Hous

I'm perplexed by your dismissive statement "I think even a layman has a lot to say about Mandela". Are you suggesting Baba is engaged in superflous activity by writing on a matter of 'common expertise'? The popular narrative may be straightforward but the Mandela issue involves deep moral questions. Forgive me if I read you wrongly but your perspective is amenable to multiple interpretations.

Why am I going on this tangent?

I think there is a certain level of disgust with any show of intellectualism in Gambian society. Yet we have no trouble celebrating disgraceful musicians who have nothing to say about the deep moral challenges embedded in our public life. Or to mindlessly celebrate sports personalities, footballers in particular, for winning meaningless trophies when our house can collapse any day from the sheer weight of public lawlessness. 

In this period of great challenge, I would rather remind myself of the man Mandela in Baba's illuminating writeup. 



LJDarbo  

  
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 6/12/13, Husainou <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [G_L] Mandela’s Abiding Legacy
 To: [log in to unmask]
 Date: Friday, 6 December, 2013, 1:51
 
 I think even a
 layman has a lot to say about Mandela. Allah will be the
 judge between him and those who put him into incarceration
 for 27 years. A lot could be learned from his
 legacy. Hous
 
 
 
 
 On Dec 5, 2013, at 8:36 PM, Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]>
 wrote:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mandela’s Abiding
 Legacy
 
 By Baba Galleh Jallow
 
 On Thursday, December 5, 2013, the world received
 the news
 it has been dreading for the past several years: Nelson
 Mandela was dead, aged
 95. Born on July 18, 1918, the former South African
 president spent 27 years of
 his life in prison before being released by F. W. de Klerk,
 the last president
 of Apartheid South Africa in 1990. In 1994, he became the
 first Black President
 of South Africa after that country’s first multi-racial,
 democratic elections
 in over 300 years. After serving a single term of five
 years, Mandela stepped
 down from the presidency in 1999 and was succeeded to the
 post by Thabo Mbeki.
 After his retirement from politics, Mandela set up the
 Nelson Mandela
 Foundation in 1999 and dedicated much time and energy in the
 fight against
 HIV/AIDS, lack of adequate school buildings in South Africa,
 and other
 humanitarian causes. During his life time, Mandela has won
 over 250 honors, including
 the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He has gone into History as
 one of the greatest leaders
 the world has ever known and will ever know.
 
 Mandela joined the African National Congress
 (ANC) in the
 early 1940s. In 1944, he and other young members of the ANC
 formed the ANC
 Youth League with a mission to further radicalize the
 organization. Founded by
 John Dube as the South African Native National Congress in
 1912, the ANC got
 its current name in 1923. Dube was very much influenced by
 the ideas of Booker
 T. Washington, and because Washington was largely a pacifist
 who encouraged
 Black Americans to be content to just gain technical skills
 which would then
 make them acceptable to White society, the early ANC was not
 as radical as
 Mandela, Luthuli, Sisulu and other young members wanted.
 That is why they formed
 the ANC Youth League to inject more energy into the
 organization.
 
 Mandela and members of the ANC Youth League did
 not
 immediately turn to violence against the South African
 government. Even after
 Apartheid became official state policy with the coming into
 power of the
 Purified National Party in 1948, the ANC still used peaceful
 means to advocate
 for the rights of black and colored people in South Africa.
 But Apartheid
 brooked no opposition, however peaceful. In 1956, Mandela,
 Luthuli and other 154
 members of the ANC were arrested and tried on treason
 charges. The trial lasted
 until 1961 when all the defendants were acquitted and
 discharged. It was not
 until the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 that the ANC leaders
 decided that the
 only effective way to deal with the Apartheid regime was
 through violent revolution.
 Consequently, Mandela and his colleagues went underground
 and formed Unkhomto we Sizwe (MK) or Spear
 of the
 Nation in 1961 to engage the Apartheid regime through
 guerrilla tactics. In
 1962, Mandela was arrested again and sentenced to five years
 imprisonment.
 While he served his term, further charges of plotting to
 overthrow the
 government were brought against him. A new trial at Rivonia
 found him guilty
 and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964.
 First kept in Robben
 Island prison, Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison
 and eventually to
 Victor Verster Prison from where he was released on February
 11, 1990.
 Throughout the period of his incarceration, the MK conducted
 relentless bombing
 campaigns and other acts of guerrilla warfare against the
 Apartheid regime from
 bases in what were known as the Frontline States: Botswana,
 Mozambique, Angola,
 Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, bordering South
 Africa to the north.
 
