“HIGHER THAN HOPE: ROLIHLAHLA WE LOVE YOU” – AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, PROFESSOR FATIMA MEER, IN AUGUST 1988 ABOUT THE BIOGRAPHY SHE PUBLISHED ABOUT NELSON MANDELA

A LESSON OR TWO FOR SOME POLITICIANS OF TODAY WHO ARE USING THUGGERY AND RACISM TO PROMOTE THEIR OWN INTERESTS 

                      

INTRO:  At a time in September 2020 when many  South Africans are expressing their disquiet about the thuggish and racialist attitude of certain politicians and at a time when politicians have been accused of corruption running into billions of rand, I would like to bring you an interview this correspondent conducted in August 1988 with social activist and author, Professor Fatima Meer. The interview was about the biography she had published on the family, social and political life of freedom icon, Nelson Mandela, sometime in mid- August 1988. The book was titled: “Higher Than Hope: Rolihlahla We Love You”. The interview was distributed by the then Press Trust of SA Third World News Agency to India and other parts of the world.

                                    

                              Professor Fatima Meer
 

                             

 THIS WAS THE ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY PTSA NEWS AGENCY ON AUGUST 6 1988

“I WROTE MY BOOK PRIMARILY FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN PEOPLE.”

The ideals, morals and values that Nelson Mandela stands for and for which he so ardently and tenaciously fought for during the years before his incarceration have in some way been lost and need to be brought back to the people of South Africa.So says Professor Fatima Meer, sociologist and veteran anti-apartheid opponent, and author of a new book on Mandela, “Higher Than Hope: Rohlihlahla We Love You”.

“BUT MORE THAN THAT,  I WANT NELSON TO BE ABLE, THROUGH THE BOOK, TO SPEAK OUT TO THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY. I WANT HIM TO COME TO US THROUGH THE BOOK AND REMIND THE PEOPLE OF HIS VALUES AND IDEALS.”

                                 

  “I wrote my book primarily for the South African people,” Professor Meer said in a recent interview with the Press Trust of SA New Agency.“They have so little tangible knowledge of this great man and his life and I wanted to fill the gap.“But more than that, I wanted Nelson to be able, through the book, to speak out to the people of this country. I want him to come to us through the book and remind the people of his values and ideals.”And, says Professor Meer, at the particular conjuncture that South Africa finds itself in at present, there has never been a more pressing need for this reminder.“I think that at this point in our history, where the townships are devastated with violence, where there is a dominant – although not yet predominant – element of black youth who seem not to understand democracy and confuse it with anarchy, who do not understand authority and responsibility and confuse that with licence and who do not understand freedom.
“Nelson Mandela is needed more than ever.“And since he is still imprisoned, the only way he can come to us and especially the youth is through words.”Professor Meer said she felt the South African Government was to blame for the “moral vacuum” in certain parts of the national democratic struggle.

                          

“The Government is so anti-democratic, so violent, so repressive and intolerant, these traits have become internalised and reflected in a large portion of our population. These people need someone who can get up now and speak out about what real values are all about and Mandela is that person.”

              

                       “DISCIPLINE AND DEMOCRACY”

What emerges from her book, said Professor Meer, was a man who was imbued with a sense of uncompromising discipline and democracy.“Discipline is very important to Nelson. Nothing could happen without there being tremendous amount of discipline.“He also understood democracy better than most people and took it to its furthest extent. He understood it precisely because he was deprived of it.”The book, which is due to be released in the next few weeks, could not have been penned by a more qualified person.Professor Meer, who is involved in a number of community undertakings and research projects, was herself part of the “hurly-burley” years of the fifties and sixties and has an intimate knowledge of the values which drove the struggle then.During that period, she spent time with Mandela, and grew close to his family and in 1976 spent a period of time with Winnie Mandela in prison. Indeed, much of the basis for the book were the many letters Professor Meer had of Winnie Mandela’s which had been left with her for safe-keeping.Other source material were scores of interviews with family members – including many with Mandela’s Transkei family – with friends, associates and acquaintances.

In addition, Professor Meer had the support and backing of Mandela and his family to undertake what she terms an “overwhelming task”.“Nelson once wrote to me, in 1972, and said that he thought that people who wrote their autobiographies were really on an ego trip. I responded and said, well some biographies needed to be written and his was one and I mentioned sort-of jokingly that I would be honoured to write it,” Professor Meer recalled.“Some time later, I got a message from a mutual friend who said Nelson wanted me to write his biography. But it was more of an informal request than anything else.”

                    “MORALS OF MANDELA”

While the primary role of the book is to bring back the morals of Mandela and his era, its main area of focus is the ten-year period of Mandela’s life between 1950 and 1960.

  Part One looks at the roots – it examines Mandela the boy and the Tembu history in an effort to put Mandela’s resistance to apartheid in perspective.Part Two locates him in Johannesburg.“It explores – to the extent that I have been able to explore without being able to interview him directly – his early friendships, his life at college, his life as an articled clerk, his first marriage and the early years of the ANC and the Youth League.“But I am really homing in on the ten years between 1950 and 1960 because his crucial contribution is within these ten years.“I have tried, I have attempted to place Mandela in Johannesburg for those ten years, look at what is happening in the country and see how he involved himself in that.“It is an interactive picture between a man and his socio-political environment.”

                            

                       “BLACK PIMPERNEL”

The book examines a range of historical events in which Mandela played an instrumental role, including the defiance campaign, the treason trial, the banning of the ANC and the decision to go underground, Mandela’s years as the “Black Pimpernel” and finally the Rivonia Trial.“For South Africans struggling for a just and democratic society,” Professor Meer said, “the Rivonia Trial is crucial”.“In his statements from the dock, Mandela offers a magnificent analyses of the entire political problems of the African people at the time. He also explains why armed resistance was chosen.”

                                       

 Another major part of the book centres around the hundreds of letters that flow between Polsmoor Prison and the Mandela family and friends.According to Professor Meer, through the letters Mandela emerges as a very concerned and compassionate man with his finger on the pulse, not only of world and national affairs, but also on those of his family.“The letters make up Part Five of ‘Higher Than Hope’ and what comes out of there is just how he cares for the people, how he cares for friends and what his feelings are about events that happen to his family,” said Professor Meer.“What emerges from the prison is the extent to which he has been able to influence so many young people in his family. To exhort them to go and educate themselves, to get to the university. And he has succeeded.
“Even from the confines of prison, where until a few years ago his family have had a half-image of him through a glass plate window, Nelson has had an enormous impact on his extended family.“And this is an indication of the kind of influence he would have if he were allowed to be a free man.”

      “BIOGRAPHY WITHIN A BIOGRAPHY”

The book also contains a section on Winnie Mandela – a biography within a biography.“The few chapters focus on her childhood and education; how she is drawn into Nelson’s politics and how the state uses Winnie to hit out at Nelson and how she herself emerges out of this as a leader in her own right.”Professor Meer said she fervently hoped the South African authorities would not move to ban her book.

“Each and every person in South Africa, from white conservatives to black radicals need to read about this great man.” – ends Press Trust of SA News Agency August 6 1988