Cape Times political writer Barry Streek, who died in 2006, was honoured at a memorial lecture by former leader of the opposition TONY LEON at the Cape Town Press Club last night.
This is the speech Leon prepared, under the title: “The Mandela Presidency: Beginning or Ending of Free Space for South Africa? Some Lessons for Today and the Future”
Barry Streek, whose imperishable memory we honour tonight, was foremost a
man of the press, the embodiment of a passionate and proficient journalist, in
whose veins the printer’s ink ran very deep indeed. For a significant part of his
professional life, writing for a South African newspaper, through the thicket
of curbs, bannings and regulations, was in the words of the doyen of media
lawyers of the apartheid age, Kelsey Stuart, “Like walking through a minefield
blindfolded.”
Barry and other colleagues of that time did more than navigate this treacherous
terrain with tenacious skill and some daring; they brought to light and to the
attention of an often somnambulant country and unsuspecting world, the full
and unexpurgated story of the dark underbelly of the apartheid state and the
forces which it unleashed to protect its privileges.
When Barry’s journalistic career was in its commencement, the legendary Joel
Mervis was Editor of the Sunday Times. In his commissioned history of Times
Media, and its predecessor South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN), in
whose employ Barry worked for much of his professional life, Mervis wrote –
“Even though statecraft and the craft of journalism have much in common, they
are, like opposing barristers in court, basically adversaries.”
Until the advent of full-blown democracy here in 1994, Barry and his likeminded colleagues in the so-called “Morning Group” of SAAN newspapers had
no doubt on which side of the equation they operated. He was an impassioned
champion for the fairness, openness and equality which was the almost exact
opposite of both the state and its craft until the ascent to the presidency of FW
De Klerk in 1989.
It was at a moment shortly after the election, in early September 1989, that
Barry and I encountered each other for the first time, in the rabbit-warren
of first floor offices at the back of the old assembly in Parliament where the
parliamentary press gallery was housed.
“Have a drink”, might not be the first words he uttered to me on entering the
office which he shared with Anthony Johnson, his Cape Times journalistic
Siamese twin, but it was a good approximation of our early relationship at any
rate. A stop over with Barry and his colleagues was an early and essential
rite of passage for a freshly minted and somewhat ambitious Member of
Parliament such as I was back then; and I made many rounds to his and
neighbouring offices, desperate to ensure some coverage in the next day’s
editions! Many libations helped ease those and many subsequent encounters.
Those were remarkable and heady days indeed as the apartheid order started,
both under its own hand and from the forces ranged against it, to yield to
the demands of the new. The contours of the new democracy could only be
vaguely seen at the time of the dawning of the country’s new age. Even the
announcement of its arrival - in perhaps the most remarkable and unexpected
speech ever delivered form the podium of parliament - on 2 February 1990 -
was unimaginable just weeks before its delivery.
The British historian CV Wedgwood wrote-
“History is written backward but lived forward. Those who know the end of the
story can never know what it was like at the time.”
Barry and his colleagues and I and others who entered parliament at the end of
the apartheid era, and those who joined the negotiations process from exile and
from prison, lived that history and helped write that story; perhaps one of the
most remarkable in the annals of the modern world.
Sadly, Barry Streek’s early death seven years ago, in July 2006, robbed him
of the opportunity to see how the journey to democracy continued. Doubtless
he would have strong views about our uneven progress, and some significant
regressions, since then and Barry being Barry would have made them known in
emphatic and vivid terms!
Barry’s passions for social justice and media freedom and indeed for the very
Cape Town Press Club which honours him with this lecture tonight are well
known to us all. They were his sheet anchors in the turbulent times which he
ably chronicled. Less well known to me, at any rate, was a fact gleaned recently
from a colleague, that Barry was an avid and prodigious collector of maps.
