Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I hesitate to rise and echo the tributes of so many eloquent speakers. I think that the one contribution Mandela made that has not yet been mentioned was his founding, in retirement, of the global group The Elders, along with his wife Graça Machel, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson, Kofi Annan and others, at a time when surely he had earned the right to put his feet up and spend more time with his family. He was a truly extraordinary man.

I am also slightly daunted, because I think that this is the first time in a parliamentary debate that I have followed three leaders of my party. Honourable mention should also be made of one of their predecessors in particular, David Steel, who was president of the Anti-Apartheid Movement before becoming leader of the Liberal party. I am not sure whether he would ever admit to having been inspired by the example of the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) when he was in the National League of Young Liberals—it is a shame that he is no longer in his place, because I mean this as a compliment—but the flame that burnt brightly in the movement in his era was still pretty bright a generation later, when I was very proud, as chair of the Union of Liberal Students, to invite Donald Woods to be that year’s keynote conference speaker.

Donald Woods was an anti-apartheid activist and a banned journalist who helped, along with Helen Zille of the Rand Daily Mail, to expose to the world the murder of Steve Biko, which of course denied South Africa another potential great leader. That is a salutary lesson about how many people lost their lives in the struggle and how, when Mandela said at the Rivonia trial that his ideals were ones for which he was prepared to die, that was no rhetoric, because he faced the imminent possibility of the death sentence. How different history might have been if that had been the outcome.

It was one thing to be a liberal and an opponent of apartheid in this country, but it was quite another to be that in South Africa. Alan Paton and the Liberal Party of South Africa were increasingly militant opponents of apartheid there. It was a Liberal party activist, Eddie Daniels, who was the first person Helen Suzman met on her first visit to Robben Island. He famously told her, “Don’t waste time talking to us. Go and talk to Mandela at the end of the row. He’s our leader.” It was an early indication of the extraordinary way in which Mandela reached out to people beyond his own natural constituency and to those from different political backgrounds and traditions in South Africa. Daniels was sentenced to 15 years at Robben Island for violent sabotage, and he served every day of it because he refused to renounce the armed struggle. Sometimes we have to be prepared to fight for freedom.

The Liberal Party of South Africa faced being banned in 1968 for the appalling crime of having party members who were from different races. It chose to disband, rather than accept that outcome. For decades it looked as though moderate voices were likely to be drowned out in South Africa. We had the likes of Eugene Terreblanche on the extreme right and some extreme voices on the other side making it look as though the only possible outcome was a bloodbath. It is an extraordinary testament to Nelson Mandela and the others who led the ANC and other political parties at the time that they managed to achieve a peaceful transition not only to a multiracial South Africa, but to a multi-party democracy.

A few weeks ago I was honoured to meet three inspiring young people—I would like to read their names into the record, because they represent the future of South Africa—Mondli Zondo, Lidia Rauch and Rishigen Virenna. They are members of the young leaders programme of the Democratic Alliance, the party now led by the former Rand Daily Mail journalist Helen Zille. They are too young to remember watching Mandela walking free from prison or that extraordinary moment—I remember being glued to the television—when he stood to be sworn in as President, listening not only to “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” but to “Die Stem”. What a picture of reconciliation that was. I remember fighting back tears while watching it. Those three young people were certainly too young to have bought The Special A.K.A.’s “Free Nelson Mandela” the first time around. I showed my age by telling them about it.

In the 1960s, those three young people would have been called a black, a white and an Indian. It is thanks to Nelson Mandela and the struggle he led that today they are simply called South Africans. It is thanks to Nelson Mandela and the struggle he led that they are free to post pictures of themselves embracing each other on Facebook regardless of race. They are free to take up political causes. They are free, if they so choose, to oppose the ANC Government. I hope that young people like them and the new generation of South Africans remember, and that we never forget, that it was Nelson Mandela and the others who led that struggle who helped to make that possible. Thanks to Nelson Mandela and those who supported him in the struggle, those young people today are simply free.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—