Under the Branches
of a Mighty Tree: A Baobab among the Redwoods
Nelson
Mandela, Revered Ancestor (1918-2013)
By Daphne Muse
His path from Mvezo, a
village near Mthatha in the Transkei on the Eastern Cape, to speaking to an
absolutely thunderous and amazed assembly of more than 58,000 people in
Oakland, California in 1990 was a Long Walk to Freedom*. It is a remarkable story made even more so in
that Rolihlahla Nelson Dalibunga Mandela was inaugurated as
President of a democratic South Africa on May 10, 1994 and served until 1999. Mandela was given the name Rolihlahla on his
first day of school; it is a Xhosa term that means "pulling the branch of the tree.”
The day he was
released from the Victor Verster Correctional Center in Paarl where he was
transferred to in 1989, my brother Vincent Muse was in Capetown engineering the
feed for journalist Renee Montagne who was covering this historical moment for
NPR. He called me from Capetown
breathless, excited beyond belief and fighting back waves of tears that mixed
with the sweat pouring from his body. He
so wanted to dance with the hundreds of thousands gathered on the plaza. Vince told me it felt like the energy in that
moment could have fueled the nation for decades to come. But faced with an endless series of technical
challenges (rescued by duct tape), he had to do everything possible to ensure
the feed made it across the pond and on the air. His stories of engineering the feed while
listening to Mandela speak in Capetown’s public square on February 11, 1990 and
being invited to Bishop Tutu’s home charged my own excitement about Mandela speaking
and being honored in Oakland.
Aware of the roles
that many Bay Area activists played in unshackling the chains of apartheid, mandating
divestment and securing his freedom, Deputy President of the African National
Congress (ANC) Nelson Mandela accepted the invitation to speak in Oakland,
California. On June 30, 1990 he spoke at
the Oakland Coliseum to an audience 58,000
people. Among them were longshoremen,
union organizers, elected officials, diplomats, cultural icons and school children
to witness one of the most amazing moments in the city’s history: Nelson Mandela, free and standing with his
then wife Winnie Mandela. Not since August
6, 1977 with the visit of Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere to San Francisco
had an African leader been honored in the Bay Area.
Comprised of
liberation movements, foundations, faith-based organizations, cultural groups, those
living in exile and members of anti-apartheid initiatives throughout the Bay
Area, the Northern California Mandela Reception Coalition produced and coordinated
the celebration. Among those present and
instrumental in getting him to speak were long-time activist and architect Ken
Simmons. Simmons also was instrumental
in leading the faculty divestment movement at UC Berkeley. Mandela
and his wife were greeted by a host of Bay Area leaders including Maudelle Shirek,
the godmother of East Bay progressive politics and California Democrat and Representative
Ronald V. Dellums. For years, Dellums
pushed legislation for sanctions against the South African Government. Like Berkeley and San Francisco, Oakland had
an ordinance calling for the divestment of stocks in American companies doing
business in South Africa and longshoremen throughout the region refused to
unload South African goods. Mandela
noted that he personally wanted to thank the hundreds of thousands representing
liberation movements, unions and South Africans in exile in the Bay Area who
were instrumental in helping to secure his freedom.
The thousands gathered
stood in the power of the victory of this tree of a man who never bent,
standing just as tall and majestically as many of the historic Redwoods surrounding
backyards, parks and forests in Oakland.
Under a sea of green, black, red, yellow and blue banners representing
the colors of the ANC, we gathered together in his name and growing South
Africa into a “one person, one vote, and democratic, non-racial, nonsexist
society.” Like millions of people in South
Africa, Cuba, France, Tanzania, Canada and Sweden, we joined in raising our
voices and funds to impose sanctions and develop other strategic organizing
tools to end the fetid stench and brutal rule of apartheid. Although the movement was global, it also
took place at kitchen tables in East Oakland, board rooms at the Port of
Oakland, classrooms across the city and in the streets of East, West and North
Oakland.
So many of us were
struck by how his vision always went far beyond his own people and at the
Coliseum he apologized to the First Nation people’s for a logistical mix up
that made it impossible for them to publically present him with ceremonial
robes. It really was a moment that the audience
and world should have witnessed. He also
was so unequivocally disciplined, a bold visionary and a man with some of the
same kind of human frailties we all carry.
He made it crystal clear that apartheid had no future. The steady flow
of my tears and non-stop quaking of my body let me know how much it meant to be
sharing this surreal moment with thousands of others from my community. That night, the stars cast a an even brighter
glow across the skies of Oakland and the evening air reverberated from the
powerful performances by Nigerian master percussionist Babatunde Olatunji, who
opened the tribute, Harry Belafonte, Bonnie
Raitt and John Lee Hooker, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble, Vukani Mawethu
Choir and Oakland activist Lakiba Pittman.
