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Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM |
 Nassau, Bahamas - The
following is a Communication delivered in the House of Assembly on December 18th
by Fred Mitchell, MP Foxhill, and Minister of Foreign Affairs:
I was not here to pay my respects to the memory of our late Clerk Lee Rahming. I do so now. He is from the Valley. The area from which I hale. He is my same age. I was with his mother Ola following his death and with his sister Linda and nephew Tyrone Jr. and all the family. Know that my thoughts are with you even now.
Resolved that the people and the representatives of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas express their profound thanks to God for the life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1918 to 2013, patriot and champion of South Africa, advocate for freedom around the world.
Resolved further that a copy of this resolution duly passed be presented at the earliest opportunity signed by our speaker to the government and people of the Republic of South Africa.
It is a special honour bestowed upon me today to lead this resolution in respect of the life and times of Nelson Mandela.
Psalm 90 says we spend our years as a tale that is told. What a tale we have to tell today. 95 years is by any measure a good innings. The resolution says it properly in that the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and their duly elected representatives give thanks to God for the life of Nelson Mandela. That says it all.
We were privileged to know that he lived and worked amongst us. We are proud to know that having come into this world a humble shepherd boy in the hills of Kwazulu Natal in the year 1918, he left this world having fulfilled all that could have been expected of a shepherd boy with the whole panoply of the state arrayed behind him as he took his final rest in the hills of Qunu. What more could a shepherd boy want?
In our life time, in the life times of each and every one of us gathered here today, I am certain that there are moments in our lives when we have been extraordinarily privileged to have been part of the fabric of history. Some are more fortunate than others but one thing about history is the fact that we are all a part of history and each gets to play a part.
I count myself then amongst those fortunate ones who have been a part of history as it is writ large on the local, regional and world stage. It is in that context and against that background that I speak today, living an extraordinarily fortunate life that caused me to cross paths with some great men and women in my life time, up close and personal. Lynden Pindling was one. H. M. Taylor was another. Milo Butler was another. Errol Barrow was another. A. N. R. Robinson was another. Bishop Michael Eldon was another. Michael Manley was another. Winston Saunders was another. Rex Nettleford was another. Barrack Obama was another. Doris Johnson was another. Beryl Hanna was another. My own extraordinary mother was another.
These were all great men and women and I am sure that if you were pressed, you could come up with a list of people who you consider have influenced the course of your life to the extent that it has enriched your life and made you a better person. Those people inspired you.
I can now add that Nelson Mandela was another.
I met Nelson Mandela in November 1992 in the headquarters of the ANC. I was appointed in that year as the Bahamian representative to the Commonwealth Observer Mission to South Africa. That mission was established by then Secretary General of the Commonwealth Chief Emeka Anoyoko of Nigeria to superintend the process of the transition to democratic rule in South Africa. I was in South Africa for six weeks in November 1992 and for four weeks again as an observer in the spring of 1993.
When the elections took place in 1994, Philip Smith was an election observer.
I had the privilege at that time to work in and around the African National Congress and its leader Nelson Mandela throughout the country, even to the region where we was born, landing many times at the Umtata airport then part of what was called the Bantustan Kwazulu Natal.
I got to see him up close and personal as they say. I got to see him work. And I was able to do something then which I could never have thought possible when I started out in the anti apartheid movement in The Bahamas back in 1978 which was to deliver a personal letter to Mr. Mandela from the Honorary Chair of our Committee, the late Beryl Hanna who was then the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister of The Bahamas the Hon. Arthur Hanna.
Mr. Mandela in turn kindly wrote a letter back to Mrs. Hanna, personally thanking her for her part in leading the struggle against apartheid in The Bahamas, which letter I was able to deliver to her. That letter was framed and I believe remains in her office today at A D Hanna and Co even though both have now passed on.
So today, I am proud, privileged really to be able to stand here and move this resolution because by any measure what we did together here in The Bahamas in the anti-apartheid movement was a good work.
I am proud to show our young boys today and our young girls today that here is a life now 95 years past, that with warts and all stands as a shining example for all people but more particularly for those of African descent. It shows you that you can come from humble circumstances, a shepherd boy, and rise up by dint of hard work, devotion, and providence and make something of yourself. That is Nelson Mandela, from shepherd boy to President and International Icon. I am proud of him I commend the example of his life to you who are younger than I am.
