Like millions of others, I have been welling up listening to people on radio and TV recount their memories of Nelson Mandela. I’ve never even been to South Africa, but during my youth and early manhood, the struggle against apartheid was the great cause for anybody with a heart and a political head, the rotten thing in the world that needed fixing. A short but vivid memory from a few years before Mandela was released is of watching TV and seeing Soweto youths burst across a field, with sticks. I can remember being exhilarated, and thinking yes, they are bursting from their chains – it will all change now. Then moments later I felt guilty. Oh, surely, violence is bad? What we need is peace, love, and understanding? Well mostly yes, I do believe that peace and love is best. But sometimes … sometimes …
Everybody on the Beeb is stressing that Mandela was a great man because he resisted revenge : he emerged from decades of injustice with a message of co-operation and peace. He did the right thing. He did the right thing again five years later when he stepped down, visible proof of the democratic transfer of power. Sometimes we hear that during his time in prison he changed, and realised that he had to reach out to his gaolers.
Just occasionally it is mentioned that he did indeed plan acts of sabotage. In the beginning, in the early 1950s, he believed in non-violent direct action. But he saw it didn’t work, and 65 of his brothers were massacred by police. He decided he had to take up arms, and began forming a guerilla army. I am still waiting to hear somebody on the BBC say this : that too was the right thing.
I love the Beeb, but it is really a branch of the state. The message we are taught is that violence is bad. But the truth is that it is only bad if you ordinary people try to use it. The state needs a monopoly on violence, to maintain civil order. Mostly I believe this is correct : brutal but necessary. But sometimes … sometimes… I have never had to fight. I like to think that in the First World War I would have been a conscientious objector, and in the Second World War I would have signed up. You shouldn’t fight for power, but you should fight evil. But who knows.
So … taking up arms in the late 1950s was the right thing. Rejecting revenge in the 1990s was also the right thing. Having the strength of character to do both, to have the judgment to know what is right for the time – now that is wonderful. Lets not airbrush the violent past. Its part of why the reconciliation was so amazing.