18.07.1996

Anti-apartheid hypocrisy

It is hard not to be cynical about Nelson Mandela’s recent Hollywood-style visit to Britain. His ‘pilgrimage’ to the House of Commons, the universal praise heaped upon him (remember Gorbymania?) and the attendant personality cult - carefully cultivated by the bourgeois press - all help to raise our Marxist heckles.

The near mystical quality of some of this adoration is particularly offensive - such as The Guardian talking about how “his presence” acts as a “sort of benediction” upon the people of London (July 13).

But communists should resist this powerful, but quite understandable urge to respond with purely mocking brickbats. The genuine and spontaneous warmth - as opposed to the hypocritical and manufactured ‘tributes’ of the media - of large sections of the British media - is based upon Mandela’s courageous and inspiring struggle against the inhuman-ities of apartheid. In a semi-conscious way, the crowds at Brixton are honouring Nelson Man-dela, the revolutionary - not Mandela, the president of capitalist South Africa. Communists also salute the Mandela who led the war against the apartheid system.

Not so, of course, with the bourgeoisie and their media. They are praising Mandela, the bourgeois politician, who averted ‘bloodshed and violence’ (ie, revolution) and left South African capitalism intact. They want to elevate him now into a hero who provides a role model for all ‘hotspots’ across the globe. This is what prompted Martin Kettle of The Guardian to write: “What matters about Mandela, amazingly, is his present rather than his past” (July 13).

Inevitably, comparisons are made with the troubled Six Counties. As Martin Kettle and many others have stressed, Ireland ‘needs a Mandela’, who will magically deliver a ‘middle ground’ and reconciliatory outcome to the Six Counties. Sighing with liberal regret and exuding virulent anti-Irish national chauvinism, Kettle writes: “It seems almost impossible that the same human race can simultaneously produce both these two conditions ... Sinn Fein is not the ANC and Gerry Adams is certainly no Nelson Mandela.”

For all revolutionaries and genuine democrats, it is galling to see Mandela hobnobbing with members of the monarchy and addressing the House of Commons stuffed with obnoxious anti-working class reactionaries. We all know - and Mandela certainly knows - that these institutions helped to prop up the apartheid system, if not set it up in the first place. British capitalism was the major supporter of the apartheid state, all too eager to super-exploit the black masses in South Africa.

Many politicians had ritualistically denounced Mandela as a “terrorist” - some would have quite happily seen him hanged by the regime. Nauseatingly, even Thatcher was in the ‘appreciative’ audience. She had boasted of her support for the apartheid regime and lauded Chief Buthelezi, one of its key stooges.

Far more galling is the real purpose of Mandela’s trip: to win the hearts and minds of British capitalists and get them to invest in post-apartheid South Africa, just as they happily invested in apartheid South Africa. Painfully, when in London, Mandela favoured reactionary businessmen and bankers rather than progressive comrades from the struggle. Thus his trip included a morning with the CBI, a banquet at the Guildhall and a breakfast at the Bank of England.

Why exactly? The business section of the Independent on Sunday succinctly identified the reason: “The source of the City worries is the high-wage, unionised labour force that still dominates South African industrial policy” (July 14).

By his visit to London Mandela was making clear the total commitment of his ANC government to the rigours of the market. This will mean confronting many of his old allies, most notably Cosatu, the South African trade union confederation. Mandela told Anthony Sampson of The Observer: “I’ll be meeting Cosatu to make it clear that we are going ahead with privatising companies - some completely, some partly, others not, according to their state of efficiency” (July 14).

Alec Ewin, Mandela’s trade and industry minister, has gone on record saying that he is committed to trade union ‘reform’ as part of the ANC’s privatisation programme.

It is clear to communists that the South African government is gearing up for major attacks on the working class, which must be resisted.

However much affinity South African workers - and revolutionaries in Britain - may feel with the Nelson Mandela of the past, they need to shed quickly any illusions in the ANC government and steel themselves for the revolutionary struggles to come.

Paul Greenaway