It is the story of the modern era. The modern South Africa. The modern Bahamas. We have told it many times in here. Cynthia Mother Pratt from a one room shack and selling bags in the market to the Deputy Prime Minister. Sir Clifford Darling from Chesters, Acklins who rose up from a barber’s apprentice to be a taxi driver and to be the Governor General. And when he died, the whole array of state officer walked behind his coffin to take him to the grave.
There is Albert Miller who as a six month old baby from remote Long Island was on a ship in the 1926 hurricane and who fell over board and was rescued from the depths. His mother was so traumatized by the event that within a year she was dead. He was raised by his sister and who at the age of 86 today is the Chair of Focal, having been Deputy Commissioner of Police and once Chairman of the Grand Bahama Port Authority.
We spend our years as a tale that is told.
I believe it was in the spring of 1978 that I convened a meeting at the Board Room of the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas where I was then engaged as the Director of Public Affairs. My recollection is that at that meeting were the Member of Parliament for West End, Dr. Sandra Dean Patterson, Vern Darville, Philip Smith, then Chairman of the Board, Beryl Hanna, Marion Bethel. No doubt there are some names that I have forgotten.
It was that group that were convened on the steps on the House of Assembly steps in 1978 who announced that they had formed themselves into a group called the Bahamas Committee on Southern Africa to fight for the freedom and independence of Namibia, then known as South West Africa, Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia and South Africa.
My involvement in this had come against the backdrop of the fight while in university for the Portuguese to give up their colonies Mozambique and Angola in Africa. That came quickly after the collapse of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974. In rapid succession Guinea Bissau, Angola and Mozambique were free and independent.
When we all gathered on the steps here at the House, none of us could have imagined although we hoped for it that within our life time, Nelson Mandela would be a free man and that we see a free South Africa. But we got to see it our lifetimes.
When we marched in the streets, there were few of us. People it seemed did not know what we were marching for. After all, we were not in Africa they cried. The anti Africanists in our midst said that we were wasting our time. When as Director of News at ZNS I instituted a manual of practice which said that every time a reporter called the name South Africa they had to put the word racist before it, I was accused of being just that, for speaking the truth.
We tried to argue that the struggle for freedom for The Bahamas was the same struggle. After all, it was just in 1956 that Etienne Dupuch had to pass a resolution in the House of Assembly decrying racial discrimination in public places in The Bahamas. So we knew the sting of racism in our country. We also knew that it was a truism that where one man is not free all are not free. We also knew that as our African brothers had fought for us we too had to fight for them.
Others joined the fight: the Member of Parliament for Englerston, my late friend Mark Beckford, Rev. C. B. Moss, Theresa Moxey Ingraham and the Elks Civil Liberties Department, Keith Archer, the trade unionist and Bradley B. Roberts.
I would like also take this time out to recognize a fault when we were honouring those who pioneered the way for the National Heroes Day and the 10th January holiday. We forgot at that time to mention the name of Maxwell Turner, the attorney and the father of the Judge, who wrote and attended our meetings for the cause.
I mention Majority Rule Day which we celebrate as a national holiday next year and I mention National Heroes day because as we honour Nelson Mandela today, we honour him in the context of our own struggle. We could not help but embrace him and embrace his cause.
Nelson Mandela was freed on 11 February 1990. On that day I was in Duncan Town, Ragged Island. I was there with amongst others the late Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield in what was perhaps his last official appearance as the Leader of the Opposition for the dedication of the church there by the Archdeacon Keith Cartwright. I issued a statement from there saying how pleased we were by the event that had taken place. Mandela was free. It was unbelievable and once we got back home, to be able to watch it on television over and over again.
Mr. Mandela then began an almost textbook march to becoming president of his country. All the lessons which Professor Martin Kilson had taught me about politics and power at Harvard came to pass just like the textbook. Our own former Prime Minister did the same thing. How to be magnanimous in victory. How to protect the stability of the state by not lurching far away from the centre. He realized that you had to depend to some extent on the group in which the money and the technology reposed in order for the state to survive. It was that model that brought South Africa to where it is today: a confident, robust, well governed democracy.
There are some who would try to sanitize him. I do not. I do not try to canonize him either. We are simply here to present an example of someone who epitomized the maxim which he used: seven times down eight times up. That in the course of your life you could wake up every day with your mind in a fog and say lord what am I to do today but notwithstanding with Shakespeare calls the sea of troubles, you get up and you keep moving.