This information inspired me use tonight’s lecture to contemplate a period of
which Barry was a full and enthusiastic reporter - the presidency of Nelson
Mandela. Did that now almost golden, and increasingly distant, chapter in
our national story, provide us with a road map to guide us in building a house
of durable freedom and democracy on the stony soil of our country? Has the
structure which Mandela helped to build and withstood the unanticipated
damage and corrosion in the years which followed?
The ‘first rough drafts of history’ was the wonderful definition of journalism
penned by the Washington Post publisher Phil Graham. And so, the issue
is: How will future generations, as they leaf (or more accurately, Google)
through the ‘first rough drafts of history’ judge the Mandela years and what
has followed: will his successors be remembered for consolidating the new
democracy, or will some be remembered as having lost their way as they
vandalised the structures and excavated under the foundations they were
bequeathed?
Foremost, is the difficulty of separating the power of human agency from what
Karl Marx termed the “motive forces of history”, and the confluence of events
and the formations which propelled them. Undoubtedly, while Mandela was
at all times the servant and symbol of the political movement he led, he also,
at key moments, provided personal leadership which proved quite decisive in
determining the course of this country.
On the personal, as I wrote in my political biography: “Mandela was an
extraordinary phenomenon. At one level he was all too human, but at another
level he inhabited a plane out of reach of most mortal politicians (in which latter
category I decidedly place myself). It had been my great gift that my leadership
had commenced under his presidency and had grown, not under his enormous
shadow, but because of that special light which he shone on so many, including
me.”
There are many members of tonight’s audience, and certainly the man whose
memory we honour in this lecture, who also basked in that radiance.
Equally, Mark Twain reminded us that “Every man is a moon with a dark side
that he doesn’t show anyone.” We can also bracket Mandela with Mahatma
Ghandi, as one of the select few of any age who transcend the politics of their
age and rank in that rare category of truly good and the great. But we should
bear in mind George Orwell’s necessary caution and apply it to both men:
“The problem with conferring sainthood on Ghandi is that you need to rescue
saints from under a pile of tissues and saccharine.”
Certainly, from my angle of both proximity to and distance from him, the
Mandela presidency was an all-inclusive effort, which operated on many fronts.
He led a Government of National Unity until 1996 and no sooner had its largest
minority component (the National Party) left it, than he sought to include others,
including my party, in it. Even when we could not agree to square that circle,
of going into government but also maintaining a critical stance outside of it,
Mandela continued to reach out by both gesture and intervention, to ensure that
minority views were obtained and some buy-in on critical issues was achieved.
I was, accordingly, often at the receiving end of what the ghost writer of his
autobiography (and, latterly, Editor of Time Magazine) Richard Stengel defined
as “The full Mandela”-
“He is a power charmer –confident that he will charm you, by whatever means
possible. He is attentive, courtly, winning, and to use a word he would hate,
seductive. ..The charm is political as well as personal, and he regards himself
not so much as the Great Communicator but as the Great Persuader…he would
always rather persuade you to do something than order you to do so..(but) he
will always stand up for what he believes is right with a stubbornness that is
virtually unbending.”
I used to tell my political colleagues after one or another session with the great
man and a dose of “The Full Mandela” that, from an opposition perspective,
it was a little like the political equivalent of the seduction scene from “Fatal
Attraction”!
My first conclusion, on contrasting the Mandela presidential years and those
which followed it, starts with a caution: His great personal characteristics aside,
Mandela’s presidency had the advantage of occurring at a time of transcending
national and international change. He was the bookend between the dying of
the old order and the dawn of a new age. By the time he took office, the seventy
year era of Communist rule over Eastern Europe and forty-six years of apartheid
rule (and three centuries of racial domination) at home had just come to at an
end. It was an era of new and brave and dramatic beginnings.
It was on his watch that the first democratic parliament convened, a new
constitution was negotiated and inked, the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission commenced and concluded its work and the country and its First
Citizen basked in the attention and admiration of the world. Such an alignment
of stars is rare in any country’s history; and, sometimes it is easier to guide the
ship of state through the high seas of big events than it is navigate through the
smaller, but often unseen and therefore more treacherous , currents which it fell
to his successors to manoeuvre .
