The long goodbye

As Rain Barrel’s director in South Africa, I have had the honor to be witness to another extraordinary event in this country’s history. After ten days and millions of words of tribute to Nelson Mandela, forgive me for adding a few more thoughts.

When we arrived in Pretoria three years ago, South Africans were already anticipating the old man’s passing. When word came on December 5, it was both a shock and a relief. The great man had lived a good life — if one discounts the horrible 27 years in isolation from the world — and lived long enough to realize one of the most unlikely dreams in recent history.

People around the world were ready to reflect on his unique and transformative leadership and share with each other how his life touched them.

Madiba’s death is generally recognized as the end of an era. An era that in my mind had given new credence to the Great Men theory of history. It provided the opportunity for the prolonged, public meditation on history that we have just witnessed, here in South Africa and around the world.

It is a meditation that is a prelude to a scathing assessment of current leadership, a discussion that was only hinted at with the booing of President Jacob Zuma at the memorial at the stadium outside Soweto while the whole world was watching. It might have been inappropriate to the occasion, but protests are most effective when they make people uncomfortable.

During the week the endless tributes slowly evolved into a discussion, yet to unfold completely, about how South Africans are living up to his legacy. The discussion about South Africa’s uncertain future. About the failure of leadership.

Millions of people continue to work for social and economic justice and a tolerant, prosperous South Africa. But the current ANC leadership has gone off the rails. So many of these opportunistic men and women in power do not seem to be fazed by the revelations about their corruption and incompetence that a courageous media publish every day.

In a world where memories are short, it was a time for an extended history lesson, stories recounted from thousands of perspectives, on radio, television, over the Internet and social media, on commutes to work, over the dinner tables. Mandela once again brought the country together to rethink its long road to freedom.

Thankfully the mood quickly shifted from solemn to celebratory – a wonderful, rare recounting of the great man’s life and legacy. Mandela and the Struggle — so fundamental and protracted — touched millions of people at different points in their lives.

This includes millions outside South Africa. The power and vibrancy of the international solidarity movement that mobilized for Mandela’s release and the overthrow of the Apartheid regime is one of the rare victories for progressives in the last half of the twentieth century. In the storytelling, a dense fabric of memories blanketed the country. We heard the reflections of countless people, accounts that gave blood and flesh to a faded icon.

Oddly, the story that affected me the most was told by a young Black BBC correspondent who recounted how, during the dark days of late 80s, her mother would bring out a small photo of Mandela and give it a place at the dinner table while the family ate. The girl knew that having photos or books about struggle leaders was illegal, and her mother’s private act of defiance affected her deeply. This defiance runs deep in South Africa.

Last night my wife and I went to the State Theatre in downtown Pretoria, an area that was once lily-White and now completely Black, to a concert of Afro Pop singer Lira. She repeatedly talked to the audience, 99 per cent black and probably 80 per cent young women, about doing the right thing, demanding their rights and assuming their responsibilities. At one point she confided to an enthusiastic audience: “When I was young my parents prepared me to deal with the Struggle, but they did not prepare me for freedom. We are still learning what freedom is.”

Everyone, even the born frees, seemed to be ready for last week’s prolonged history lesson. They struggled to reconcile the many sides of Mandela: the revolutionary, the father of South African democracy, the communist, the selfless prisoner, the terrorist, the visionary, the atheist, the negotiator, the liberator and, only in his twilight years, the kindly old man. People embraced the complexity of change and the depth of his legacy.

The Struggle did bring an appallingly ruthless, dehumanizing and corrupt regime to its knees. Nelson Mandela and his many, equally determined comrades made it possible despite all odds. But their victory brought to power a liberation movement with virtually no experience in the complexities of democratic rule, in running a government bureaucracy, in building houses and roads, in running businesses and universities and participating in a dynamic economy.

The ANC, as a liberation movement, is running out of steam on its way to becoming an inclusive and progressive political party. Without a broad-based vision for the country and credible leadership, it is sinking into disrepute and self-serving opportunism. Who can the nation turn to?

South Africa’s born frees are usually too busy with their daily lives to give much thought to the dark days, the long, dark decades of seemingly hopeless struggle against an ironclad regime. But these young people, now coming out of high schools and universities, are the ones who will have the skills to keep South Africa going, to keep Mandela’s legacy alive.
If, over the next five years or so, this new generation of South Africans, Black and White, can rise to the challenges of running this country’s sophisticated economy and dealing with its troubled racial legacy, the nation has a chance at bringing education, health and jobs to the majority of still-marginalized South Africans.

There is a vacuum of leadership in South Africa, but a new generation is emerging. Young, smart and dedicated leaders exist – we meet them every day. Will there be enough of them? And will they heed the call in the polluted atmosphere of cynicism and disappointment? If not, South Africa will stumble and its powerful economy will stall and its many promises will turn to dust.

As Madiba always reminded us, the long walk to freedom has only just begun.