What we had to endure in The Bahamas for the anti apartheid cause was nothing compared to what the people of South Africa and Mr. Mandela had to endure.
He was imprisoned for 27 years because they convicted him of treason. He was instrumental in causing the African National Congress to take up armed struggle against the apartheid regime. People like Margaret Thatcher condemned him but would not condemn the racism that caused the armed struggle. On 21st March 1961, the South African police opened fire with guns on Africans in South Africa at Sharpsville, unarmed civilians simply protesting the passing of laws that had been put in place by the Afrikaners, the Dutch farmers who colonized South Africa through their National Party from 1948 onwards. Apartheid in Afrikaans means apart hood or separateness. They passed a set of laws to ensure they thought that Black people would never rule South Africa. They took the best land and set it aside for themselves and for white people. Black people had to carry a pass in order to be in white areas and inter racial marriage was banned. Mixing of the races of any kind was banned. People were protesting those laws and were shot down in cold blood for it.
After that Mr. Mandela formed the Spear of the nation, the armed wing of the ANC and it was having been caught in that effort that the famous Rivona trial took place for treason in 1964. He delivered these famous words:
I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against Black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. it is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I prepared to die.
He delivered this speech in the court of his conviction against the advice of his lawyers.
In 1976, the Afrikaners did it again, they tried to force the children of Africans to learn Afrikaans as a mandatory part of the curriculum and there was a revolt in the streets. The children refused to go to school, and again the Afrikaners responded by shooting them down in the streets. One scene on television showed the Afrikaner police hiding in a Caspir and driving down the middle of a group of school children. The children would react to this intrusion and begin to throw stones. The Afrikaners would them ride out of the Caspirs and shoot them dead. Unarmed children. That is what the people of South Africa endured. But they would not be quiet until they got their freedom. We did what we could from this side.
In this connection then, a demonstration was held on 11th September 1981 in Nassau in front of The Tribune. The Tribune’s then Editor was Sir Etienne Dupuch, the very same man who had championed the end to racial discrimination in The Bahamas back in 1956. He was supported and was an advocate of the South Africa Foundation which was the propaganda arm of the South African government. They invited him to South Africa and he took a number of trips there. He became an honorary white during his visits. He wrote glowing reports in his editorials about the progress that was being made in South Africa, but it did the job of the Afrikaner propaganda. It sanitized the racism of the South African state.
In one article, he claimed that Africans had a special biological feature which enabled them to store water in their bottoms and thereby survive long journeys across the desert.
So my colleagues and I decided that we would hold a demonstration to protest this errant nonsense and to draw attention to the fact that The Bahamas did not support what was being done in South Africa.
In a Tribune story of that day, I quote (a statement) written by Athena Damianos and I of course adopt it as my own. There that day was Bradley Roberts, Beryl Hanna, Gladys Manuel, myself, Mark Beckford, the Member for Englerston, Vern Darville.
Sir Etienne was furious. He came out from his office and crossed the street and came and shook Mrs. Hanna’s hand. We called his actions despicable by visiting South Africa in those circumstances. On another occasion, we objected to the late Roy Bowe going to play gold in South Africa in those circumstances.
This is what the Tribune reported:
Observing the noontime demonstration from his second story office window, Sir Etienne left the building and strolled across the street to shake Mrs. Beryl Hanna’s hand. Mrs. Hanna is the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Arthur Hanna.
“ I hope you’re enjoying yourself. I want to congratulate you for being a damn fool, “ Sir Etienne said.
“ At least, I’m not an ass..” retorted, the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife.
But that sort of stuff was nothing compared to what the people of South Africa had to endure and certainly does not compare to nelson Mandela’s ordeal. Losing his wife, his children and not being able to go the funeral. Not being able to see them grow. The indignity of having to break rocks in a limestone quarry. That work ruined his eyes for life.
Fast forward then to the post 1985 period. The African majority in South Africa had made life unbearable for the Boers. The country was on the verge of a civil war, with violence being depended upon by the apartheid state to suppress the will of the people. The Americans got into the act and even with Reagan in the chair, the US congress voted for comprehensive sanctions against South Africa and its government in 1986. They overrode the veto of then President Reagan who like Margaret Thatcher believed in what they called constructive engagement. In other words by engaging you could persuade the whites to give up power.