But, some blind spots aside, Mandela led by example in opening up the
free space necessary for a democracy to take root in this country. His rare
combination of personal history and enforced 27 year period of reflection and
introspection perhaps uniquely equipped him for the task of being the country’s
cheerleader-in-chief for democratic freedom.
Recently, Mandela’s close colleague, Pallo Jordan, reminded us that-
“During the Rivonia trial, Nelson Mandela cited the Magna Carta, the Petition
of Rights and the US Bill of Rights as expressive of his vision of a free society.”
No less than his own movement’s Freedom Charter, these international
testaments of freedom clearly informed and helped shape his world view and his
tone of governance.
Famously, Mandela’s rich and complex background also helped inform
and shape his politics and, later, his style of presidency. British statesman
Denis Healey said properly-rounded leaders needed “a hinterland”, a life
and philosophy beyond the narrow confines of the party diktat. Few of any
country’s rulers - and certainly none here since his presidency - have enjoyed
Mandela’s breadth of experiences.
Richard Stengel, again, captures the complex and contradictory forces which
shaped his life and informed his politics: “His persona is a mixture of African
royalty and British aristocracy. He is a Victorian gentleman in a silk dashiki.”
Politics and imprisonment might have shaped his life, but so too did his decision
to escape an early arranged marriage, commence the first-black law practise
in Johannesburg, and earning a living independent of the Party. He was more
certifiable member of the human race than a narrowly formed political partisan.
Doubtless it was this rich personal hinterland which allowed him to call the
Queen of England by her first name and to win the adulation of rural peasants
in his home Province. It also informed some of his most powerful gestures and
symbols.
Today, in contrast, almost our entire political leadership is drawn from the
ranks of life-time politicians and trades unionists. This is not confined to the
governing party: many emerging leaders on the opposition side, as well, have
had no career outside of party politics.
Gestures and symbols are, incidentally, hugely important and often
underestimated in statecraft, and Mandela had an almost genius-like ability to
use them to shape his nation and bind its component parts together. The Invictus
moment in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the tea party in Orania with widow of
the architect of grand apartheid Dr H.F. Verwoerd, and signing into law the
1996 South African constitution at Sharpeville, site of the grim police massacre
of anti-pass law protesters thirty five years before, were among the highlights of
a crowded, consequential and celebrity-filled presidency.
He set the benchmark even before entering office: You might recall a dramatic
moment on the eve of South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, during
the only television debate between President FW De Klerk and Mandela. In
the main it was a rancorous and point-scoring exercise, with Mandela spending
much of it on the offensive. Yet toward its conclusion, Mandela reached across
to De Klerk and took his hand and said of his main rival, “I am proud to hold
your hand…Let us work together to end division and suspicion.” Posterity
remembers that gesture better than the debate, and thus the “Rainbow Nation”
was born.
Paradoxically, the most partisan of politicians, Mandela was also able to look
beyond the interests of the Party and make tough calls on it, to meet the needs
of the country-in-the making.
There was another critical moment just after the 1994 elections, during
its chaotic counting process. You might recall the drama of unregistered
ballots, pirate voting stations and other jarring irregularities. During this
long tallying process, the very future was in the balance due to extreme
electoral infringements in key places. At one point, ANC senior officials met
in Johannesburg and demanded the Party take action, and at least call a press
conference concerning what many insiders apparently regarded as “grand theft”,
which they believed had robbed the party of victory in Kwa Zulu Natal and
elsewhere. An eye witness at the meeting describes its conclusion:
“Mandela had said nothing during the discussion. Then he brought the room to
a full stop. “Tell the comrades to cancel the press conference. We will not do
anything to make the election illegitimate. The ANC will not say the election is
not ‘free and fair.’ Prepare our people in Natal and the Western Cape to lose.’ “
He followed through on this example toward the end of his presidency. When
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission prepared to publish its report in
October 1998, both his predecessor and successor as President attempted legal
action to either amend or suppress its findings. In contrast, Mandela said the
equivalent of “publish and be damned.” As his authorised biographer, Anthony
Sampson, noted: “As head of state he saw himself as having loyalties which
went beyond the ANC…”
Indeed, as president and even before, Mandela ensured that his presidential
office was no echo chamber reserved only for approving voices. He sought the
counsel of a range of viewpoints.