 By 1990, prominent members of the National Party
 Government
 in South Africa had realized that Apartheid was no longer a
 feasible government
 policy. The MK’s bombing and guerilla warfare was exacting
 a heavy toll on South
 Africa’s internal security. Mass protests and
 demonstrations especially in the
 aftermath of the Soweto riots and massacre of June 1976, and
 the state-killing
 of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko in 1977 were making
 it impossible for the
 South African government to maintain order. By the 1980s,
 the anti-Apartheid
 movement had become so persistent that Prime Minister P. W.
 Botha declared a
 state of emergency and launched what he called his Total
 Strategy because in
 his estimation, his government was under a Total Onslaught
 by anti-Apartheid
 groups in the country. At the same time, international
 pressure against the
 Apartheid regime had steadily picked up steam in the 1970s
 and gained momentum
 in the 1980s. Anti-Apartheid UN Resolutions and protest
 marches had become a
 common feature of international politics by 1985. When the
 U.S. Senate overrode
 a veto by President Reagan and passed the Comprehensive
 Anti-Apartheid Act in
 1986, the Pretoria regime began to crumble in upon itself.
 Washington was one
 of the strongest supporters of the Apartheid regime since
 its inception in
 1948, which coincided with the heating up of the Cold War.
 Taking advantage of
 the anti-communist paranoia in Washington and other Western
 capitals, the
 Apartheid regime branded the ANC, the Pan-Africanist
 Congress, the Black
 Consciousness Movement and all other anti-Apartheid groups
 communist and
 thereby won the unconditional support of successive U.S.
 governments. This all
 changed in 1986 when the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act
 imposed trade and
 travel sanctions against South Africa, demanded an end to
 Apartheid, called for
 the release of Nelson Mandela and asked for a time-table for
 the conduct of
 democratic elections in that country. When F. W. de Klerk
 took over after P. W.
 Botha’s resignation in 1989, he knew he had to end
 Apartheid or risk letting South
 Africa slide into full-blown civil war and economic
 ruin.
 
 Mandela and the ANC were swept to power in the
 first democratic
 elections in South Africa in 342 years. Since Jan van
 Riebeck, an agent of the Dutch
 East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652,
 the majority of
 South Africans had suffered racial discrimination and
 oppression by a small
 group of white rulers and their enablers, including black
 South Africans. For
 the first time in 1994, the disenfranchised people of South
 Africa enjoyed
 universal adult suffrage and voted overwhelmingly for
 Mandela and the ANC. 
 
 Shortly after coming into power, Mandela and the
 ANC government
 passed the Promotion of National Unity Act which set up the
 Truth and
 Reconciliation Commission (TRC).  Under the
 Chairmanship of Bishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC was mandated to
 help South
 Africans deal with their violent past. Perpetrators of
 Apartheid era atrocities
 were encouraged to come forward and confess to their crimes.
 Where their crimes
 were not too extreme, these people were granted amnesty by
 the TRC and their
 victims and their families granted some compensation. Where
 their atrocities
 were too much to forgive, or where they denied committing
 crimes in the face of
 evidence, their cases were passed on to the judicial system
 and they were tried
 and if found guilty, convicted. Through the TRC process,
 Mandela was able to
 help South Africa come to terms with its violent past and
 learn to live
 together as a rainbow nation. While the TRC has been
 criticized on many fronts,
 it was a lesser of two evils: the greater evil being
 allowing a regime of
 retributions and vendettas to grip South Africa and lead to
 untold consequences
 for the newly freed nation.
 
 But while the TRC was certainly one of
 Mandela’s greatest
 achievements, his abiding legacy for most Africans is the
 fact that he stepped
 down from power after serving only one five-year term as
 president of South
 Africa. In a continent with a long and ugly tradition of
 sit-tight dictators
 who cling on to power for as long as they are alive,
 Mandela’s act represented
 an example that will yet be South Africa’s ultimate saving
 grace. Once he set
 that precedent, no South African president will ever be able
 to cling on to
 power beyond their mandated terms. Having given all his
 adult life to the
 struggle for justice in South Africa, Mandela could have
 continued winning
 elections for as long as he wanted; but he was an honorable
 giant who would not
 stoop that low and who had the honor, the integrity and the
 foresight to know
 that stepping down after only one term was perhaps the best
 service he could
 render his people. And they are no doubt grateful for that
 honorable gesture. And
 so are all of us who hanker after leaders of Mandela’s
 stature in Sub-Saharan
 Africa. May his beautiful soul rest in perfect
 peace.
 
 Author’s Note: I
 just thought it necessary to say that this
 short essay represents a very thin skeleton of Mandela’s
 innumerable achievements
 over a long a fruitful life as freedom fighter, leader and
 international
 diplomat, among other things. 
 
                                            
 
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