The problem of the British and Margaret Thatcher came to a head in Nassau in October 1985 with the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Nassau. The same one that members opposite did not want the Right Honourable Member to attend in Sri Lanka last month. At that conference in Nassau, Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister had to capitulate on the issue of sanctions. The Nassau Accords says Sir Ronald Saunders writing just last week in the Tribune and the Guardian, was piloted through by our own Sir Lynden O. Pindling was struck in Nassau at that conference. Brian Mulroney, the then Canadian Prime Minister, who we just met in Jo’berg last week, remembers fondly the work that Sir Lynden did to ensure that the Eminent Persons Group was established; that sanctions were put in place by the Commonwealth, that a thorough visit and examination of the apartheid state was made known to the world. Our Prime Minister did his part. The tiny Bahamas was part of the world wide effort to bring down the apartheid state.
I say this is important because in my life’s work and I believe that The Bahamas cannot stand apart from the rest of the world. In the end, despite all of the social opprobrium against me and others personally, we were on the right side of history.
We marched on Mandela’s birthday. There were few of us but we marched. Winston Churchill Rolle of the Elks used to provide us with a band sometimes. Rev. C. B. Moss was there. But we must give thanks for the late Archdeacon William Thompson who always made St. Agnes Church available for a service of thanks giving for the cause.
The African traditions run strong in our country. It is a real cry for freedom.
And then Mandela was free from prison and what then. I have already said that his was like a textbook walk to the presidency of his country. But that was not easy either. The apartheid regime thought that by letting Mr. Mandela out of prison and they begged him to come out and finally did so unconditionally, that this would buy the regime time. However, the assassination of Chris Hani, the leader of the Spear of the Nation (Umkhonto We Sizwe) and the South African Communist party on 10th April 1993 brought the country to the brink of war. Mr. Mandela went on television to calm the crowds but he told the regime elections must be held and a date was set for 10th May 1994. He voted for the first time on that date. He was 76 years of age At that age he become President of a free South Africa.
In 1992, when I was in South Africa I saw and witnessed firsthand the brutality of the apartheid era state. I was with a Ugandan colleague and were in charge of monitoring a march of high school students in a shopping area in Jo’berg. The students were rushing and chanting and toy toying though the parking lot, when up came a Commander off the Boer army with caspirs and Rhinos and young Boers with their shotguns draw and ready to fire. At first I could not believe what I was seeing. I said to my colleague what we are going to do. He said to me he did not know. I said well surely we are not going to stand here with our Commonwealth flag and let these people shoot these little children down in the streets in cold blood. He agreed and we both stood in front of the soldiers and told them they were not going to shoot anyone there that day unless they shoot us as well. The Commander told us that we must stand down because we were interfering in a military operation. I told them not today. Not today. I asked him. I begged him, give us ten minutes to speak to them and we will get them to withdraw and calm down. He said you’ve got ten minutes. With that we set about speaking to the students and got them to agree to stand down. Later, I went up to the Commander as he was sitting on one of the cars smoking a cigarette and to tell him thanks. And he nodded and said we had done good. Just like that. I had no doubt that he would have pulled those triggers that day.
Mr. Mandela was not a saint. And one day, we were trying to persuade him or at least Chief Anyoko was seeking to tell him that he needed to meet one more time with Chief Gatcha Buthelezi of the Zulus to settle their differences. By this time, it was certain that the ANC was supreme in South Africa and that none other could compete. Mr. Mandela exploded. He wanted to know why he should reach out to this man, he said. I have no reason to. I have gone far enough. In the end he relented and had the meeting. History shows also that he extended the arm of friendship to Chief Buthelezi and the chief served in his government as Minister for Home Affairs.
Mr. Mandela came to The Bahamas in 1993 and stayed at Lyford Cay. He was adored by the Bahamian community. He adored us. He went to Junkanoo and was feted by our own Junkanoo kings Gus Cooper, Vola Francis and Jackson Burnside. It was such a moving moment.
By that time Hubert Ingraham was in the chair and Sir Lynden was Leader of the Opposition. But Mr. Mandela despite advice to contrary from his official minders visited Sir Lynden's home and thanked him for the role he played in the anti apartheid struggle and particularly as Chair of the Heads of Government conference that struck up the Nassau Accords.
