Nelson Mandela

Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)]

My Lords, 50 years ago, almost to the day, this House met to pay tribute to a foreign statesman. Then, our tributes were for President Kennedy, a man seen to embody hope and change but whose life was cut short, his promise unfulfilled. Today, we pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, another man who epitomised hope and change but whose life was long and whose promise, towards the end of that long life, was triumphantly fulfilled. Although we are here to pay tribute to his achievements, I know that the whole House will want to send its deepest condolences to Mr Mandela’s family and friends, as well as to the people of South Africa, who have lost their leading light.

The story of Mr Mandela’s life—from herding cattle, to study, to struggle, to setback, to imprisonment and finally to victory—is so like a fable that it is easy to think that there was always bound to be a happy ending. That was not so. For 27 long years in prison, the struggle must have seemed endless and, at times, without hope. However, Mr Mandela did not give up, nor did he compromise his principles, even when release from prison was dangled in front of him. In his resistance, he was supported by many in this country and, indeed, in this House, most notably by the noble Lord, Lord Joffe. To their great credit, trade unionists, academics, journalists, politicians and people up and down the country campaigned tirelessly for his release. That came in 1990. Elected president of the ANC the following year, he, along with FW de Klerk, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Then, in South Africa’s first universal and non-racial elections, he became president in 1994. Macmillan’s winds of change had at last blown through South Africa.

If Mr Mandela’s first historic achievement was the moral leadership that he provided in the overthrow of apartheid, his second was the extraordinary way in which he brought about reconciliation and led his country away from violence and civil war. On his release from prison, he was passionate, not angry, and magnanimous, not bitter. How many of us, if we had been kept in prison for 27 years and been prevented from attending the funerals of our own mother and son, would have had the moral strength and political wisdom to forgive our enemies? That South Africa at last respected the political destinies of free men and did so without a violent revolution was undoubtedly due in large part to Mr Mandela’s extraordinary grace as a human being after his release from prison.

Having become president, Mr Mandela then stood down after just one term—a rarity among leaders from any country. However, the end of his presidency did not signal the end of his work to create a better South Africa. He campaigned tirelessly for more research into HIV and AIDS and for better education and treatment. He named his HIV and AIDS fundraising campaign after his Robben Island prison number and made a huge impact by announcing to the world that his own son had died of AIDS. He used his moral authority on the world stage to persuade other leaders to take action on AIDS, leaving a legacy that will be felt by generations to come.

Mr Mandela’s statue rightly stands next to Abraham Lincoln’s in Parliament Square. He wears a free-flowing shirt; his arm is raised in oratory and open welcome. His connection with this Building is a real one. In 1996, he addressed both Houses during a state visit as president, making a passionate plea for people around the world to work together to build a new Africa; and, in 2000, he returned to be made an honorary Queen’s Counsel under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, as Lord Chancellor.

It would be easy to slip into hagiography in talking about Nelson Mandela, but we do not have to pretend that he was a saint to recognise his achievements and his extraordinary power over the imagination of the world. In his inaugural address as President of South Africa, Mr Mandela said:

“Let freedom reign. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement”—

a fitting epitaph for the life of Nelson Mandela himself.