Hotmao

Nelson Mandela is feted throughout the world, receiving adulation wherever he goes, and is now immortalised by a statue in Parliament Square. Recently a national broadsheet distributed a series of famous speeches in print, one of which was made at Mandela’s second trial in 1964. Here he would use the now famous words; “…it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” However, actual study of the full text of this speech reveals a justification, albeit one couched in a rambling history of the African National Congress’s fight against the apartheid regime, of violence. It begs the question whether the many public figures willing to be seen pawing Mandela in front of the cameras of the world’s media corps, are aware of his violent past? Further, is he a worthy figure to be cast in bronze in front of an institution iconic in the history of democracy and non-violent social development?

To make a comparison, Gerry Adams is another political leader with a violent past, albeit one that he has now shunned in favour of democratic means. Like Mandela, the people he sought to represent were discriminated against by the institutions of the state, the arms of a government elected by a democratic process in which their voting power was diminished as a result of gerrymandering. In the latter part of the 1960s, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was met with state-sponsored violence, perhaps most famously at Burntollet Bridge. Although not especially significant in themselves, this and other events are limited in the public knowledge, but bear direct similarity to the events Mandela catalogued in his attempt to justify the descent of the ANC toward terrorism. If anyone suggested the erection of a statue of Adams in Parliament Square, there would be rioting in the streets.

To move across the Atlantic, minorities in the United States suffered a very similar sort of persecution to the majority population in South Africa under apartheid. The striking difference, however, is that the most famous and celebrated figures of the US Civil Rights movement are those who continued to shun violence, even in the face of extreme provocation. One need only think of Dr Martin Luther King, or Rosa Parkes as heroes for many Americans, back and white alike. Conversely, Malcolm X, who argued that “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue”, is very much an afterthought in the popular history of the Civil Rights Movement.

So what is it about Mandela? There are some factors specific to him. His long incarceration for one – yet many were interned in Northern Ireland for long periods without the trial or public platform. Mandela’s life following his release, both as President of South Africa and the highly influential role he has played as an international public figure are significant. Yet neither has been without controversy and many would argue his government’s failure to either properly deal with the growth of AIDs, or strongly criticise Robert Mugabe for the slaughter of the Matabele during the 1980s and the subsequent disastrous government of Zimbabwe.

The reality of the situation is that his portrayal by the media and some of his success has little to do with Mandela as an individual. His positive portrayal by the British media, and the acclaim he receives from British public figures is due to a residual guilt stemming from the UK’s failure to readily condemn apartheid and support economic sanctions. Further the fact that the apartheid regime fell has meant that Mandela (as the first president of South Africa) had to be accepted into the international fold, whereas the continuing separation of Ireland leaves the goal of Sinn Fein and Adams unachieved. I want to make it clear that I am in no way attempting to diminish the achievements of a great statesman. Mandela and de Klerk were deserving joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize they received in 1993. Further, I sympathise with the situations faced by the black people of South Africa under the apartheid regime, those in America during the 1950s and 60s, and the Roman Catholic population of Northern Ireland during the 1960s and 70s. I do not, however, agree with the level of adulation that Mandela receives, and his statue, when he is a man who “as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation” (his own words from the 20 April 1964 speech) made a decision to plan and assist in terrorist action.

There is a deep irony in today’s current popular-politico climate, given the universal abhorrence which terrorist action receives and its use as a justification for military action, that a once-terrorist is so celebrated in his lifetime. The really cynical observer would say that the absence of similar celebration of Mohandas Ghandi is because, like Adams, he was calling for independence from Britain, whereas Mandela’s fight was with the government of South Africa. Whatever the reason, I find the words of Ghandi far more laudable than any attempt to justify violence; “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of democracy and liberty.”