Are We Admiring Nelson Mandela for All the Right Reasons?
By Solomon Gebre-Selassie
Ethiopian Review, April 1996
Since the 1990 unbanning of Mandela’s organization and its allies and his subsequent release from prison, the deserved adulation and praise bestowed upon him is remarkable. Perhaps no other single individual in modern history has earned the respect of public opinion from all political spectrums. Today South Africa enjoys one of the most respected leadership in the world. Through that, the depth and expanse of respect shown to a black man is again perhaps the first of its kind.
Ethiopians, who are aware of these developments, are undoubtedly part of the global public opinion that is holding Mandela in high esteem. For us, as some citizens have previously pointed out, it is an experience closer to home. Mandela was supported by African governments in general and successive Ethiopian governments in particular. Since his release, he has talked about our generosity and his indebtedness. He has captured our attention and respect, I suspect, because he has been a symbol of endurance during his long prison years and has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But our admiration for the man should not be circumscribed to the foregoing. It is not only his endurance that should gain our respect. It is not only his dignified self that should earn our respect. It is not only his defiance that we should cherish.
Equally important and perhaps little known among most Ethiopian admirers is this: Along with other senior members of his organization, the ANC (African National Congress), Mandela has forged over the years a Tripartite Alliance of the most important political sectors of the population. The members of the South African Tripartite Alliance are the ANC, South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). These three independent organizations have drafted a common platform (the Freedom Charter) for a non-racial, democratic and united South Africa. They have struggled in tandem through the mass democratic movements that peaked in the mid-1980s. There is now in South Africa a Government of National Unity (GNU) with ANC and the mostly white Nationalist Party as the major parties.
Mandela has repeatedly stated that he was never a communist. But, as we shall see below, he has steadfastly defended the communists when their common enemies tried to sow discord amongst their ranks. This particular history of the Tripartite Alliance has immense relevance to today’s Ethiopian opposition if it hopes to respond to the wishes of the majority of Ethiopians.
The Ethiopian have stated in no uncertain terms their displeasure with the fractured opposition. Hailu Wondie tells us that our only salvation from the tyranny of a minority dictatorial government is to wage all forms of struggle for a grand coalition elected government. He adds to this by saying that the inescapable duty of opposition forces is to focus on the real issues of the crises, and to have to mobilize and coordinate their resources (ER, September 1995).
Therefore we will canvass the highlights of South Africa’s Tripartite Alliance in the hope that we may learn valuable lessons from it.
Short History of Each Group in the Tripartite Alliance
The ANC: The leading group of the Tripartite Alliance, the ANC, was formed in 1912. Its membership is open to all who manifestly accept a non-racial, democratic and united South Africa. This organization has shown resilience in the face of massive suppression and apartheid savagery. Its capable leaders and members have successfully carried along the long and arduous struggle to victory. After the Soweto massacre of 1969, most members and organization branches were forced to function in exile. The socialist countries, African frontline states and democratic groups in the West aided the ANC in training, financing and supporting the anti-apartheid struggle.
A little after the military unit, Spear of the Nation (MK), was established by the joint efforts of SACP and ANC (1961), the organization’s underground work and military work took off steadily.
The 1980s were a time of unparalleled participation of the South African masses in the fight against apartheid: churches, students teachers, the black police, women and youth took part and paid huge sacrifices in advancing the mass democratic movement. The apartheid regime was unable to govern the country. In desperation, it unleashed unheard of terror.
The ANC’s organizational structure included the youth league and the women’s league. The youth had played a significant role in the anti-apartheid struggle. The league was a training school for higher forms of struggle and responsibility.
South African women had also suffered triple oppression under the apartheid system-class, gender and race. The women’s league provided them an avenue to orchestrate their struggle along with their oppressed male comrades. Finally, through the fruits of its urban and rural struggle, its negotiating skill, the international aid (boycotts and others), and particularly through its ability to prevent a fractured opposition, ANC was able to prevail and wrest power away from the apartheid regime. In 1990, it was unbanned along with its allies. In 1994, it won a landslide national election. And it repeated that landslide in 1995 in local elections, except in the oft-troubled KwaZulu/Natal province where elections did not take place.
