Lucille
Davie
"This is a short
book about a big man I was fortunate to get to know, Nelson Mandela."
With these words
respected British journalist John Carlin begins his book Knowing
Mandela,
a record of the years 1990 to 1995, when the late Mandela "faced his most
daunting obstacles and achieved his greatest triumphs; it was the time when the
full flower of his genius as a political leader was most vividly on
display".
Carlin spent those five
years reporting on Mandela's feats, trials and tribulations for the London
Independent, and was one of the few foreign journalists at the time to cover
both the former president's release from prison and his early years in the
presidency.
The book draws on
conversations with Mandela, and interviews with those close to him, and writes
about Mandela, with his flaws and his gifts, "neither superman nor
saint".
The 141-page book is
Carlin's second; the first being Playing the Enemy:
Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation, which focused on how
Mandela used the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite a scarred nation by encouraging
the Springboks to win the cup, which they did. The book was made into the movie
Invictus, focusing on how Mandela used the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite a
scarred nation by encouraging the Springboks to win the cup, which they did.
"My hope is that
readers will come away from this book with a more profound understanding of
Mandela the individual and of why he has been the towering moral and political
figure of our age," writes Carlin in the preface to Knowing
Mandela.
Carlin meets Mandela in
his Union Buildings office shortly after he became president, and is charmed
that the president remembers his name, greeting him with "Ah, hello,
John!" with what Carlin describes as "genuine delight". They
start the hour-long interview with Mandela saying sorry: "I must
apologise. I feel certain we have obliged you to work very hard these last
weeks." Carlin responds by saying: "Not as hard as you have been
working, Mr Mandela, I am sure." And the quick response is: "Ah, yes,
but you were not loafing on an island for many years, as I was." Mandela
was using self-deprecation to help relax Carlin, and it worked. It would be a
tactic he used often elsewhere, with great success.
Mandela's
first press conference
Mandela had called a
press conference the day after he was released from prison, on 12 February
1990, and Carlin recounts his words: "I am absolutely excited at getting
out and I am also excited to have the opportunity of addressing you because
throughout these difficult years in prison the press, both local and foreign,
has been a brick to us. I think it was the original intention of the government
that we should be forgotten. It was the press that kept the memory of those who
have been imprisoned for offences they committed in the course of their
political activities; it was the press who never forgot us and we are therefore
indebted to you. I am happy to be with you this morning."
Carlin was impressed
from the beginning. "The press conference lasted forty minutes, and was an
exercise in seduction from start to finish." Mandela recognised the South
African journalists' names, having read their bylines in the newspapers while
in prison, and greeted them cheerily.
It appears that not only
was Mandela cheery but he seemed as "healthy in body as lively in
mind". Carlin had been allowed to interview Madiba's doctor, who confirmed
that the 71-year-old was as fit as a man of 50; the "fresh air, regular
diet, the unstressed routine of life, and even the forced labour had done him
much good".
Mandela was asked
whether he harboured any regrets or bitterness after 27 years in prison. He
replied: "I have lost a great deal over these twenty-seven years. My wife
has been under all sorts of pressures and it is not a nice feeling for a man to
see his family struggling without security, without dignity, without the head
of the family around. But despite the hard time we have had in prison we have
also had the opportunity to think about problems, and it is an opportunity which
is also very rewarding in that regard. And you learn to get used to your
circumstances. In prison there have been men who were very good in the sense
that they understood our point of view and did everything to try and make you
as happy as possible. And that has wiped out any bitterness that a man may
have."
He was not bitter and
revenge was not on his mind. Carlin writes: "He would now take charge
openly, for all to see. Dashing all doubts, his first press conference as a
free man was a tour de force, a master class in political persuasion."
Carlin was bowled over –
in 30 years of reporting on politicians he witnessed something he'd never seen
before: some 200 international journalists burst into "spontaneous,
heartfelt applause".
Townships
on fire
Carlin recounts how
Mandela plunged into the challenges of the first years after his release, and
before he became president. The townships around Johannesburg were on fire,
with nightly murderous raids by hostel dwellers leaving dozens dead, in a
bloody war between the right-wing Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party of Mangosuthu
Buthelezi, and African National Congress (ANC) members. The situation was
exacerbated by the assassination of Chris Hani in April 1993, a year before the
first democratic elections. Hani was a South African Communist Party leader,
and a leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC's military wing.
Mandela showed his
statesmanship: he saved the country from near civil war by going to television
and radio, bringing the situation under control. "With all the authority
at my command, I appeal to all our people to remain calm and to honour the
memory of Chris Hani by remaining a disciplined force for peace."
Several months later
Mandela had to calm the situation again. He went into the volatile Katlehong
Township outside Johannesburg, but this time the battle to control the crowd
was more difficult. For an hour he went back and forth, winning them over, then
shocking them, telling them that they were not disciplined, and killing
innocent people meant that they didn't belong to the ANC. Their task was
reconciliation, he insisted. The crowd was restless and didn't want to hear
this message.
"Listen to me!
Listen to me!" Carlin reports him as saying. "I am your leader. As
long as I am your leader I am going to give leadership. Do you want me to
remain your leader?" Mandela challenged them, but had to repeat the
question, and after some thought, the crowd yelled back in the affirmative.
"Mandela responded with a ghost of a smile and curt nod of the head. Then,
with a sharp, 'I thank you,' he declared the proceedings over."
The violence receded and
three months later South Africa's constitution was ratified. Mandela said:
"We are at the end of an era. We are at the beginning of a new era.
Together we can build a society free of violence. We can build a society
grounded on friendship and our common humanity – a society founded on tolerance
. . . Let us join hands and march into the future."
Talking
to the far right wing
But Mandela had another
challenge before elections could take place in April 1994: the far right wing
in the shape of the Afrikaner Volksfront, led by General Constand Viljoen, had
thousands of followers, armed and combat ready, standing by to fight to the
death to stop the elections from happening.
While in prison Mandela
had taken a two-year correspondence course in Afrikaans, and used it to disarm
people like Viljoen. It took him six months to work on Viljoen, but in the end
Viljoen had his men lay down their arms and vote in the elections. He said: "That
first impression Mandela made on me made it less difficult later for me to make
my decision. The important thing when you negotiate with an enemy is the
character of the people you have across the table from you and whether they
carry their people's support with them: Mandela had both."
Viljoen managed to get a
third of the Afrikaner vote, and went to parliament. Ten years later, once
Viljoen was retired from politics, Carlin asked him whether he would like to
see Mandela again. "Yes, I would. I would love to see him, though I do not
wish to impose. But, yes, yes. I would love to see him again. He is the
greatest of men."
Carlin contemplates
whether Mandela's behaviour to old enemies was self-serving, with a political
motive, or to ensure that people who worked for him served him loyally.
"Certainly, Mandela had a clear political purpose with these deliberately
staged acts of public forgiveness." But he discounts it. "Mandela was
big-hearted and generous in the use of the power he commanded, and as a man,
too."
He says he had learnt
two things in particular from South Africa's first democratic president. One
was to be kind. "The second lesson Mandela taught me is as simple as it is
rare to find: that one can be a very great politician and a very great person
at the same time."
