NELSON MANDELA
On 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from prison. After twenty-seven years, the boxer, lawyer, freedom fighter and the figurehead of our struggle against apartheid and racism worldwide walked free, with Winnie Mandela at his side. I, like many others, watched his walk to freedom on television, and I remember wondering what the future held for South Africa. Nelson Mandela was a revolutionary when he was arrested on 5 August 1962 – how much would he compromise, and how much compromise would his people tolerate? I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to promote revenge, but I could see him promoting a peaceful revolution. The question was, would his people go with him?
While in prison, Nelson Mandela had a government in exile. Some years later I’d go to Robben Island and meet an old prison guard who told me Mandela and his comrades were all incredibly well behaved. They knew they were political prisoners and not criminals, and that one day they would be guiding the nation, so they wanted to set an example. The way they behaved in prison was the way they wanted other people to behave. The guard told me the only thing they would take was newspapers because they wanted knowledge; they needed to keep up as much as they could with world affairs.
On 16 April 1990, a couple of months after his release, Mandela came to England. He came for a variety of reasons, but there happened to be a big concert being held in his honour. It was a concert that we activists didn’t care much for. Most of us were simply not invited and, like the big concerts that had been held before, the organisers preferred to book big-name artists and pop stars rather than grassroots activist musicians. They also somehow managed to do concerts with Mandela in mind and not allow any politics on stage, which I think was an amazing feat in itself. One could say they had to do both those things in order to reach as many people around the world as they could, but I remember lots of people who had worked hard over the years feeling completely left out.
While Mandela was in London I got a message saying he would like to meet me, but he requested that the meeting take place at a ridiculously early time in the morning. He had a press conference booked, and a meeting with Margaret Thatcher, but he wanted to see me first. I made the effort and got up early, then drove into central London to meet him. We spent the first few minutes thanking each other for our works against racism and for human rights. I couldn’t believe how much praise he was heaping upon me; it was almost embarrassing – so much that I had to get a little firm with him and say, ‘Now, Madiba, it doesn’t matter what you say about me, what I’ve done is nothing compared to twenty-seven years in prison and everything else you’ve had to endure.’
I found him to be a very rational person, and very warm; he never got overemotional or carried away. I didn’t feel in awe of him, I didn’t feel any special dust sprinkling from him, I just saw him as a human being. In fact I felt guilty because I didn’t see the aura around him that some people talked about, and I didn’t feel like I was in the presence of a saint. I saw a normal, ordinary man who had done extraordinarily great things.
We talked a lot about Mrs Thatcher and how strange it was that she now wanted to see him even though she hadn’t supported the boycott and said the blacks of South Africa were all right under apartheid. We talked about the way in which so many people had jumped on the bandwagon in the years leading up to his release, and he really appreciated those of us who had been there in the very early days. He knew all about people like me and Tony Benn, doing benefits and giving talks, and in so doing had been branded ‘terrorist sympathisers’. The thing I was most proud of was that he confirmed he had read my poetry in prison.
I spent a good half hour with him discussing his life and struggle, and the way people in the West had tried to highlight his plight. We even joked about the way some others had been against the boycott, even pro-apartheid, until they realised his release was inevitable and then were suddenly keen to be seen singing ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ in nightclubs. It was this conversation that inspired me to write the poem ‘Who Dun It’, with the refrain: ‘Nobody dun apartheid, they were all revolutionaries.’ We left the room and were met by an army of photographers; he went off to do his diplomacy, and I went home to catch up on my sleep.