What will post-Mandela South Africa be like?

Today all the world’s attention is on a stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. People from across the globe, great and ordinary, including leaders from the big powers as well as the small nations gather to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, a truly great man, claimed by every part of humanity as its own.And indeed Mandela the man, the politician, freedom fighter, peacemaker and popular icon, attracted universal adulation like no other person in history.No one else has remained in the headlines for as long as he has. For over half a century, in and out of prison, he captured the world’s imagination. Ironically, in the twenty-seven years when he was locked away and kept out of public view, Mandela’s presence loomed large and commanded attention.It didn’t matter much whether you revered him, as so many did, or loathed him, as the architects and apologists of apartheid did. Whether he inspired you or you felt you’d rather have nothing to do with him was beside the point. People were inevitably drawn to and preoccupied with him. To this extent no single individual in their lifetime has ever caused such sharply divided opinion and then gone on to inspire unanimous, universal admiration.After leaving prison, when in power and after he retired, Mandela remained in the news and his stature grew. And in the last twenty years he has become the world’s most favourite personality – a people’s living saint. It is a measure of his greatness and a matter of supreme irony that Mandela was partly canonised by the same media and people who used to demonise him.Now, when the international media builds an individual into a super star or saint, it is usually with a sinister intention – to pull him down eventually and disgrace him.It has happened in Africa before. In the early ‘90s Western politicians dubbed a new crop of African leaders “a new breed” that were going to deliver democracy and development to their countries. Their media picked up the tag, made it large and splashed it all over. But as soon as this new breed began to deliver on their promise, when they became assertive and refused to fit their image into a frame fashioned by the media, overnight they earned other, unflattering labels – autocrats, authoritarian, dictators and tyrants. The world’s power brokers and image makers can be vicious and unforgiving to those who stray from the path they have chosen for them.Nelson Mandela did not suffer this fate. Instead, his popular sainthood seemed to grow by the day and the image builders recognised that they had to go with the popular choice.Some people have attempted to explain Mandela’s claim to universal greatness.For instance, it has been said that he did not stay in power long enough to cause irritation to the powers that be, or to make mistakes and enemies.He confounded friend and foe by keeping intact the white economy. When the white establishment and their supporters in foreign capitals realised that he was not going to tamper with it their attitude changed.And, of course, the world loves heroes and saints, especially if they have suffered so much and yet are willing to forgive. We need icons to look up to, hold on to and help redeem us from our inadequate selves.Obviously this is not all that made Nelson Mandela the symbol of all that is noble in humanity, of the values that gave him a towering moral presence and pointed to the potential for goodness in all of us, especially leaders. It is not all that made him such a familiar figure that even an ordinary bloke like me can feel free to write this tribute.There was much more. And for South Africans he was a huge asset, at once a symbol of unity and the glue that kept the different strands of the country together, an embodiment of tolerance, forgiveness and the willingness to leave the past behind so as to move on with the future.With Mandela’s passing, many issues will inevitably come to the fore and questions be asked. Will he continue to exert the same moral influence from the after-life? Will his physical absence remove the examples and restraints his presence ensured, particularly in South Africa?South Africa remains a hugely unequal society. In recent times we have seen dangerous flashes of what could happen if the inequality gap is not narrowed soon enough. Miners have gone on strike and been met with police brutality reminiscent of the apartheid era. Xenophobic violence against foreigners has periodically broken out among the country’s poorest citizens who feel they have not had any economic benefits of liberation.The African National Congress remains strong but in the last few years cracks have begun to appear. Some of its leaders have been accused of an obscenely lavish lifestyle while ordinary people remain poor. Dissatisfied party members have broken away to form new political parties. How long can the ANC hold together, and more significantly deliver on the promise of liberation? It is an immense challenge the current leadership must face without the comfort of backing from Nelson Mandela.Mandela was a Pan-African and used South Africa’s economic clout as a force of good on the African continent, to drive common causes and mediate various conflicts, for instance. Today’s leaders seem to be more nationalistic and use that power as a bully would. Perhaps a diversion from Mandela’s path has already begun.josephrwagatare.wordpress.com

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What will post-Mandela South Africa be like?