While he was unyielding on his bottom lines, Mandela claimed no monopoly of
wisdom on key issues and sought a range of views and voices beyond the party
faithful and his inner circle.
I recall when I first met Mandela in July 1992, at a dinner he arranged at his
Houghton home, he told me and two party colleagues how his recent visit to
the World Economic Forum at Davos had convinced him on his return that
the ANC had to change its economic policy. As he rather pithily put it on that
occasion, “Some of the biggest and most influential businessmen in the world
were at Davos. They were very happy to meet me, but practically every one
of them bashed me over the head because of our policy of nationalisation (of
industries). So when I got back to South Africa, I got hold of our economics
team, and said to them, “Boys we have got to change our policy …and they
agreed.”
Compare and contrast that impulse with what prevails today in South Africa’s
inner councils of power, at a time of deep economic crisis. Last week, in
a somewhat gloomy, bit I fear accurate, description, the Financial Mail
editorialised –
“Rightly or wrongly, the ANC struggles to bring itself to listen to any
institution, organisation or individual outside its own ranks. The most important
debates within the ANC happen within the ANC. In the minds of the cadres,
many of whom think of themselves as part of a liberation movement rather than
a political party, outside critiques are almost by definition wrong. “
Contrary voices are often irritating and discomfiting, but they are vital for
obtaining society’s buy-in and correcting course when change is indicated. They
are often the equivalent of the canary-in-the-coalmine who avert to the dangers
which lie ahead.
At a meeting shortly after the 1994 election, Mandela told me, in private, “It is
important for the opposition to hold up a mirror to the government and point
out where we do things wrong.” He used almost this exact formula when he
benchmarked, in public, his soon-to-be elected government’s relationship with
the media. In February 1994, Mandela told the International Press Institute
Congress-
“…The media are a mirror through which we see ourselves as others perceive
us, warts, blemishes and all. The African National Congress has nothing to
fear from criticism. I can promise you, we will not wilt under close scrutiny.
It is our considered view that such criticism can only help us grow, by calling
attention to our actions and omissions which do not measure up to our people’s
expectations and the democratic values to which we subscribe.”
Four years in office somewhat changed Mandela’s views, on both opposition
and media scrutiny. In December 1997, at the ANC 50
he severely criticised the press, non-governmental organisations, the opposition,
and other elements of civil society. He identified them as part of some vast
and ill-defined ‘counter revolutionary movement.’ Even his staunch press ally,
The Guardian of London called it “a profoundly depressing assault.” I thought
it marked the low -water mark of political paranoia, so distinct from his hugely
buoyant presidency.
I also believe that this Conference, far more decisively than the better reported
and more dramatic gathering at Polokwane ten years later, set South Africa
on the wrong course: it was here that the finishing touches were sealed on
cadre deployment, the capture of the State by the Party and other elements of a
determined hegemony so at odds with the constitution concluded just one-anda-half years before.
However intemperate Mandela’s remarks in Mafikeng, they were a far cry from
the poisoned waters which now seem to separate government and the media
and the opposition and civil society today. They certainly did not lead to any
introduction of legislation to muzzle the media, such as the Protection of State
information Bill. But perhaps it sowed the seeds for a future showdown.
