Comment

Lessons from Nelson Mandela’s Struggle

The death of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela has captured the attention of the world. The global media coverage has shown almost unanimous compassion for him and the sacrifices he made. Nelson Mandela, as leader of the African National Congress (ANC), spearheaded the anti-apartheid movement through both advocacy and violence. While today Mandela is acclaimed for his work, at the time of his political activities he and the ANC were branded as terrorists.

Like Mandela, there are still thousands of people fighting for their rights and making sacrifices to bring change. There are a number of lessons that can be learned in Mandela’s attempts to bring change.

Ideas can bring down governments

Mandela believed in an ideal that black Africans should not be discriminated against due for their colour. This value drove him to carry out a number of actions to change the status quo around him. Mandela struggled to make apartheid unworkable and the black Africans ungovernable. He gathered others around him to expose apartheid and carry out acts of violence in order to weaken the apartheid government. He organised cells and indoctrinated them in order to unify their ranks and ensure they could deal with the hardships that came with bearing this ideal. This ensured his death or departure did not end the movement. The work for this ideal led him to pay the ultimate price in 1962 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The ANC and its armed wing continued with his work and by the late 1980’s it became clear to the white dominated government that apartheid was no longer sustainable.

Subverting real change

Mandela was hated by the South African white ruling class as he called for change and their replacement. The apartheid government, Margret Thatcher’s government and Ronald Reagan, US president, all branded him a “Terrorist.” He was hated not because he called for a change, but because of the change that he called for which was to uproot the existing system. It was the pressure he created on the government by mobilising the people against it which led to negotiations with his movement in the late 1980’s. A similar strategy is utilised today by western governments and the Muslim rulers. They accuse those who call for change to be terrorists and fanatics. Those who call for real change are branded as idealists who live in the medieval era and not in the 21st century. All of this shows that radical change will always face a clash as those who benefit from the status quo will subvert any values and ideals that challenge the status quo.

Real change not just a change of faces

Mandela’s struggle sadly ended with rapprochement which has never changed the situation of the black South Africans. The camp of reformers around PW Botha and FW De Klerk succeeded in safeguarding the privileges of the ruling class even by only ending the apartheid and not changing the underlying system. In the words of Ronnie Kasrils who was a former ANC leader “That was the time, from 1991–1996, that the battle for the soul of the ANC got underway and was lost to corporate power and influence. That was the fatal turning point. I will call it our Faustian moment when we became entrapped – some today crying out that we sold our people down the river.” Mandela embraced what was around him at the time and embraced liberal democracy and the free market which has ultimately led to the enslavement of his people this time to corporate greed and political corruption.

After two decades from the end of apartheid the picture remains bleak for black South Africans. Today the wealthiest 10% own 58% of the nation’s wealth, and the top 5% own 43% of the nation’s wealth.(1) Today 70% of South Africa’s land is still owned by the white decedents from the Boers. This is despite the promises of the ANC to redistribute 30% of the land from whites to blacks. (2) 50% of South Africa’s populations live under the poverty line.

Mandela’s struggle to uproot the system is a lesson for the Muslims of Syria today who are struggling to remove the regime of al-Assad. Offers of talks or rapprochement by the regime or its allies are to end the uprisings and maintain the status quo. If such talks under the guise of negotiations are accepted this would indeed leave the Ummah in the same position as the people of Mandela are today.

Mandela served 27 years in a jail cell for challenging what he believed to be injustice. Mandela embraced what was around him at the time and this has only chained his people in a new form of colonialism. For the Ummah the solutions to her problems can only originate from Islam and their problems can only be solved through the Khilafah. The burden remains on the Ummah to carve out the political path necessary for their own liberation. Whilst there is much we can learn from Mandela of remaining steadfast in one’s struggle and accepting the consequences of this, the Ummah’s struggle is for real change is the replacement of the current systems with that of Allah سبحانه وتعالى system.

Kasim Javed

(1) Leibbrand, M; Finn & Woolard (2012). “Describing and decomposing post-apartheid income inequality in South Africa”. Development in Southern Africa.

(2) Naomi Klein, (2007). Democracy Born In Chains: South Africa’s Constricted Freedom