale made it possible for me to be here with you
today. Cuito Cuanavale marks the divide in the struggle for the liberation of
southern Africa. Cuito Cuanavale marked an
important step in the struggle to free the continent and our country of the
scourge of apartheid.”
Mandela also
noted that Cuban assistance had not been merely military: “What other country,”
he asked, “can show as much selflessness as Cuba has in its relations with the
African continent? How many countries in the world have benefited from the
assistance of Cuban health workers and educators? What country has ever asked
for Cuban assistance and been denied it? How many countries threatened by
imperialism or struggling for their national liberation have been able to count
on the help and support of Cuba?”
He had little
time for those who, like the Cuban émigrés in Miami,
sought to persuade him to speak out against alleged human rights abuses in Cuba. “Who are
they to call for the observance of human rights by Cuba? They kept quiet for 42 years
when human rights were being attacked in South Africa. Who are they now to
be so concerned about human rights? They are not concerned with the violence in
which 10,000 of our people have been killed in South Africa. Who are they to teach
us about human rights?”
Next week, we’ll
look at another example of hero-appropriation, this time a little closer to
home: Jose Rizal.
* * *
For those
interested in all aspects of the South African liberation struggle, I recommend
London Recruits (2012), edited by Ken Keable. This contains accounts by young
white volunteers recruited by the African National Congress in London
to undertake missions in South
Africa. Fascinating.