"Now He Belongs to the Ages"

In the late 1970s, my old headmaster would lecture us on world affairs in his reactionary Home Counties manner. When it came to South Africa, he would always say tritely, “it can only end in a bloodbath.”

That view was commonly held in Britain then given its proximity to the police murder of Steve Biko and mass shootings of Soweto students. But it figured without the extra-ordinary leadership and political guts of Nelson Mandela. At the time he was a rather forgotten figure, about halfway through his prison sentence for sabotage and conspiracy: hard labour, two letters per year and one visit.

When he emerged from prison in 1990, South Africa was in deep flux and greybeards from the ANC sought direction and counsel from the great man. He told them the solution to a political future for South Africa was for, “both sides to compromise their fundamental beliefs.” They looked at him like his brain had gone soft in custody. But those apparently contradictory words proved to be visionary and saved his nation from what appeared to be inevitable carnage and conflict.

I heard Mandela speak from South Africa House in Trafalgar Square in 1996. The crowd was close to hysteria and erupted when he addressed them. It was an extra-ordinary and exhilarating speech. We are constantly disheartened listening to obviously disingenuous words of so many politicians. Here was finally one who meant what he said and had the courage and persuasive skills to achieve it. By that time those leaders who had described Mandela as a terrorist had long been sidelined to the wrong side of history.

Throughout the apartheid era, black South Africans were treated with brutality and violence and denied the rights of voting, to chose where to work, live and who to marry. People should always have the means to re-claim and defend those rights. Mandela resisted with unyielding determination that oppression his whole life and delivered freedom and peace to his country - South Africa's "greatest son."