Memorabilia for sale outside Nelson Mandela's house in Johannesburg. Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
During the late 1960s, as
Martin Luther King increasingly drew connections
between racism, economic inequality and military imperialism, his
popularity plummeted. In the first half of the decade, Americans were
evenly split on their view of him. By 1966, twice as many had an
unfavourable view of him as a favourable one. The next year,
in a speech against the Vietnam war,
he branded the US "the greatest purveyor of military violence in the
world today". By the time he died in 1968, he was a marginalised figure.
He had been defending garbage workers in Memphis, and when strike
protests turned violent a Dallas Morning News columnist branded him "the
headline-hunting high priest of nonviolent violence".
Three
decades later, when Americans were asked which public figures they most
admired from the 20th century, he came second to Mother Teresa. When his
memorial was unveiled in the National Mall in Washington in 2011, 91% of Americans (including 89% of whites) approved.
Public memory does not commit itself to the task of recalling events in an objective,
disinterested manner but with great prejudice. People sift through the
available facts, refract them through their own perspective and then
arrange them in their own self-interest. The result is several versions
of events, never settled but highly partial and always contested –
constantly vying for hegemony, authenticity and credibility.
The
significance of how things are remembered goes beyond historical
accuracy to contemporary politics. The past has a legacy and the present
has consequences: our understanding of how we got here and why is
crucial to our decision about where we go next and how. While Barack
Obama was cloaking himself in King's moral authority during the 50th
anniversary of the March on Washington, he was simultaneously
contemplating bombing Syria. The version of King that the nation had settled on –
"the dreamer" – was in stark contrast to the King who stood against militarism. So the latter was conveniently forgotten.
Such
distortions are not the work of malign individuals so much as the
benign victory of mythology. "It's not a person [who does this]," the
Uruguayan author
Eduardo Galeano explained to me in a recent interview.
"It's a system of power that is always deciding in the name of humanity
who deserves to be remembered and who deserves to be forgotten … We are
much more than we are told. We are much more beautiful."
What was true for King is no less true for the late Nelson Mandela. As I wrote in my recent book,
The Speech:
"White America came to embrace King in the same way that most white
South Africans came to accept Nelson Mandela – grudgingly and
gratefully, retrospectively, selectively, without grace but with
considerable guile. By the time they realised that their dislike of him
was spent and futile, he had created a world in which admiring him was
in their own self-interest. Because, in short, they had no choice."
Recent
polling bears out the degree to which South Africa has experienced a
white flight from historical responsibility. The annual
Reconciliation Barometer,
a survey by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, reveals that
whites are considerably less likely than blacks to think "apartheid was a
crime against humanity" or that "the government wrongly oppressed the
majority of South Africans". As a result, 54% do not believe that "many
black South Africans are poor today because of apartheid's legacy", and
more disagree with the statement that "reconciliation is impossible
without economic redress" than agree with it. "This is important," the
report points out. "If South Africans do not agree on the connection
between economic exclusion and our historical legacy, they are not
likely to agree with the need to address that legacy."
As Mandela was laid to rest on Sunday the issue of
how he should be remembered
remains very much in play. How those debates play out matters both
globally and nationally. The desire to remember his contributions as
those of a unique and brilliant individual who single-handedly guided
the nation to democracy and stability is understandable, but neither
accurate nor helpful. Not because he wasn't unique or brilliant, but
because these qualities on their own would never have sufficed. South
Africa was never lacking in gifted people – Steve Biko, Chris Hani,
Albertina Sisulu, Ruth First … the list goes on. What it lacked was a
system capable of unleashing those gifts instead of crushing them. Nor
was liberation the work of one man. Indeed, how could it have been when
the struggle continued throughout his imprisonment.
Mandela could
do what he did precisely because he stood at the head of a movement
dedicated to democratic transformation. It's simply not tenable to
praise him as a negotiator and reconciler without also claiming him as a
military chief and a radical. Nor is it feasible to laud him personally
without also acknowledging the mass of South Africans who made his
achievements possible. These things are connected. The generosity of
spirit and lack of vengeance that has been championed this past
fortnight finds its counterpart in the patience of black South Africans,
still waiting for the government to adequately address entrenched
inequalities, who will never have a square named after them or foreign
dignitaries appear at their graveside.
Internationally,
those – such as the US, Britain and Israel – who pose as
standard-bearers for human rights, freedom and democracy today are among
the very nations that did most to support apartheid and disparage the
ANC. They may have changed their attitudes to Mandela since he emerged
from jail, but there's little evidence that they've changed the broad
thrust of their foreign policies today. Meanwhile, those who they
continually demonise were doing exactly the opposite.
Mandela himself pointed this out
to George W Bush after the US president urged him to sever links with
Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro and Muammar Gaddafi. "When we came to you
and asked for assistance, you called us terrorists," Mandela told Bush,
according to Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in Robben Island with
Mandela. "It would be immoral and ungrateful to break with old allies."
Mandela's
long walk to freedom ended today under the vast sky and lush slopes
surrounding his childhood home of Qunu. May he rest in peace. But his
legacy still lives. And, in the interests of those who must live with
it, the struggle to remember it honestly continues.
Kim
Kardashian is probably one of the sexiest curvy women in the world and
rumors of her leaning towards knives and extreme dieting to gain back
her curves post pregnancy have been put to rest. The reality TV star
recently banged the cover of Us Weekly magazine in a white string bikini
to prove she finally made it without any surgery.
