Mandela praises collective leadership

THE EDITOR: Thanks to Mr Jack Austin Warner and CONCACAF. I cannot imagine anyone in TT who would not have welcomed the presence of Mr Nelson Mandela, one of the world’s most outstanding freedom fighters and  I felt proud that this pleasant giant of a man came to my country. I have never met Mr Mandela in the flesh, but I got to know him well many years ago by reading of the struggle of African nations and Mandela’s role in South Africa.

The South African freedom fighter, as he himself has said, did not take his country to where it is today all by himself, but was singled out and became outstanding because of the quality of his leadership which was the key to his considerable influence on the massive step forward to freedom and the end of the inhumane Apartheid policy of the then white Government. He has served the country and his people well and the new South African Government must now move to the next equally difficult stage of the struggle — economic empowerment of all  its people.

We must not take lightly, the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu when he appealed for our assistance in a new fight. He told us that “fighting apartheid was perhaps the easier part. Now the tough part begins. The tough part is eradicating poverty in our land, to keep every one of our people enjoying the fruits of freedom.” In South Africa today, the wealth of the country is in the hands of a minority of black and white South Africans while the majority remain poor and landless — a similar dilemma is being faced by the people of Zimbabwe and their Government that is fighting a battle that I believe cannot be fully won internally, unless the world economic system is defeated externally in the international arena. Until that happens, eradication of poverty remains a myth and a useful tool for self-serving politicians all over the world.

Though Mr Mandela was not allowed to address our Parliament, I was extremely comforted by what he said at the Trinidad Hilton and the Centre of Excellence. Under the humility of Mr Mandela is a shrewd and selective individual who gives priority to fundamental issues that will help to make a better world. During a brief address at the State luncheon in his honour, he called for gender equality and warned that “unless there is equality in all sectors, the world will not be able to progress properly.”  It brought to my mind, the need for an equal opportunity law that has a longer reach for equal treatment than “gender equality” that is being vigorously pursued by the Ministry of Gender Affairs.

As it turned out, he saved the best for last and in the right place, the Centre of Excellence where in a clever way, he dealt with “leadership” without mentioning the cult of the individual, hero-worshipping and their attachment to maximum leadership. For the benefit of those who may have missed it, here are two paragraphs pf his seven-minutes address” “Progress and achievement are not the result of an individual effort, they are always the result of a collective, where a group of men and women are responsible for that achievement. And, it may be a serious mistake, which can discourage others, to isolate an individual, praise him to the status of a legend, and leave aside those who have contributed to the progress, even more than the man you are praising.

Many of the ideas I have expressed are not mine, they are the views of a collective and I merely asked to give expression to them. As long as you understand that, I will be very happy indeed. If you think that those ideas came from my brains, you may be making a serious mistake. The people who are responsible for those ideas may not like to be known and you may praise somebody who is not responsible for those ideas. Please just bear that in mind.”

In the Mandela style, he was scoring one for collective leadership, sending the message that he was only the head of the team expressing the views of the collective and not the team itself. Is there any evidence so far that we have learnt anything from Mr Mandela’s visit? The new momentum of the tribal tit-for-tat politics does not suggest that. The Mandela protocol debate proves that we cannot truly claim to be an independent nation until we write our own Constitution, free from the trappings of colonialism.

WYCLIFFE MORRIS
Tacarigua