Most of us old enough to have known of Nelson Mandela from his early days in prison did not learn about him in history class. We had heard of this political activist and underground leader, but what we knew was distorted by South Africa’s state-controlled newspapers and radio. (Only in 1976 did the apartheid regime allow TV.) Those living outside South Africa could follow what international media reported on Mandela and his African National Congress movement, but there wasn’t great interest then in politics at the tip of Africa.
Winston Churchill famously said that “History is written by the victors” and Mandela’s victory over apartheid was still decades away. Nigerian novelist and essayist Chinua Achebe put it this way:
There is that great proverb – that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
– Chinua Achebe in the Paris Review, 1994
Mandela had been hunted down and caged by the time our generation was becoming politically aware. His history was not being told, let alone glorified. His name was only whispered inside the country and rarely spoken outside.
Rare photo of Mandela with fellow prisoner and ANC leader Walter Sisulu in the Robben Island prison yard in 1966
Remarkably, there was hardly a photo of Mandela after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. Johnny Clegg sang “We did not see him” (Asimbonanga) because not only Mandela’s words but even his face was banned under apartheid. He was labeled a terrorist – faceless, of course – by Western leaders who opposed sanctions against the apartheid regime. Some even called for his execution, though years later they were happy to bask in reflected glory at his memorial.
Former UK Labour cabinet minister and anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain claims that the Conservative party’s Monday Club produced the above poster but it has also been attributed to the Federation of Conservative Students.
As the world mourned Mandela’s death there were many recollections of how and when people first heard of him. For most it was not through politics but popular culture that they learned of his role in the struggle for a free, democratic and non-racial South Africa. Mandela spoke of how important music and dancing was in giving him peace; for many of us it was music and dancing that got us excited about this man and his ideas.
Just as political activists left South Africa from the 1960s through the ‘80s to fight apartheid from outside the country, musicians were also driven into exile. Their music gained international audiences as it fuelled anti-apartheid campaigns and popularized Mandela’s name.
The British musician who wrote the very danceable hit song Free Nelson Mandela in 1984, Jerry Dammers, joined the anti-apartheid movement in his home town of Coventry in his teens. He says that when, in his 20s, he protested against the international rugby tour by South Africa’s then all-white Springbok team he still did not know of Mandela.
The internationally televised Wembley concert for Mandela’s 70th was not the first to celebrate his birthday; this poster advertises the concert for his 65th in 1983
Funnily enough, I hadn’t actually heard of Mandela until I went to a concert at Alexandra Palace to celebrate his 65th birthday. People like Julian Bahula, the South African musician who came to Britain in exile, were singing about him, which gave me the idea for the lyrics. I picked up lots of leaflets at the concert and started learning about Mandela. At that point, he’d been imprisoned for 21 years and the leaflets said the shoes he had in jail were too small for his feet, so I put that in the lyrics.
– Jerry Dammers in an interview with Dave Simpson in The Guardian
Free Nelson Mandela
Free, free, free, free, free Nelson Mandela
21 years in captivity
Shoes too small to fit his feet
His body abused but his mind is still free
Are you so blind that you cannot see?
I said Free Nelson Mandela, I’m begging you
Free Nelson Mandela
Record cover of Jerry Dammers’s 1984 hit single “Free Nelson Mandela”
Pleaded the causes of the ANC
Only one man in a large army
Are you so blind that you cannot see?
Are you so deaf that you cannot hear his plea?
Free Nelson Mandela
I’m begging you, free Nelson Mandela
Back cover of “Free Nelson Mandela” record
Free Nelson Mandela
You’ve got to, you’ve got to
You got to free
You got to free
You got to Free
Nelson Mandela
I’m telling you, telling you, telling you
You’ve got to free, you’ve got to free
Free Nelson Mandela
Close-up of Jerry Dammers’s autograph!
Celebrity today is all about image and appearance so it’s hard to imagine anyone winning fame without people knowing what they look like. Yet being faceless didn’t stop Free Mandela from becoming one of the world’s biggest brands. There were few photos of him on all the leaflets, publications, T-shirts, badges or buttons, yet the incarcerated freedom fighter became a revered world icon – because of his principles, not his image.
This poster from the UN Centre Against Apartheid, Liberation Support Movement used an artist’s impression of Mandela
“Release Nelson Mandela” in Swedish – using a picture rather than a photo
All of this meant that Mandela had no image to live up to when the world watched him walk out of prison in 1990. Many artworks had been created of what he was thought to look like, from descriptions by people who had visited him in jail, but we could only speculate about how he would look when we saw him for the first time in 27 years. We expected him to be older and a bit grey, but he looked fit – for his age (that phrase so often appended to descriptions of older people). Yet what he made us remember most about that historic day was not what he looked like, but what he did: he raised his fist in the air.
Mandela walking out of jail on 11 February 1990
Because we had concentrated so long on what Mandela stood for and not his appearance, after his release from prison we continued to focus on what really mattered. During the negotiations for the first democratic non-racial constitution, through the election campaign, and in that single term of office he served as South Africa’s president, Mandela never tried to build his image. He made us judge him for his words and actions. This continued as he moved into retirement, and on into his 90s.
From Mandela’s presidential election campaign
Older people around the world should perhaps take a moment to thank Madiba, his clan and nickname, used more and more in his last years. Not only for showing us how to live an exemplary life, but for aging so well. On his own terms, never trying to conform to what others thought an elderly person should be like. For proving that you’re never too old to try and make a difference. And never too old to dance.
Commemorative tin plate sold by street vendors at Mandela’s 1994 presidential inauguration
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Great article. True we had no idea as to who the man was behind the slogans ‘commie’…’terrorist’….etc. Still remember my parents almost spitting out the words ‘Mandela..that terrible man!’ and my mother’s apology so many years later when she finally got to see him and hear his words, to understand what an extraordinary person he was! Perhaps he aged so well because he really had emptied himself of all hatred and feelings of revenge on those who had robbed him of his youth and middle-age. May we all learn a little. Clean, clear, positive thoughts to all of us!