Mandela, De Klerk and the bird in our hands

Almost every culture has a version of the story of a group of stuck-up youngsters who confront the village sage with a trick. It is the stuff of many a funeral night vigil speech. It also pops up in motivational talks and sometimes in serious lectures. The sage is wrinkled, old and female. Sometimes he is presented in the form of a blind, toothless old man with a chieskop tomato bald head. The aim of the boys is simple: to demonstrate that the sage is a fake. One of boys has a bird in his hands and the test is for the sage to tell whether the bird is alive or dead. The trick was foolproof, or so thought the boys. Should the old man say the bird is dead, they would release it into his face. If he says it is alive, they will squeeze it dead immediately and then shove its lifeless body into the hands of the old man. We all know the famous answer of the blind old man, don’t we? “The bird is in your hands, you have both the opportunity and the power to kill it or to release it and let it live.”

Let us suppose our generation of South Africans were the youngsters in the story. Let us imagine that the wise old man was either Nelson Mandela or FW de Klerk. And let us imagine that the bird in our hands was this country and its present and prospects. Twenty years after the evening meeting of the February 9 1990 between De Klerk and Mandela — the last meeting they had as jailor and jailed — we approach these two founders of the country we call our own.

Imagine us, this current generation: arrogant as we are about our “achievements”; presumptuous in our eagerness to show that and how we know; unbridled in our urge to flaunt and display what we have; proud of our ignorance of the salient lessons of our total history. Imagine us; pot bellies pushed forward, resplendent in our colourful and expensive high-neck shirts and imported blouses; with faces Botoxed-up to hide wrinkles and eye-bags; clad with the famous South African long-nose shoes, wielding our cell phones menacingly. From Thembuland, Vendaland, Zululand, Orania, Ka-Myexe, Sandton, Daveyton, Bishopscourt, Ivory Park and Vryburg, we shall descend on to the homesteads of Mandela and De Klerk. Among us will be the grateful, the fearful, the disappointed, the hopeful and the angry. As the discussions continue we will realise that the grateful are also fearful, the fearful can also be angry and the hopeful are also disappointed.

Upon arrival at De Klerk’s home, we will wish to know where on earth De Klerk got the courage to cross the Rubicon which PW Botha had approached several times only for courage to abandon him. What was it, in the December 13 1989 night meeting with the prisoner named Mandela at Tuynhuys — his first meeting ever with the man — that assured him that he could do business with that prisoner? You meet for the first time, a notorious prisoner — one who has been more than a source of irritation for previous National Party governments — and sixty days later, you unleash him into the country and into the world? The more sceptical among us would wish to know what De Klerk and his cabinet really smoked at the December 3-5 1989, cabinet bosberaad held at D’Nyala Nature Reserve in the then North-Western Transvaal where the deal on the unbanning of political parties and the release of Mandela was clinched.

For some, the bird bequeathed us by De Klerk was dead on delivery. And they will point this out to De Klerk in no uncertain terms. To illustrate, they will quote the crime statistics. They will speak of Orania and what it represents — a sense of betrayal for not only the few resident there, but of millions others who are disappointed enough they would move there immediately if they could. Some will ask De Klerk if has noticed the increasing number of young white beggars. They will tell him about affirmative action and how it daily extinguishes the dreams of millions of young white South Africans. They will speak about corruption and point out the failures of present government and ruling party leaders. They will lament the death — allegedly initiated by Mr De Klerk himself — of the most powerful political formation in white South Africa ever — the National Party. They will touch on one of his own favourite topics — the future of Afrikaans as a language. Sorry Mr former state president, but your recent protestations about Afrikaans being under siege are too little too late, they would say. You put the last nail in the coffin of our beloved language on February 2 1990. Mr De Klerk, what did you expect? You gave us a dead duck right from the beginning. This bird will never fly so say sorry.

I can almost hear FW in that rich and full voice of his. He will acknowledge the problems but he will insist that he would do it all over again for he is convinced that, despite our challenges, we are in a far better place — all of us — than we would have been had he chosen to continue on the apartheid path of destruction. Nor would he think any of the problems cited to be intractable.

When we arrive at the Mandela homestead, he is dosing off in his chair. But the raucous noise we will make in all our twelve official languages (tsotsi taal included) will rouse him. He will typically smile warmly, asking the names of each of us and courteously gesture us to please be seated. In the awkward moment after arrival, after the formalities of exchanging greetings, in order to break the ice, one of us will ask whether he still likes WE Henley’s poem which is said to have sustained him all those years on the island. In his familiar but aging voice, he will recite it to us: “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

Some of us will be impressed, not only with his memory but with the powerful words of the Victorian poem. But not all of us would be. It will be pointed out to Mr Mandela that as young South Africans we are not so sure that we are the co-captains of this ship called South Africa. He would be told of our deep-seated fears that the bird he has bequeathed us is not in good health and our worry that it might not survive. We will compete for time and space to speak to him. Some would talk of lack of leadership — in politics and everywhere. It will be pointed out to him that for all the hype about our emerging economy, it has not produced the requisite jobs and now, there is a jobs bloodbath. Others would talk of policies gathering dust but not implemented. We shall speak of the education system, which seems to be failing us all. He will hear of the toll that the HIV/Aids pandemic is taking — the fear it breeds, the distrust, the deaths and the orphans. Mandela will be blamed for not giving enough attention to the HIV/Aids pandemic during his presidency. Others will allege that his policy of reconciliation has spoiled whites rotten and made blacks self-destructively bitter. While some will bare their backs to show Mr Mandela the bullet wounds after being shot at by criminals, others will bare their wounded souls after being raped and after losing their loved ones. Do you, Mr Mandela, still believe that this bird will live?

Mr Mandela, like Mr De Klerk, would acknowledge all these challenges. He too would be steadfast in his belief that the right path has been followed and that solid foundations have been laid. Above all, he would assert his unshakeable belief in the future of this beautiful country. For him, the best is yet to come, he would say. But he would be humble in his estimation of his role in it. Instead he would shift both the glory and the responsibility from him and his generation to us and our generation. He will quiz us on what we are doing, where we are, with what we have, with who we are, to build a better country. Like the old man in the fable he would say to us: “The bird is in your hands, you have both the opportunity and the power to kill it or to release it and let it live.”