Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I apologise for having missed part of the debate; I had engagements that I could not change with people from outside the House. I am glad that the Speaker has allowed these tributes to be paid, as they give us the opportunity to place on record our views and experiences.

I had the great privilege of meeting Nelson Mandela shortly after he had been elected President. I have Richard Caborn to thank for that opportunity, as he was then the Chair of the Trade and Industry Select Committee, of which I was a member. The Committee visited South Africa to see how the ending of apartheid could change the business relationship between the United Kingdom and South Africa—as indeed it has done. Mr Mandela gave us a considerable amount of his time, as he always did; he was very generous and engaging. People often talk about his humility, and I was astonished when, on shaking hands with me, he told me that it was a great honour for him to meet me. I think I replied, “It is entirely the reverse, Mr President.” That was typical of his understatement and his charm.

On that visit, I also remember attending a reception at a hotel in a rather nondescript place called Midrand, which, as the name implies, is halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. I was talking to an Afrikaner lady, who expressed her concern about what would happen to South Africa now that it was in the hands of the majority. Obviously, I found that conversation rather uncomfortable. I pointed out that they were indeed the majority and that, as it had been an agreed transition, I hoped that she would welcome it.

Just before the reception ended, the president of the chamber of commerce announced that two of the young girls from the typing pool wanted to sing for us. Two very small girls stood on the podium, put their arms round each other and sang, a cappella, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”. As they sang, tears started to run down the cheek of the Afrikaner woman. When they had finished singing, she turned to me and said, “This is still my country. It’s time I learned the words.” That encapsulated the impact of what Nelson Mandela was able to do. He made people understand that they had to move on, and that they had to do so without recrimination and without looking back.

I have the privilege of being the Chair of the International Development Committee and in that capacity I have travelled all over Africa in the past few years. Let us be clear: Mandela’s dream has by no means been fulfilled across Africa, which is riddled with conflict. Sadly, more often than not, those conflicts are between black and black, rather than the civil war between the races that many people feared. I am certain that Mandela’s wisdom and advice are still relevant. People have to be able to move forward, to work together, to embrace their enemies and to start to think about a different set of values.

After President de Klerk had given his undertaking that he would move forward to create majority rule in South Africa, he came to London to speak at the South African embassy. Members of the House were invited to attend. Very few did, but I chose to do so. The demonstration outside the embassy was still going on at the time, and I was heckled and harassed for having the audacity to go to listen to that speech. All I wanted to do was hear from the man himself just how genuinely committed he was to the promises and pledges he had made. I make no apology for going, and I have no regrets, because the results now speak for themselves.

At the end of that Select Committee visit to South Africa, we were about to leave Johannesburg to come back to the United Kingdom when we happened to bump into Joe Slovo in the airport lounge. He was terminally ill with cancer, but he was still working as a housing Minister. I told him that we had met Nelson Mandela and that I had seen and heard many things that had impressed me. I said I was impressed by how the country was determined to move forward as a rainbow nation of people who wanted to work together to put the past behind them and to go forward together as one nation. Joe Slovo said to me, “We won’t forgive, we can never forget, but you won’t build a new nation on bitterness and revenge.” That seemed to me fundamentally to sum up what Nelson Mandela had achieved: only when people can move forward, embrace the future and turn their back on the divisions of the past, can they face the world and claim that they have delivered freedom. There is a long way to go—it is still a long walk—but, without Nelson Mandela, perhaps the first step would not have been taken.