South Africa: Life After Mandela

Though he had gone into political retirement in 2004 due to ill health, Nelson Mandela continued to remain the benevolent patriarch in South Africa. His successors were too tiny to step into his shoes and clung on to his legacy. So when the end finally came, after a long drawn battle with illness, it evoked spontaneous mourning and anxiety about South Africa's future.

It evoked tributes and half-mast flags around the world, even in countries like Britain and US which had in the 1980s described him as 'black terrorist' and some UK Tory MPs even wanted him shot. The former rulers of these countries Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan steadfastly opposed imposing economic sanctions against the then apartheid regime in South Africa. They argued it would only hurt poor South Africans. Though Mandela has never been known to hold a grudge, but he made an exception during his trip to Britain in 1990. He refused to meet the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, much to the indignation of Tories.

Though Mandela was seen as a cementing influence in South African society and has often been credited with peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy, but the fissures within the society still run deep. Not much has changed regarding the economic plight of blacks after apartheid was scrapped. South Africa continues to remain a very unequal society, even twenty years after the abolition of that hideous system, with blacks still languishing in the pits of pecking order.

The only saving grace is that unlike the past blacks are now free to go anywhere in the country, as no place is out of bounds for them and they needn't fear police witch-hunt. Even that idyll got dented at Marikana in August 2012, when policemen shot dead 30 striking miners, evoking memories of infamous Sharpeville (1960) and Soweto (1976) massacres. What was even more damning was that this time the policemen happened to be blacks themselves.

President Jacob Zuma and African National Congress will have lot of answering to do when the country goes to polls next year. Already there are murmurs of protest questioning whether ANC is concerned at all about the plight of blacks. Mandela's former wife Winnie has already fired the first salvo by accusing him and ANC for betraying black South Africans. She accused Mandela and other ANC leaders of being lackeys of the corporates.

Zuma can take heart from the fact that Mandela sympathy factor and absence of strong opposition could work in ANC's favour. The main opposition Democratic Alliance's support base is confined to whites and Asians, it has not made much inroads to the black electorate. However ANC can ill-afford to be complacent in the long run.

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Egypt Needs a Mandela

As the South African patriarch doggedly fights even after being on ventilator, the rainbow nation he built up from the embers of apartheid stands in refreshing contrast to countries struggling to find their feet after casting away totalitarian regimes and rulers.
 
His greatest legacy was that he managed to avert any revenge attacks from the black South Africans against the ruling whites. Thus Madiba, as he is affectionately known, was a unifying and reassuring presence even to his subdued opponents and other minorities in the country.

This is despite spending a good part of his life in various prisons and suffering vilest campaign from the then apartheid regime and also from Western world. Leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan saw him more of a terrorist or Communist agent than someone fighting for the empowerment of the blacks.

Yet after coming to power, one of his first gesture was to host the rugby world cup in 1995. In South Africa rugby was a sport played only by whites. Mandela exhorted the blacks and others to support the The Springboks (as the South African rugby team is known) in the spirit of nationalism. The Springboks went on to win the trophy and it was immortalised on celluloid by Clint Eastwood in his movie titled Invictus.

One of his quotes currently doing rounds on Facebook says it all: “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.”

Not many countries are that fortunate. The neighbouring Zimbabwe imploded after the apartheid regime ended. A Mandela like leadership is acutely lacking in the pro-democracy movement in Egypt. Though as a caveat it must be noted that South Africa's economy was in a much better shape than Egypt. And Egypt is living in a much more difficult neighbourhood than South Africa, surrounded by countries strongly tethered to dictatorship and religious fanaticism.

Egypt's pro-democracy activists managed to oust Hosni Mubarak the dictator but could not nurture enough numbers at the subsequent hustings and got upstaged by a better organised Muslim brotherhood. Hence Egypt got saddled with a polarising regime which inspired little confidence among minorities and women.

The current overthrow of Morsi, with the army playing midwife, seems to be hurtling Egypt more towards a civil war than a democratic transition. The atmosphere is all the more vitiated by the meddling of oil-rich Gulf states, steeped in Shia-Sunni power struggle, acting as messiahs to bail out Egypt's beleaguered economy. They have a proverbial axe to grind in keeping democracy at bay and preserving patriarchal values.

Thus for women and minorities (especially Coptic Christians) in Egypt there is little they can look forward to. For some men the recent Tahrir square protests were a happy hunting ground to indulge in mob sexual attacks.

According to a report their modus operandi worked something like this: Lines of men would push their way through the packed square, surround women in a circle, and start ripping their clothes and sexually assault them. Often described as 'circle of hell' the women had formed squads to fight the mobsters and save those affected by it. Even otherwise sexual harassment is something grossly under reported in Egypt.

As for Coptic Christians they were at best a marginalised community during the Mubarak regime being denied government jobs and other benefits, but to his credit he  ensured that they were insulated from rabid Islamists. This cocoon broke under Morsi regime and Christians began facing attacks from Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. Even after Morsi's fall his supporters continued attacking Christians and their property, as in these uncertain times their safety is not much of a priority for the state.

And unfortunately amidst all this turmoil and chaos there seems little possibility of the emergence of a Mandela-like unifying figure in Egypt.

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