Mandela’s trajectory
from his village of Mvezo to one of the most revered visionaries and leaders of
the 20th century is such a lesson in the power of liberation and
building a nation. In order to avoid
arranged marriages, Mandela and his cousin Justice ran away to Johannesburg,
where he initially worked as a mine policeman before being introduced to Walter
Sisulu in 1941. Sisulu, son of a black
domestic worker and white public servant who never acknowledged him, was one of
the primary architects and master strategists of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
In 1944, together with Sisulu and Oliver
Tambo, he founded the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League setting the
trajectory of his life on an irreversible course.
In 1919, the year after his birth, a
delegation of the South African Native National Conference attended the Versailles
Peace Conference to put the voices and grievances of the African people of
South Africa on the table. He went on to
become a lawyer and strategic visionary for the ANC. Arrested repeatedly and charged with sedition,
in 1962 he was arrested for the third time and convicted of sabotage, and
conspiracy to overthrow the government. Sentenced
of life imprisonment, for twenty-seven years, Mandela navigated his life beyond
the brutality of being imprisoned on Robben Island. His sanity was grounded in gardening on the prison
grounds, writing and corresponding with the family and comrades for whom he was
their very heartbeat. His hard won
release from prison in 1990 precipitated political changes that would bring
blacks and coloreds to the ballot box, uproot a ruthless government and uplift
a people who had been under the spiked boot of white rule for more than three
centuries. In 2008, Congresswoman Barbara Lee co-sponsored H.R. 5690 legislation
to remove Nelson Mandela and other current and former ANC members from US
travel and terrorism watch lists.
In 2009, I got to see
the results of this revered statesman’s leadership and the relentless fight
against Apartheid. At museums, shopping malls, clubs, community
centers and in townships, the new South Africa was reflected politically,
socially and culturally. Its citizens
were some of the fiercest people I’ve ever met.
From Graça Machel (his current wife) and groups of grandmothers with
whom I met to early members of the ANC to folks I spoke with on airplanes and
busses, and children who sang to us in Soweto, it is crystal clear that this is
a nation forged by fires that burn deeply in the bellies, hearts and souls of
its people. Machel was trained as
freedom fighter who went on to become an advocate for children and the only
woman to have served as first lady of two African nations: She is the widow of Mozambican President
Samora Machel. In 2012, she was
appointed President of the SOAS Institute at the University of London.
On my visit to Robben
Island where he spent eighteen years of his incarceration, I also got to
retrace the steps from his cell, with a man who was imprisoned with him, out
onto the grounds where he gardened, dreamed up and strategized about freedom(s)
beyond his own. In the “time of
Mandela,” leaves of vision, justice and wisdom tumbled from the branches of
this tree of a man and were woven into crowns of liberation. The winds of change also blew some of the
leaves across the landscape of Oakland into the hearts and minds of generations
coming up the ranks. We must continue to
share the stories of resistance with our children and grandchildren. Holding men like Mandela in our hearts, minds
and daily practice means the difference between returning to living under
Tsunami’s of oppression or swimming upstream in seas of freedom.
History has proven that more and more people
refuse to allow the boots of oppression to rest on our necks. His own words “… to be free is not merely to
cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the
freedom of others” embedded a kind of strength in me that encourages me to make
decisions that turn the world on the “Axis of Affirmation.” Mandela
never met racism with racism, hate with hate or wavered in his devotion to
democracy, equality and unbridled possibilities for the future. The legacy of Mandela can never be destroyed,
because truth blooms through concrete and is deeply encoded in the cultural and
historical DNA of millions of the citizens of SA and people all over the world.
His life was also strengthened by bold,
fierce and visionary women who stood with him including Winnie Mandela his second
wife, Graça Machel his current wife and millions of South African blacks,
coloreds and whites who stood with him in historical solidarity.
I remain eternally
grateful to have been born at a time that allowed me to witness and engage in
this transformational nexus in history. As
a beacon of civility, compassion and honor, Mandela was the “Godfather” for
many an activist. This Nobel Peace Prize
award-winner also got to experience the awe and magic of life, attending
concerts in his honor, holding his grandchildren on his lap and witnessing a
new generation of young black and colored South Africans become scholars, tech
pioneers, cutting-edge researchers and future leaders.
I thank his family for sharing him with the
world, for I know that came at a great cost to them personally. But so many of us got to create inheritances
from his vision, legacy and practices to our children, grandchildren, students
and young people we mentor. While some
of these “twigs” will grow into sturdy branches and even trees themselves, they
can cling to this tree of a man who turned dreams of liberation into historical
realities and taught millions how to climb, along the way. May the verdant landscape of his smile, and
depth of his soul, continue to shine an eternal light on the mounting injustices
attempting to eviscerate our humanity.
Amandla
*Mandela’s Autobiography published by Little Brown
and Company (1994).
Daphne
Muse is a writer, poet and social commentator.
Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Washington Post and aired on
NPR.
©Daphne Muse
Oakland, CA 2013
Links to
Mandela speaking in Oakland
http://www.daytrotter.com/#!/video/nelson-mandela/10643-5033/1008527
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