Madiba was human

A billboard says “Sleep well, father” in Pritoria. Photo: AFP

Dear revisionists, Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view.
You will say that Mandela was not about race. You will say that Mandela was not about politics. You will say that Mandela was about nothing but one love, you will try to reduce him to a lilting reggae tune. “Let's get together, and feel alright.” Yes, you will do that.

The ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela Madikizela (L), and the widow of Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel (C), stand by the coffin of Mandela during his funeral ceremony. Photo: AFP

You will make out that apartheid was just some sort of evil mystical space disease that suddenly fell from the heavens and settled on all of us, had us all, black or white, in its thrall, until Mandela appeared from the ether to redeem us. You will try to make Mandela a Magic Negro and you will fail. You will say that Mandela stood above all for forgiveness whilst scuttling swiftly over the details of the perversity that he had the grace to forgive.

Britain's Prince Charles attends the funeral. Photo: AFP

You will try to make out that apartheid was some horrid spontaneous historical aberration, and not the logical culmination of centuries of imperial arrogance. You will imply or audaciously state that its evils ended the day Mandela stepped out of jail. You will fold your hands and say the blacks have no-one to blame now but themselves.
Well, try hard as you like, and you'll fail. Because Mandela was about politics and he was about race and he was about freedom and he was even about force, and he did what he felt he had to do and given the current economic inequality in South Africa he might even have died thinking he didn't do nearly enough of it.
Just imagine if Cape Town were London. Imagine seeing two million white people living in shacks and mud huts along the M25 as you make your way into the city, where most of the biggest houses and biggest jobs are occupied by a small, affluent to wealthy group of black people. There are no words for the resentment that would still simmer there.

People weep as the coffin of South African leader Nelson Mandela is buried in the compound of his former home in Qunu, yesterday. Photo: AFP

Nelson Mandela was not a god, floating elegantly above us and saving us. He was utterly, thoroughly human.