And so it has come to pass that one of the brighter lights to have shone on the world in recorded history has finally extinguished. That it was not unexpected, that there were moments in recent memory when it almost already happened several times, that his 95 storied years were already the stuff of legend within his lifetime - none of this makes the collective lump in South Africa’s throat easier to swallow.
There is little use in recounting the legend. His life and lifetime are well known, thanks in no small part to his foresight in letting no aspect of his life be off limits to debate, discussion and even dissent.
Yet despite all this, so much of Mandela has been turned into the stuff of hagiographic myth that it is easy to forget his own repeated admission that he was no saint, his long walk was never one he trudged alone, and he most certainly wasn’t above making mistakes. Therein perhaps lies the conundrum - the more he reminded us of how human and fallible he was, the more we loved and mythologised him.
Indeed, in his death, one can not overstate Mandela’s achievements in life. Nonetheless, while the myths are in fact true, they are not the only brush strokes on the canvas of his life.
Forgotten perhaps is the young firebrand revolutionary who was opposed to a multiracial African National Congress. Indeed his early foray into public service displayed a passionate Black nationalist who rejected any approach that would lead to building bridges across racial divides. That ideological rubicon was eventually crossed thanks to the SA Communist Party, which came to impress upon him the wisdom of a multicultural society in which erstwhile oppressor could live alongside the people they oppressed.
So different was this young man to the older version we later fell in love with, that Anthony Sampson (Mandela’s late biographer and Editor of Johannesburg’s Drum magazine in the 1960s) spoke ruefully of how singularly unimpressed he was by Mandela after first meeting him. No, Sampson concluded, the ANC were much better served by the quiet but determined Walter Sisulu than the hothead Mandela.
This Mandela was a lifetime away from the self-deprecating humour and assurance of later years, understandable perhaps for an unsure young man facing an unsure future in an uncertain struggle against a sure foe in a sure world.
Vain, vainglorious, brash and tempestuous, the young Mandela showed few of the qualities that would set him apart in later years. He always had an eye for the ladies, and while most know of his three marriages, fewer know about the rumours of multiple infidelities.
Even much of his well-documented later life is misunderstood. The bellicose and belligerent ANC Youth League of recent years is foreshadowed by the same militancy that lead to the Youth League’s formation at Mandela’s behest in 1944, following disagreement with ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli’s preferred non-violent methods. Indeed there is scholarship to suggest that even oft-lauded policy of not targeting civilians in the armed struggle was not one of principle but of pragmatism. They correctly calculated that targeting civilians would not engender goodwill towards the anti-apartheid movement. If there were gains to be made in attacking civilians, the option was very much on the cards.
Much of the limited view of Mandela is because of how long he was lost to the world. We forget that the first time he walked out of prison a free man, he was already 72 years old. The imprisonment, and the years under Apartheid’s banning order before that, meant that it was illegal to broadcast his image or his words in South Africa. The irony of course is that till the South African Broadcast Corporation televised his walk out of gaol holding hands with then-wife Winnie Mandela, the entire world knew his name and cause, but none his face. It is a point Mandela pondered in his autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, when he recollects being driven around Cape Town in the final days of his imprisonment. As he was negotiating with his gaolers, his confinement conditions were relaxed and on the odd occasion he’d find himself at cafes in Cape Town with his ‘guards.’ He writes of looking around to see if was recognised. Not once did anyone realise they were in the presence of the world’s most famous freedom fighter.
If little is understood of the first 72 years of his life, it would not be remiss to blame Apartheid’s overwrought machinations and misinformation campaigns. For the lesser understanding of his politics in his last two decades, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
In marvelling at the man who, after being inaugurated as President, so graciously thanked his gaolers for looking after him well, we overlooked his (not erroneous) grumblings as to how resistant white South Africa was to truly embracing the realities of their new nation’s demands. We let ourselves be hopelessly charmed by the public persona, and forgot that in private was an often aloof and distant man. In seeing the statesman that made us all feel safe and loved, we didn’t see the the shrewd grandmaster whose political calculations were many moves ahead of his opponent on the chequered chessboard.
We forget about the Mandela who was heckled by supporters of Thabo Mbeki, members of his own ANC; the Mandela who started South Africa’s disastrous early non-response to Aids (before course-correcting in his post-Presidency); we even forget the Mandela government that frequently sparred with his dear friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
None of these lapses of memory, of course, a reflection on him but rather of us. His myth deserves its reputation, because quite simply our lives and lifetimes are immeasurable better for his. Yet he was born no more or less than you and I, as imperfect as any future adult and as perfect as any child. I too have written adulatory words about him in the past, words I stand by in their entirety.
I write not to suggest his legacy should be dulled of some gloss - no, his greatness is justly recognised. But let us heed his own request to see the man in his fulness of his faults, for only then do we understand that we too can be Mandela.
Only together do the imperfections of the man and the perfections of the myth make Mandela.