d like a king
Ruaridh Nicoll
THE gumboot slappers were getting kind of frisky as they emerged from a heavin g sea of leopard and lion skin, root-dyed cotton and bangle jewellery. They we re dressed in white shirts, blue trousers and wellie boots carefully daubed in the rainbow colours of South Africa.
A shimmy here, a shouggle there, then up came the boots and — slap. Around them the harmony: Nel-son Mandela. Then higher, Nelson Mandela. Down again, Ne -elson Mandela, before it rolled away, Nelson Mandela. Shouggle, shimmy, shoug gle.
“I can’t call him God,” said George Mughovani, the Pavarotti of South Africa a ccording to his press agent. “But he is everything to us, he is our saviour.” As if to prove his claim Mandela walked into St James’s Park just as the early morning sun broke through the clouds and showered him in pure white light.
A tree stood in the middle of the park, a London plane tree, its roots still e xposed besides a large pile of earth. “It’s special in a world of pollution,” said Neville Labovitch, chairman of the Prince of Wales’ Royal Parks Tree Appe al. “It thrives, it’s strong, and it’s dependable. It will live for a very lon g time. It is a Mandela tree.”
A crowd, close to a thousand strong, cheered as they craned to see Mandela sec ure it. “This is very symbolic,” said Mandela. “I wish I had the resources to come here and water it every week.” He picked up a spade and attacked the pile of earth, scooping up dirt and dropping it in the hole. After the fifth spade
ful it became apparent that he took the task seriously, no little bit of dust and then l et the gardeners get on with it. When Mandela plants a tree it stays there.
And so it is with the man. Having arrived in Britain late on Monday, he has ta ken London with a great grin and pure, undiluted honesty. In a cynical city th e South African is king, exploding the bigotry and twisted politics of Britain ‘s establishment with sheer force of character. The unpleasantness will return of course, flooding in when Mandela’s plane lifts off from Heathrow. But for
the moment , the boss class really seem to like him.
Once the tree had been secured, Labovitch tried to speak but was interrupted b y the singing and dancing from a small pavilion. The performers came from nine different regions of South Africa but were playing together in a unity that m
imicked what Mandela stands for. Finally the president had to dance, the 78-ye ar-old facing off a man in full tribal costume, ostrich feathers and all. The dancer sto mped and the president gently swayed in perfect time.
A few hundred yards away, 20 hours before, a 6 000 strong crowd had packed the Horse Guards parade for the first glimpse of the prisoner turned president. S
nipers, binoculars hard pressed on their faces, scanned the crowds below while horses skittered on the gravel floor to the the chant of the crowd. “Nelson,
Nelson, Nelson.” In days gone by a crowd calling for Mandela might have expect ed the hor ses to charge, their riders swinging batons. But on Tuesday the cavalry had co me to honour, not to bury.
Still, as the the Rolls-Royce passed the statue of King George and turned on t o the parade ground, Mandela might have looked up at the shooters in the sky a nd thought of Tory MP Teddy Taylor’s comment of the 1980s: “Nelson Mandela sho uld be shot.” But maybe not, it is unlikely that Mandela has ever heard of Tay lor — more interesting men have said and done much worse to him over the ye ars.
>From the back door of Downing Street John Major strode across the ground to m eet the visitor, joining the bright yellow Queen and suited defence minister M alcolm Rifkind.
A cheer went up to meet Major who turned and waved. It was strange to hear the prime minster fted until the force of the roar that that greeted Mandela dro
ve all in front of it. The distinct differences in volume saying all that need ed said of the difference in stature between the two men. As Major stood amid the pomp and circumstance, jealousy must have gnawed at him.
Mandela and Prince Philip walked slowly through the bear-skinned troops of the Irish Guards, their combined age disappearing back towards the charge of the
Light Brigade, their shared experience a mere suckling babe. Mandela didn’t lo ok at the well turned-out troops, just wandered through the line as if it was his duty. It wasn’t, one assumes, his sort of gig.
The crowd was beside itself with joy. “The kids are so excited, so very, very excited,” said Carol Chin, a teacher at Stockwell Park school. “He’s a living legend.” She unravelled a banner her horde of tots had painted. “They wrote le tters, we’re going to try and give them to him.” So it was Mandela and not the Queen they had come to see? “You can take that for right,” she grinned.