The SACP: The SACP was formed in 1921, the oldest communist party in Africa. Formed 4 years after the dawning of the Russian October Revolution, it must undoubtedly have been inspired by the events of those times. The SACP, as indicated in its program, fights for the transition to socialism where, it states, there will not be exploitation of man by man. As a communist party, its main tenets are the dictatorship of the proletariat and the vanguard role of the communist party in South African society. Although, lately, it has toned down its ideology on some of these issues, it is essentially a Marxist-Leninist party. Today, these issues are the main debating points within the SACP.
As a communist party, SACP saw oppression in South Africa as part of the exploitation of global imperialism. Its fight was considered to be a blow at the weakest link of imperialism. Although the national democratic revolution in South Africa is being decisively won by the masses, the SACP will not rest until a high order socialist society is built where from each according to his ability and to each according to his need will be the operative motto.
The communist party has done astounding organizational work to facilitate the work of the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance. Since South Africa, unlike the rest of Africa, is not a mere Third World country, but a combination of First World and Third World features, the proletariat is numerous and strong. The SACP has systematically organized, politicized and embraced the working class in South Africa. Furthermore, because of its advanced ideology, women in their large numbers have been liberated from drudgery and male chauvinism, and assumed important positions in the struggle and present day South Africa. The revolutionary youth of South Africa has also been attracted to the SACP as a school of struggle and emancipation. At the latest, SACP 9th Congress held in 1995, of 600 party delegates representing over 75,000 members, a large number was youth. Nelson Mandela, as a guest of the Congress, did not fail to notice the youthful phenomenon and complemented SACP members on their untiring work.
The most famous secretary general of SACP was Joe Slovo who died in 1994. A little before his death, he wrote a paper titled “Has Socialism Failed?” and unleashed a debate within the SACP, a debate which is still raging. Chris Hani, who in 1993 lost his life by an assassin’s bullet was the successor. Today, the SACP is working in the shadows of the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance. Its senior members are in positions of government in the GNU. Its desire to raise its political profile and campaign for its strategic goal remain to be seen.
COSATU: The Congress of South African Trade Unions is strictly a trade union. As a further assertion of its organizational independence, it has even recently staged strikes against the ANC-led government. The Trade Union has been steeled by many years of labor strikes and work stoppages against the apartheid government. Most of its black members and the relatively few whites live miserably. The ANC-led government promised to deliver within 12 months decent housing, clean water, electricity, free health and some education to the workers. When that did not materialize the workers went on strike.
Now, with a Reconstruction & Development Plan (RDP), South Africa has shown the rest of the world a model of trade union and government partnership. The Trade Union representatives sit with government officials to make crucial decisions on privatization, worker training, and worker benefits. Compare that to the free hand the IMF has in other Third World countries, including our own! In fact, South Africa has said a big NO! to the IMF program.
Our Problems
Now back to our own Ethiopia and the problem of forging an alliance among the opposition. Theodore M. Vestal says that the political opposition parties of Ethiopia have been called a badly divided Greek chorus (perhaps optimistically, he adds), but a better designation for them, he tells us, might be an array of unaccompanied soloists. According to Vestal, we have not yet learned to sing together (ER, April, 1995).
To be fair, the Ethiopian opposition has come a long way and shown flashes of brilliance at forging a common front in the last four years: the formation of the Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (COEDF), the Paris Peace Conference, and above all, the formation of Coalition of Alternative Forces for Peace & Democracy in Ethiopia (CAFPDE) are momentous events in Ethiopia’s recent political history. However, as time went on, instead of coalescing into a solid alternative, the unity seemed to teeter.
I shall leave the supposedly insurmountable causes for this to fair-minded individuals, and instead I will cite two recent incidents to highlight the problem. On December 18, 1995, COEDF had decide to commemorate the second year in jail of its foreign relations officer, Abera Yemane-Ab. The scheduled event included an evening vigil in a December cold outside the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C. Despite invitations to take part in this Ethiopian event, none of the opposition parties were willing to participate. This is not an anomaly as the following evidence will further demonstrate. When the vice president of an opposition party came to the U.S. recently, the COEDF leadership dutifully passed the word to its members and sympathizers to attend their meetings and show support. Despite the denigration and name calling in some of these meetings, the COEDF leadership requested to consult with the Vice President about conditions in Ethiopia and in what areas the two organizations can work together. Although requests were made both verbally and in writing, no response came from their offices.
As a further indicator of our problems, we have not been able so far to energize CAFPDE and get it going again. As Donald Levine states “…It has not proven possible for many elements of the opposition, even when they share identical beliefs, to unite in a common organization and program.” (ER November, 1995)
Undaunted, efforts should be intensified and fair-minded Ethiopians and Ethiopianists included in the search for the formula for coalition politics. Of course, everything is not doom and gloom. There are certain events, such as the recent preparation and celebration of the Adwa centennial by Ethiopians across the political spectrum, that provides rays of hope.
The South Africa Lessons for Us
Nelson Mandela has been requested directly and indirectly to disassociate himself and ANC from the Communist Party. This request is being repeatedly made by the West. When he was asked to break with SACP as a possible condition of the charges against him to be dropped in 1964, he rhetorically asked “which man of honor will desert a lifelong friend at the insistence of a common opponent and still retain a measure of credibility with his people?”
Recently, at a Cuban-South African Solidarity Committee dinner, he stated: “Many countries including some very powerful ones have called upon us to condemn the suppression of human rights in Cuba. We have reminded them that they have very short memories. That when we were fighting apartheid, against racial oppression, the same countries were supporting the apartheid regime.”
It is not lost on Nelson Mandela that the SACP, as a Marxist-Leninist party believes in the right of nations within South Africa to self-determination, including and up to secession. This is not lost on the ANC. Nelson Mandela will be the first one to tell the SACP that he strongly disagrees with them. But, instead of running away and declaring war on them, he has forged an alliance on a broad platform that they jointly share. This is because Mandela has witnessed firsthand the Communist Party’s unwavering fight for the territorial integrity of democratic South Africa. The alliance believes in the human and socio-economic rights of every South African, they subscribe to a non-racial united democratic South Africa. This has formed the foundation of their long-running alliance. Too often, just as some people misstate by saying that COEDF and EPRP are the same, ANC and SACP were also lumped together as one and the same.
The Freedom Charter of the ANC is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. Mandela often gave the example of the U.S., Britain and the U.S.S.R. fighting Hitler. He said: “…theoretical differences amongst those fighting against oppression is a luxury we can’t afford at this time.” Mandela did not deny that he was attracted by the idea of classless society, or that he had been influenced by Marxist thought. Yet, he maintained that he was simply an African patriot.
Today, in South Africa, the theory of ethnic federalism is ideologically defeated, and the attempt by some extremist white sectarians and some Zulu followers of Buthelezi have been totally discredited in their attempt to have separate and autonomous regions within South Africa. The common cry is for non-racial, democratic and united South Africa.
In light of this, our admiration for Nelson Mandela should be for all the right reasons: his defiance of white rule, his endurance in prison, his ability to forge a successful alliance that has gone from an exile organization into a solid and beloved ruling organization.
Do we have politicians of this stature in today’s Ethiopia? If there are, we have yet to see them. Or better yet, as Maimire Mennasemay has stated, the issue of a common united front is too important a question to be left to our politicians. (ER, August 1995). The time may be fast approaching for the implementation of what Maimire suggested by saying that a small group, an individual or individuals not conspicuously associated with any of the major opposition groups (and I will add, having the quality of fair-mindedness) must fill the bill.
Because of the fractured state of our political parties’ unity, we can not demand their substitution with mass democratic movements (MDMs). MDMs are complimentary to the efforts of the parties. In certain historical conditions, such as the banning of political parties (such as in South Africa), they have played prominent roles in advancing the struggle. In Eastern Europe some six years ago, mass democratic movements have rallied the people for democratic governance. This was helped and abetted by the world-wide anti-single party dictatorship movement. Ethiopia’s condition is undoubtedly similar to that of South Africa where the struggle for democracy and unity of the country will be protracted. Because of the level of their commitment, their strategy and tactics, the tightness of their organization (to preempt infiltration by the enemy), political parties will be indispensable in Ethiopia aided by a mass democratic movement that will particularly help in galvanizing Ethiopians who have yet to get off their fence sitting and be counted.
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Solomon Gebre-Selassie is a petroleum engineer residing in California.