Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our lifetime, a pivotal figure in the history of South Africa and the world, and it is right that we meet in this Parliament to pay tribute to his character, his achievements and his legacy.

The Union and South African flags flew at half mast over Downing street for the day after his death, and they will do so again on the day of his funeral. Condolence books have been organised by the South African high commission. This evening, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and I will all fly to South Africa to attend the memorial service in Johannesburg. On Sunday, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales will represent this country at his funeral in Qunu. Here in this House, everyone’s thoughts are with the family of Nelson Mandela, his friends and the millions in South Africa and around the world who are mourning him today.

When looking back over history, it can be easy to see victories over prejudice and hatred as somehow inevitable. As the years lengthen and events recede, it can seem as though a natural tide of progress continually bears humanity ever upwards—away from brutality and darkness, and towards something better—but it is not so. Progress is not just handed down as a gift; it is won through struggle, the struggle of men and women who believe things can be better and who refuse to accept the world as it is, but dream of what it can be.

Nelson Mandela was the embodiment of that struggle. He did not see himself as a helpless victim of history; he wrote it. We must never forget the evil of apartheid and its effect on everyday life: separate benches, separate buses, separate schools, even separate pews in church; inter-racial relationships criminalised; pass laws and banning orders; and a whole language of segregation that expressed man’s inhumanity to man.

Nelson Mandela’s struggle was made ever more vital by acts of extreme brutality —such as at Sharpeville and Soweto—on the part of the South African authorities. His was a journey that spanned six decades: from his activism in the ’40s and ’50s, through nearly three decades of incarceration, to his negotiations that led to the end of apartheid and his election to the highest office in South Africa. It was, as he said, a long walk to freedom.

As a prisoner in a cell measuring 7 feet by 8 feet, there must have been times when Nelson Mandela felt that his fists were beating against a wall that would not be moved, but he never wavered. As he famously said at his Rivonia trial, he wanted to live for and achieve

“the ideal of a democratic and free society”,

but it was also an ideal for which, as he said very clearly, he was “prepared to die.” Even after long years of imprisonment, he rejected offers for his freedom until all conditions that would have prevented his struggle for justice were removed. What sustained him throughout it all was a belief in human dignity—that no one is naturally superior over anyone else, that each person has inherent worth. As he said so powerfully when he came to speak in this Parliament:

“In the end, the cries of the infant who dies because of hunger or because a machete has slit open its stomach will penetrate the noises of the modern city and its sealed windows to say, ‘Am I not human, too?’”

Nelson Mandela’s cries for justice pierced the consciences of people around the world.

Let me pay tribute to the Members of this House, including the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), who considered it part of their life’s work not to rest until the evil of apartheid was ended. Mandela knew that there were millions across our country who said no to apartheid in ways large and small, from mass concerts to quiet shows of solidarity. There can be no doubt that he had a warmth of feeling for this country. He visited just months after his release from prison and a number of times in the following years, including the time when he spoke so memorably in Trafalgar square at that great event to make poverty history.

The character of Nelson Mandela was shown not only in the determination with which he fought, but in the grace with which he won. Nearly three decades in prison could so easily have left him bitter. On his release, he could have meted out vengeance on those who had done him so much wrong. Perhaps the most remarkable chapter of Mandela’s story is how he took the opposite path. In victory, he chose magnanimity. Indeed, with characteristic generosity, he invited his former jailer to his presidential inauguration. He employed as his private secretary a young Afrikaner woman who became his confidant and, in an image that is printed indelibly on our minds, he roused his country behind the Springboks in the most powerful gesture of reconciliation.

Nelson Mandela’s Government pursued a very deliberate policy of forgiveness. F. W. de Klerk and other National party officials were brought into his Government of national unity. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to break the spiral of recrimination and violence. Those were astonishingly brave moves. His desperate hope was for an African renaissance, with South Africa at its heart.

In Mandela’s time after office, he showed no less determination in stepping up the fight against AIDS. It has been one of the great honours of my life to go to South Africa and meet Mandela. I remember discussing that issue in his office and hearing his determination to ensure that antiretroviral drugs reached all those in need. Here was a man of 88 who had been imprisoned for decades and missed a lot of the rapid social change that had taken place, but who had the vision to see through the destructive attitudes towards AIDS in South Africa. All those actions were marks of his extraordinary personal leadership.

Today, although challenges remain in South Africa, that country is on a far more hopeful path because of what Nelson Mandela did. Indeed there are signs of hope across the whole continent in its growth, in its emerging middle class and in the birth of new democracies.

Around the world, there already exist many monuments to Nelson Mandela. Just a few hundred yards from here, in Parliament square, the champion of democracy is cast in bronze, arm outstretched, mid-speech, as if beseeching those in this House to remember that democracy is a gift, and a gift to be used well. There has been a lot of debate, rightly, about how to secure his legacy. Surely one part must be to rededicate ourselves to the task of eradicating poverty and conflict in Africa, in which our historic commitment to provide 0.7% of our gross national income in aid can ensure that Britain plays her full part.

Of course, the most important monument to Mandela must be the lessons he has taught us: that there is dignity and worth in every human being; that an ounce of humility is worth more than a ton of might; that lasting, long-term change needs patience, even the patience of a life-time, but that change can come with determination and sacrifice.

It is with sadness that we meet here today to remember Nelson Mandela, but it is with gladness that we can say this: it was a long walk to freedom, but the walk is over and freedom was won. For that, Nelson Mandela has the deepest respect of this House and his enduring place in history.