Tributes to Nelson Mandela

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I certainly agree with the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) that Nelson Mandela would have had a loathing of anti-Semitism while at the same time supporting the Palestinian cause. He would have recognised that the Palestinian cause is another injustice that must be righted at some stage—and the earlier the better.

In paying tribute to this outstanding personality today, we should remember, as he would always wish us to, all those who dedicated themselves to the liberation movement in South Africa and worked tirelessly when they were forced into exile. It should not be forgotten that when Mandela faced a possible death sentence in 1964, seven others were in the dock with him. They included Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, whose son was to be the second President of South Africa after apartheid, and Denis Goldberg. They were all sentenced to prison for life and they all knew before the sentence was passed the sharp possibility that they would be executed.

Others should not be forgotten either, such as Steve Biko, who was not of the ANC but had his own black consciousness movement. He was arrested on a number of occasions and the last time he was in police custody he was murdered. He was beaten to death in November 1977. Others were murdered outside South Africa, of course, including, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, Ruth First, the wife of Joe Slovo. As Members will know, Joe Slovo was one of the leading senior military commanders in the ANC. Like Ruth First, he dedicated his life to a free South Africa. Slovo survived all and became a Minister in Mandela’s Government.

If I may stray just a little from the consensus today—only a little—I think that we should be asking ourselves in paying tribute to Nelson Mandela how it was possible for the apartheid regime to last more than 40 years. My knowledge of South Africa at 15 was very limited. I knew about the war involving Britain that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) mentioned, obviously, and I knew that Africans in that country were not having a good time of it, to say the least. But when I read in 1948 that the National party had won the election, I knew immediately, like so many people in this country and despite my young years, that far worse was to come for the black majority.

Three years after the decisive defeat of European fascism, with Nazi Germany defeated at long last, why, when a regime came into being with a Government elected by whites that was determined to bring about the strictest form of segregation based on colour and to remove the few rights that Africans had, did western powers show such indifference? Later, it was not indifference alone. We know, as was widely reported, how every form of humiliation was put on the majority of people living in South Africa, such as the notorious pass laws, which made their lives difficult from day to day. We know the repression and the manner in which people such as Nelson Mandela and the rest were forced, against their wishes in the main, to take up armed struggle. The ANC, which was established in 1911, was anxious to avoid violence until 1960, but after Sharpeville that was not possible. Ironically, Sharpeville was not organised as a demonstration by the ANC. I remember the reaction of the Labour movement when Sharpeville occurred on 21 March 1960. It was an early Easter, and the London Labour party, for instance, cancelled its weekend meetings and joined a massive demonstration in Trafalgar square. Far from opposing the regime, there was indifference when the apartheid Government were elected. Britain, the United States and most democracies were quite willing over those 40 years, to sell all kinds of military equipment to South Africa and to train its military personnel.

We raised the issue on many occasions in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, before Nelson Mandela and his colleagues were released, and before the ban on the ANC was lifted, and every time we did so in the House of Commons the response from the Government of the day—certainly from Conservative Governments—was “We oppose apartheid”. I do not question that—I do not believe for one moment that Mrs Thatcher was in favour of apartheid. In fact, she would have realised that that was counter-productive. The accusation is not that those politicians were in favour of apartheid—some may have been, but the majority were not—but that they refused to take any action to undermine and isolate the system and see it destroyed. That is the accusation that I think historians will make against those in power. That does not apply only to Britain—the United States carried far more responsibility for keeping the regime in office.

I hope that the lesson has been learned: when tyranny occurs, we should take a somewhat different attitude. I hope that there is no repeat of what occurred when apartheid was able to exist for such a long time. I also have to ask why so many Members of Parliament, and future Members of Parliament, were willing to go on so-called fact-finding trips, with all expenses paid by the South African Government? It was argued that they wanted to see the position for themselves, but I noticed when they came back that they did not condemn the regime, which is an indictment of parliamentarians of the past that I hope will also not be repeated.

Nelson Mandela was one of the great people of our times. He was an outstanding personality, he gave inspired leadership to his people and in his own way—27 years’ imprisonment, apart from anything else—dedicated his whole adult life to freedom in South Africa. I wish only that we could say that Britain played a decisive part in helping to remove the apartheid regime, and in paying tribute to Mandela we should recognise our own faults and limitations.