by Bill Fletcher,
I expected to hear the news. I did not know
when it would arrive. I did not believe that he had much longer to live.
So, when, this afternoon, i heard that Nelson Mandela, at the age of 95,
had passed away, i was nevertheless surprised at my reaction. Actually
there were two reactions.
The first reaction was that of the loss of an
elderly relative. I know that sounds melodramatic but i feel that i grew
up with Nelson Mandela. From my earliest days as a young radical i heard
the name “Nelson Mandela”. I learned about the African National Congress,
the Pan Africanist Congress, and later the other forces that contributed to the
South African Freedom struggle. His picture was in my home in the form of
a poster. He was present in my life. And, at the age of 95, one
could not be surprised in hearing of his passing.
The second reaction was very different, and i am
almost afraid to share it. It was one of celebration, that is celebrating
the very fact that this man lived and made the immense contributions that he
made. Celebrating his commitment and integrity; celebrating the extent of
his courage, a courage that few of us can every imagine. I found myself
celebrating his comrades, some alive, many dead, who, against all odds, took up
a multi-decades struggle for freedom and social transformation. I
celebrated the fact that Mandela believed so passionately in organization and
did not wish to be worshiped as the ‘supreme leader.’ He saw in
organization, that is the organization of the people, the key to liberation.
Nelson Mandela will be mourned and celebrated.
But something else will happen. There will soon, probably very
soon, be efforts to reinterpret his life. I do not mean leaving things
out, as happened in the otherwise excellent film just released about his life.
Rather, as we have experienced here in the USA with great leaders like
King and Malcolm, there will be efforts to convert Mandela into a very safe
character in order to advance the ends of the global elite. We will, for
instance, not hear much about Mandela’s refusal to renounce armed struggle
against apartheid, even though such a renunciation could have resulted in
his release much earlier. We will not hear much about his expressions of
gratitude to the Cuban people for their consistent support to the people of
Angola, Namibia and South Africa who were fighting the South African apartheid
regime. We will not hear about Mandela’s consistent, unwavering support for
the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation.
Mandela was not a saint, a point that he himself
frequently made. He was also someone who made decisions and choices with
which others in the South African movement–people of character and integrity–may
not have agreed. None of that should distract us from appreciating his
significance. After all, Mandela served to introduce the people of the
world to the South African people. He opened a door, through his presence
and struggle, to the battle that was waged by millions of otherwise faceless
but very human, men and women.
Mandela will be missed. But we cannot end our
thought there. We must express our appreciation to the Creator of all
things that this planet was blessed with Nelson Mandela and those who stood
with him when the global elite declared the situation hopeless.
Amandla!
Bill Fletcher
is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the
Institute for Policy Studies; an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com;
and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author
(with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation
of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941″; the co-author (with
Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in
organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty
other myths about unions.” Fletcher is a life long activist in labor and
social justice movements in the U.S.
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