Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Today in the Chamber, and over the past few days, we have heard many moving tributes to Nelson Mandela from across the world. We have heard about his amazing humanity in spite of his 27-year imprisonment, his humility in spite of his extraordinary leadership qualities and worldwide stature, and his forgiveness for and reconciliation with those who prosecuted and imprisoned him. Those are the qualities that we remember and revere.

Those of us of my generation who were at university in the ’70s first heard of Nelson Mandela through the Anti-Apartheid Movement. That is in contrast with the fact that in 2005, my niece became a member of a class and a house named after Mandela at her school. In my day, in the ’70s, the movement was still quite frowned upon. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) said, we often wondered whether we would ever make any difference through the various demonstrations and rallies in which we were involved, through calling for trade sanctions and disinvestment in South African, through trying to persuade fellow students to boycott Barclays bank or through looking at where oranges came from before buying them, not to mention through the higher-profile sporting campaigns.

Of course, most of us who have not visited South Africa could scarcely comprehend the second and third-hand accounts that we heard of the day-to-day reality of apartheid—the indignity, the harassment, the oppression, the denial of opportunity, the entrenched inequality, the violence and the struggle.

The most extraordinary thing about Nelson Mandela was his ability and capacity to drive forgiveness and reconciliation. If some Members have found it difficult today to listen to those who they feel condoned the apartheid regime, actively or tacitly, they should think about how much more difficult it was for him not just to show personal forgiveness for all the suffering that he had endured but to inspire others to come together and work together to overcome deeply entrenched attitudes of hatred, violence and the temptation to seek revenge.

The way in which Nelson Mandela went on to lead his country, and then to change attitudes towards HIV and AIDS and work on the world stage, was amazing. He was able to come from oppression to lead constructive reconciliation. The most important way in which we can pay tribute to him is to continue to challenge injustice wherever we see it, both in our own country and across the world, particularly, as many Members have mentioned, in the middle east. We should seek to reach out and speak to those on both sides of conflict, even if that seems an impossible task. The message of Nelson Mandela’s very, very long walk to freedom and his remarkable optimism in the face of tremendous adversity is that change is possible.