His answer was one of the most impassioned responses that he gave. Under apartheid, he said, his whole life was a humiliation. ‘There is no price too high for one’s dignity, because without it you have nothing at all.’ Yes. He would do it all again.
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I was asking the people I love to relive the utterly horrific and explain to me how they felt about that horror, to tell me what it did to them on the inside. To reveal the feelings they’d had to not feel in order to survive. My lack of understanding is a luxury paid for by the experience they lived
Lebo, you’re really more British than African.’ It was an observation rather than a criticism, but it landed in my ears and my heart as a questioning of my identity and my efforts. I detected, or perhaps projected, something else too: the belief that exiles had things easier because they had chosen to leave. It may be that there are people who have navigated this more deftly than I did, without all the pain and anxiety. I wish that had been my experience too.
But from where I stood, it didn’t seem that my dad really enjoyed having me around. Like most children, I assumed the behaviour of the adults in my life was motivated by how they felt about me, rather than their own despair or distress. I know now that the pain of the breakdown of the family he had made sat on top of the wound of being torn from the family of his birth. And to that the brutal aloneness of exile, and it all felt unbearable.
The two incidents brought home to me the meaning of Mandela’s introspective tone. The country was literally on the verge of a bloodbath, and he knew it. He held the key to its stability. Despite his calm demeanor, this must have weighed on him.
He held the nation together for the five years that he was president, guided by the realization that there is no room for vengeance in good politics. It is easier to tear down than to build up. In his one term, he showed his faith in the ANC and the people.
He reminisced about Biko, paying tribute to the role of the Black Consciousness Movement and indeed the role of other political parties in the liberation, mentioning Robert Sobukwe by name. Again, he was so generous in his inclusiveness. The question of his giving the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture came up, and indeed he gave the lecture the following year.