Madiba gave ANC a good head start, but the party squandered it

It is sad, but not unsurprising, that today, as we celebrate Nelson Mandela Day – honouring the man who did more than anyone to end apartheid – there should be voices questioning Madiba’s legacy.

A commentator today poses the question: Was Mandela a liberator or a traitor?

Those words seem like blasphemy because of the high esteem in which Mandela was held by most South Africans for many years.

From 1994 onwards, as the transition from apartheid to democracy unfolded peacefully, Mandela was elevated to almost saint-like status.

While it may seem wrong to question what he did and how he did it, perhaps there has been a long enough passage of time for us to look at the man and his times from a dispassionate standpoint.

There is considerable merit in the argument that the “settlement” Mandela and the ANC reached with
the National Party government at Codesa in the 1990s left far too many time bomb issues – such as land dispossession – untouched.

The land question has become more burning with each passing year as people struggle to rise out of poverty and believe they are owed restitution by their erstwhile colonisers.

However, as our commentator does note, Mandela perhaps had to play the very limited hand he had been dealt.

The apartheid government was far from collapse when it released him in 1990, and the ANC’s armed wing
uMkhonto weSizwe could never have taken back South Africa “through the barrel of a gun”.

Without a settlement, SA would have ground inexorably towards a bloody civil war in which tens of thousands would have perished.

More pertinent is that, if there was any betrayal of the people of SA, it was the ANC – and not Mandela – which was responsible. Mandela gave his party a good head start… but they squandered it.

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