Retracing Nelson Mandela through the Lineage of Black Political Thought

Abstract

South Africa’s transition to democracy still inspires the imagination of people all over the world, especially those in search of what too often seems like an elusive peace. Even when he lies sick in hospital Nelson Mandela remains the iconic embodiment of that historical transformation, and will remain so for decades to come. South Africans invoke his memory to protest the depredations of his successors, from Thabo Mbeki’s dalliance with HIV/AIDS denialists to the halo of corruption around Jacob Zuma’s head. Compounding the country’s challenges are unacceptably high levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality and a failing school system. To overcome these challenges and return to the high road of Nelson Mandela and his generation, the country needs much more than technocratic policy solutions. It needs a self-awareness that can only come from a new public narrative that puts present and future generations back on Mandela’s path. The path itself was never straightforward but winding—and winding with too many proverbial forks in the road. The debates were oftentimes clamorous, but they also became the basis for political creativity against daunting odds. However, instead of using the lessons of that journey to create what van Wyck Brooks called a “usable past,” the country’s current leaders have done nothing to teach the present generation about the past except in their own image. Like Chacko’s twins in Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things, South Africans are, as a result, “trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints