Mandela: A diaspora view

"I understand that there are South Africans here tonight - some of whom have been involved in the long struggle for freedom there. In our struggle for freedom and justice in the United States, which has also been so long and arduous, we feel a powerful sense of identification with those in the far more deadly struggle for freedom in South Africa. We know how Africans there, and their friends of other races, strove for half a century to win their freedom by non-violent methods. We have honoured Chief Lutuli for his leadership, and we know how this non-violence was only met by increasing violence from the state, increasing repression, culminating in the shootings of Sharpeville and all that has happened since…Today great leaders - Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe - are among many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison.

-Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (London 1964)

In the eyes of the African Diaspora Nelson Mandela came to represent an image that was “larger than life.” In his years of prominence Mandela represented the deep historical voices of Black Nationalism and the Pan African dreams of a cross Atlantic Ocean connection. Nelson Mandela was a voice for a world wide struggle for African liberation and a global movement that would by 1990 secure his release from the prisons of South Africa.

The roots of the Pan African connection extend well beyond the beginnings of the Pan African Congresses of the early 20th century. These early efforts would be continued in the organizing of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Harlem Renaissance, the Council on African Affairs, and the birth of the Civil Rights movement. As the African American movement increased its challenges to racism and exclusion the voices of Black Nationalism were fueled with the three visits of Malcolm X to Africa, the leadership of Kwame Ture, the Black Power Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the consistent presence of Queen Mother Moore.

Malcolm X emphasized the urgency of a Pan Africanist struggle when he presented his last major speech of 1965 “The Last Message”- one week before his assassination. In that speech Malcolm highlighted the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and spoke clearly on the complicity of the United States and Western powers in the events in South Africa. A few years earlier the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had declared in its founding manifesto that “we identify ourselves with the Africa struggle as a concern for all mankind. “ If there was one African leader that represented that Pan African struggle in the latter part of the 20th century, it was indeed Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

African Americans in the Diaspora knew well of Kwame Nkrumah, the Mau Mau in Kenya, Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Samora Machel in Mozambique, and Amilcar Cabral in Portuguese Guinea. Mandela’s legacy for African Americans was that he was one part of a growing awareness of southern African and the entire African continent. The same zeal that African American communities and their supporters brought to the anti apartheid struggle was manifested in support of SWAPO, FRELIMO, ZANU, ZAPU, and the PAIGC. It was however, South African that was seen as the almost invincible levee that ensured white privilege and colonialism throughout the “Motherland.” At times we chose to debate our allegiances to either the PAC, the ANC, ZANU or ZAPU. At the end of the day our goal was to ensure that there was a victory for African people on the African continent.

It was a remarkable nation wide movement with Nelson Mandela as the “stamp” that reached into churches, labor unions, universities, organizations, and grassroots communities. When we sponsored anti apartheid benefits , and raised high the demand of freeing Nelson Mandela it was in many senses about finishing some parts of a Civil Rights Movements that had been left semi done.

Perhaps it is too early to make a thorough analysis of Nelson Mandela and his transition from liberation fighter to president to diplomat. The liberation that we all fought for of the African continent is not yet in its final stages-either in Africa or abroad. It is not however too early to realize that African liberation and self determination will require much more than timely rhetoric. Its mandatory that Pan Africanists remain engaged with Africa and the struggles throughout the Diaspora with the same principles that we utilized to ensure the release of Nelson Mandela.

Happy 90th Birthday!

*Walter Turner is host of Africa Today, KPFA Radio (www.kpfa.org), co- author of "Africa Libertation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000" and Chairperson of the Social Sciences Department, College of Marin.

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