Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I feel supremely unqualified to speak in this debate having followed people of such great knowledge and campaigning experience in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. I think especially of my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), that great South African Welsh—if I may call him that—internationalist.

The main reason I am speaking is that I promised primary school pupils—my constituents—at Ysgol Bro Dyfrdwy in Cynwyd that I would do so. On Friday I was privileged to take part in their school assembly and to hear their tributes to Nelson Mandela. The thought came to me that many tributes will be televised and many people—the great and the good—will be speaking at them, but there are tributes and memorials all over our nation and all over our world that will not be recorded in the history books but will be equally heartfelt, sincere and well made.

It is fitting to remember those in the Anti-Apartheid Movement across the villages and small towns of England, Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. We have heard the great stories of struggle in London and our large cities, but we also need to remember that through the great grassroots organisations across our country—the trade unions and the churches—petitions were signed outside small branches of banks and people walked from door to door urging a boycott. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), I pay great tribute to those people and to the Welsh Anti-Apartheid Movement and its work in the campaigning struggle across Wales.

I would like to offer a short reflection on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There has been a great deal of talk about forgiveness and reconciliation as though they are natural phenomena, but I do not believe they are. One thing that the great struggle of Nelson Mandela proved was that forgiveness and reconciliation are not just moral or spiritual truths, and certainly not just abstract concepts; they were viewed as an absolute necessity for the change that needed to happen.

I pay great tribute to you, Mr Speaker, for the honesty you have shown in saying that you got it wrong on the apartheid issue. I have to confess that once upon a time I stood waving a placard outside the university of Bristol union against someone who was viewed as a very right-wing member of the Federation of Conservative Students. I could not possibly name that person; suffice it to say that I think he looks rather better sat in a green chair and wearing a tie with the flag of South Africa on it.

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, I fear it was on 23 October 1986; I remember it only too well. I am grateful to the hon. Lady, I am sure, for reminding me.