Madiba ‘was just a slogan on a T-shirt’

JOHANNESBURG, Monday

Electric and yet so tense, is how Siraaj Cassiem described waiting in Cape Town on February 11, 1990, hoping to see former president Nelson Mandela emerge from prison after 27 years.

“Up until then Madiba was a slogan on a T-shirt, a slogan on a poster... That was the first time in my life that I actually saw the man. It was really a moving experience,” said Mr Cassiem, who at the time was an 18-year-old political activist.

Although still in high school, Mr Cassiem had played an active role in mass rallies calling for Mandela’s release, who is often fondly called by his clan name Madiba in South Africa.

“I saw Mandela walking hand in hand with his wife (Winnie) on TV, and then I heard on the radio that trains were free to Grand Parade (outside City Hall). I called a friend and we took the train. The atmosphere was amazing, I have never seen so many people, everybody was happy and singing freedom songs.”

Biggest story

Paddi Clay was working for Canadian radio then, and said covering the release of Mandela was “the biggest story I have ever covered. It was a story I had been waiting for all my life. After that, I was quite happy to stop reporting.”

An estimated 50,000 supporters waited at Grand Parade, and some grew impatient as Mandela arrived five hours later than expected at City Hall, where he made his first speech as a free man.

Tempers flared under the blazing summer sun, and some people at the back of the crowd began looting shops and vendors. Police responded with teargas and rubber bullets.

“When we got bored, we went to the back of the crowd to taunt and throw stones at the police,” Mr Cassiem said.

Meanwhile, journalists prepared for the worst.

“There was a mini riot at the back of the Grand Parade at the same time, and you had that tension that you didn’t know whether this incredible event would at any point go wrong and that this man who has spent so many years in prison was actually going to be assassinated,” Clay said.

“We all had that at the back of our minds,” she said.

Mr Allan Boesak, leader of the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front, helped calm the crowd before Mandela arrived.

What kind of person

“People were curious to see how he looked after 27 years and what kind of a person would appear before them,” he said.

“By seeing Mr Mandela with their own eyes, people felt freedom was now tangible. They could feel and smell it.

“That day was a turning point. It was more of a defining moment signalling the end of white minority rule.”

When Mandela finally arrived and stood on the balcony of City Hall, the crowd erupted in song and dance.

“I can’t remember a word he said. I think I was in awe of just seeing this great person and also just realising that I am part of a big moment in world history,” Cassiem said.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a leading anti-apartheid activist, said he was in Johannesburg on the morning of Mandela’s release conducting a baptism for one of his grandchildren.

“Although I firmly believed that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison at some point, I was not certain whether that would happen in my lifetime,” he told AFP.

He hitched a lift on a private plane to Cape Town as soon as he could.

“The feeling was both magical and indescribable. We kept on pinching ourselves to make sure that we were not dreaming. It was a special moment that made us see that our struggle was worthwhile.

“I felt blessed to have lived to see the moment of his release, while some who were not fortunate died before they could see the fruits of their struggle,” Tutu said.

Tutu, then still the archbishop of Cape Town, hosted Mandela at his house for his first night of freedom.

After the rally Mr Cassiem said he knew things will never be same again and left politics.

“I wanted to go and join Umkhonto we Sizwe (military wing of the ANC) in exile, but there was no point anymore. Madiba was preaching peace.”

Meanwhile, 20 years later, Graca Machel, Mandela’s third wife says: “He also gets angry. He is somehow stubborn. You need to convince him. You have to have a very good argument to make him change his mind. And so he has weaknesses.”

“He made mistakes in life. Towards his family, his friends. He made mistakes even in political decisions.”

But for those beyond his inner circle, criticising Mandela is taboo is South Africa, where he is fondly known by his clan name Madiba, or simply as “tata” — meaning “father”.

The increasingly frail 91-year-old now avoids the spotlight, although he still receives rapturous welcomes wherever he travels. He often leans on Ms Machel or an aide when he walks, but any rumours of his failing health are quickly denied by his office.

Mr Mandela’s image, depicted on T-shirts, jewelry, souvenir spoons and sundry tourist chachka, has been frozen in time as a smiling grandfather who preached reconciliation and saved South Africa from the brink of civil war.

All but erased from memory is the brash young lawyer who boxed for sport and spearheaded an underground armed struggle against the white-minority apartheid regime.

“Mandela became a saint when he was on Robben Island, a very powerful symbol of oppression, isolation, and even more after his release,” said Aubrey Matshiqi, political analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies.

“Prison like that can freeze a moment. The good gets frozen and the bad gets melted away. His behaviour after he was released made it easier for us to maintain his purity.”

Sixteen years after the first multirace polls that brought Mandela to the presidency, South Africa still needs the symbol of reconciliation and tolerance in a society torn apart by inequality, Matshiqi says. (AFP)