In researching tonight’s lecture, I was reminded -in lighter vein - that Mandela
had his own “The Spear” moment, though how we diffused it was perhaps
telling. He had an aversion to censoring anything, even pornography. In
February 1998, Hustler magazine indecorously named Mandela as “Asshole of
the Month.” Then deputy minister of Home Affairs, Lindiwe Sisulu, slammed
the issue as ‘vile, outrageous and obscene’, and apparently considered banning
it. Mandela, in sharp contrast ‘laughed the matter off’ and instead of rushing
to court he said, somewhat oxymoronically, the magazine’ should use its own
sense of morality and judgment’. He surprised his Director General, Jakes
Gerwel, by asking impishly: “Have you seen this month’s Hustler?”
More consequentially, it was Mandela’s attitude toward the courts and his
faith in the supremacy of the constitution and respect for its institutions which
separated him from some of his successors.
Our current President’s own ascent to office can be, diplomatically, best
described as a Houdini-like escape from the coils of court processes, rather than
an embrace of them.
In contrast to Mandela’s championing of the constitution which he signed
into law, consider the recent scepticism of senior ANC executive member
and Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Ngoaka Ramatlhodi. In 2011,
he stated that the constitutional transition was a victory for ‘apartheid forces’
who wanted to ‘retain white domination under a black government’. This
was achieved ‘by emptying the legislature and executive of real power’ and
giving it to ‘the other constitutional institutions and civil society movements.’
Apparently, other powerful voices in Mr Ramathlodi’s party and government
share this sentiment.
We might conclude from this contrast that while the ruling party certainly
celebrates Nelson Mandela and his early legacy of armed struggle, it is far more
ambivalent about what we might term “Latter Mandelaism”, and his embrace of
the constitution, and some of those inclusive presidential characteristics I have
enumerated above.
But let me conclude with a note of hope of how the spirit of democracy,
freedom and robust dialogue has actually taken root a decade and a half since
Mandela left formal office and entered “ a twilight of greatness.”
During his presidency, South Africa’s parliamentary opposition was deeply
fragmented; its civil society was still finding its feet after the long dark night
of apartheid and the press, whose leading editors were mostly drawn from the
minority, were at some quite decisive moments, mute and offside. The radiance
of Mandela’s leadership, ironically, both warmed our hearts but sometimes
blinded “some among us “(to borrow a favourite phrases of former President
Mbeki) on our roles in a free society and the rules of engagement needed for
democratic deepening. In this respect, at least, there has been a sea-change
today.
In June 2013, Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron delivered an
influential address at the Sunday Times Literary Awards. He eloquently
signalled that in one vital respect, and despite considerable damage done, our
democracy remains afloat, and in one sense is more seaworthy than in the recent
past:
“Our polity is boisterous, rowdy, sometimes cacophonous and often angry.
That much is to be expected. But after nearly two decades, we have far more
freedom, more debate, more robust and direct engagement with each other –and
certainly more practically tangible social justice than 20 years ago.”
The push back by a diverse range of civil society actors here and the delayed
passage and marked improvement to the Protection of State Information Bill
earlier this year is a striking, encouraging example.
Just four years before Nelson Mandela’s release walked back into freedom,
another political prisoner was released from jail, the first in the Soviet Union to
be freed by Mikhail Gorbachev. Natan Sharansky had also been convicted and
imprisoned for High Treason. After nine years imprisonment, he went into exile
in Israel and subsequently became a political leader there. In 2004, he published
a powerful polemic, “The Case for Democracy’’. In the book he elaborates,
with passion and clarity, that freedom is rooted in the right to dissent, to walk
into the town square and declare one’s views without fear of consequence. “
For the many things that have gone right and wrong with South Africa since
our first steps toward becoming a free society back in 1994, Sharansky’s
universal observation that “the democracy which sometimes dislikes us is a
much safer place than the dictatorship which loves us” must serve as our guide
into the future. It was the light which illuminated the life and work of our late
friend, Barry Streek.