The name “Nelson” was handed to Mandela by his first teacher, Miss Mdingane, a t missionary school in Qunu. “Why she bestowed this particular name upon me I have no guess,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Perhaps it had something to do with the great British sea captain Lord Nelson.” It has been a long trip from
the South African countryside to the great offices that surround the towering
column wh
ere Horatio now stands, a journey made by fighting the people that laud Nelson , often in the form of the English government.
Margaret Thatcher summed up her government’s policy on South Africa and its re fusal to impose sanctions on the racist government in 1987. “The ANC is a typi cal terrorist organisation,” she said. “Anyone who thinks it is going to run t he government is living in cloud-cuckoo land.” As yet the only sign of bittern ess that has ever been shown by Mandela is his refusal to meet Thatcher, a mov e that pro voked “black terrorist” shouts from the Tory backbenchers.
It is impossible to do anything but stand open-mouthed at a man who is prepare d to forgive those who locked him up for 27 years, and by proxy the foreign go vernments that did not stand in their way. To see him alongside Philip, the ma n who told students in China that they would develop “slitty eyes” if they sta yed too long, makes him tower leagues above the physically bigger man.
Yet on Wednesday Mandela had nothing but praise for the Queen’s hospitality. ” The hospitality of the royal family, the government and the people of Britain is beyond words,” he said. “I expected a very warm reception — but nothing to the standard I’ve received.”
The serious part of Mandela’s trip was played out in the hours when the presid ent was not being fted by the royals. He addressed a large conference of busi nessmen on Wednesday morning in an attempt to bring more investment to South A frica.
“The central message that I bring to you this morning is that we should build on what exists,” he told the conference. “It is a message infused with urgency precisely because, beyond the profound political changes, the iniquitous syst
em that we set out together to destroy is still alive and well. The poverty, d ecay in the social fabric, and profound inequality that are the product of the past can
only be eradicated with your cooperation.” At lunchtime, in a joint press conf erence with John Major, the British government pledged a further 60-million o f aid in support.
Unlike the leaders who come cap in hand to the cynical governments of Europe, Mandela is asking for an investment in his dream and it appeals. “There is a r eal will and desire in the city to see South Africa succeed,” said Sir Robin R enwick, ambassador to South Africa in the dying days of apartheid and now a se nior member of investment bankers Robert Fleming.
The cool, calm of Westminster Abbey was broken by the cheer exploding from its gates as Mandela turned up to honour the Unknown Soldier. Wearing a stylish g
old shirt, he moved into the sanctury to meet the Dean, Reverend Michael Mayne . It is standard practice for visiting heads of state to lay a wreath, the vis itors’ book boasts names from Clinton to Chirac, but Mayne was beaming. “Of al l the cere monies I have attended this one gives me the most pleasure,” he said. “His cal ibre is self-evident.”
After he had been given a tour and a book to show him the parts he had missed Mandela spent nearly 10 minutes chatting to the people outside. “I’ll see you on Thursday and Friday,” Glen Bushell, a 21-year-old student from Ashford in K ent shouted as the president finally stepped into the car.
Later that night, at the grand state banquet which the Queen, who has had enor mous affection for Mandela since her state visit to South Africa 18 months ago , toasted her guest. “You have provided the leadership and, by your willingnes s to embrace your former captors, have set the course towards national reconci liation and freedom for all the people of South Africa,” she said in her small , high voi ce. Then they clinked glasses. Earlier, she had given him a 1768 edition, eigh t-volume set of Shakespeare, an extraordinary present among the many he has be en receiving (Prince Charles gave him a lithograph of one of his own watercolo urs).
The sun is shining, people are dancing and singing, and Mandela is smiling. As the tour of London continued on Thursday Mandela addressed both Houses of Par
liament in Westminster Hall, an enormous venue that was last used by Charles d e Gaulle in 1960. On Friday he is visiting Brixton to thank the people for the ir support during the long, gruelling years of apartheid. Everywhere he travel s, the bow -wave of happiness spreads out in his wake, engulfing those caught up in the t urbulence.
>From under the monuments of those who fought to keep Britain free, Mandela mo ves, exposing the shallow evil committed in the name of so-called astute forei gn policy. Out of jail and over here, Mandela is a symbol of freedom — and he exists in our time.