Rev. C. B. Moss was writing last week about how the people in the anti apartheid movement were pushed out by the newcomers who were basking in the glow of the man’s celebrity when he arrived here in 1993. He said he thought that he would at least get to shake his hand but alas he was pushed out by new comers to the cause. But he said like all of us that did not matter, we did what we could because it was the right thing to do, not the convenient thing to do.
I remember myself how I was called everything in the book and out the book. Well of course they are still saying it. But I am still standing. Why was I supporting Mandela? Why don't I go and sit down, stop wasting time? And when Mandela landed at the airport, I was literally pushed out of the way by the elites trying to go shake his hand. Later that night I got a call from the late Roger Carron of The Tribune to ask did I think I could get an interview with Mr. Mandela for him. Wonders never cease I thought.
That is the thought I carried with me to South Africa last week when I traveled with the Honourable Prime Minister and the Honourable Member for West Grand Bahama and Bimini. Wonders never cease. I am eternally grateful to the people of Fox Hill, the people of The Bahamas really. The three Bahamian Prime Ministers with whom I have had the privilege to work really for allowing it and making it possible to be a real part of history on the world stage. It has been a great opportunity.
The Sunday before I left, I presented at St. Anselm's Church a rosary which was given to me by the Pope and blessed by him: I passed on that gift to one of my constituents Mrs. Sheila Rolle, a devout Roman Catholic. The Pope said to me: I will pray for you. You pay for me. I was pleased that day beyond measure in a Roman Catholic mass for Monsignor Preston Moss who is my god brother, who is my friend of longstanding, as he announced to the congregation that he was extending condolences to me on the death of Mr. Mandela. He said that he knew that he was my friend and that the loss was not just that of someone on the world stage but a personal one. And later before I left the church he gave his blessing upon my forehead for a safe journey to Africa. I am deeply grateful.
The struggle continues. Mr. Mandela did what few African leaders did before him. In 1998, he said good bye to the presidency and passed the baton to a younger man, Thabo Mbeki who came here on the last state visit of a foreign official to The Bahamas. I know that discussions are ongoing with his successor for own Prime Minister to pay a reciprocal visit to South Africa on the 20th anniversary of the founding of South African democracy next year.
Mr. Mandela did not stop fighting. He had to oppose his own colleagues in the fight against HIV and AIDS. He forced the South African government to provide the medicine and to take the fight seriously. They had refused. They did not believe the science. Mr. Mandela went into an ANC meeting and called out the Council on the issue. He lost his son to Aids.
I think of this today as we hear from some of people who have attacked me in this country, religious and civic leaders saying I am pushing a gay agenda in the country, as they give all the plaudits to Mr. Mandela. He was a great man, they say. I think and say now that it is never too late to do the right thing, to stand up for the rights of all people. These same people who condemn me but now praise Mr. Mandela, forget that he ushered in a constitution in South Africa that is perhaps the most protective in the world, where sexual orientation is amongst the list of characteristics for which there can be no discrimination in South Africa. Mr. Mandela did that. Some in this country would have us go backward.
We must take from Mr. Mandela’s life the need to always fight against prejudice and to rise above prejudice and to fight for tolerance and the rights of all people.
Bahamians are better off because Mr. Mandela passed this way. The world is better off because Mandela passed this way. African people are better off because Mandela passed this way.
The power of the man is shown in this story which I hope causes you to smile.
We were lining up for instructions as to which buses, yes you got it buses to get on to go and view the body of the revered South African leader Nelson Mandela. At the presidential guest lodge, the South African Foreign Minister announced that Royalty would go in the buses first, followed by Heads of State and Government to their respective buses. She said: “Is the King of the Netherlands here?” He raised his hand and stepped forward and was directed to the bus. “ Now," she said: “are there any other kings and queens in the room?” We wonder where Elizabeth was?
I commend the life of Nelson Mandela to the young Bahamians as an example of never giving up. It is a story that you can always look to for success in the offing. We have no choice. Our whole life is have to. We have to succeed. That is the story of Nelson Mandela.
God bless him and we commend his spirit to the ages. Thank you sir for coming our way.
God bless Africa. God bless this House, each and every member in it and God bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
© Copyright 2013 by thebahamasweekly.com
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