Andrew Dismore

When I went to pay my respects at South Africa House on Saturday evening, it brought back memories of Anti Apartheid demonstrations I had attended in the 1970s and 80s. But instead of lines of riot gear clad police backed by horses, there were just a couple of bobbies, overseeing the growing pile of floral tributes. The flag of democratic South Africa had replaced that of the apartheid state.

If anything needed to, this brought home to me the huge achievements of Nelson Mandela: the peaceful transition of his country, and the reconciliation he achieved despite all that the regime had done not just to him, but to many other South African opponents of apartheid, both black like Steve Biko and white, like Ruth First, who were murdered long before their hopes and dreams  could be realised, as well as what it did to countless other victims of apartheid whose names are less well known or whose names we will never know.

We all remember the anticipation on that day in 1990 as we waited for Nelson Mandela finally to emerge as a free man, with no compromise of his principles, from incarceration in Victor Verder prison, to be greeted by the huge crowds. How different he looked from the last photos we had seen of that stronger, younger man in his prime after 27 years in gaol.

I’ve been to post apartheid, now democratic, South Africa twice, and despite its many problems, huge progress has been made. Visiting townships, there was a real sense of optimism. I was shown round  the new Constitutional  Court building by anti apartheid campaigner and victim  Judge  Albie Sachs:  the court  was constructed on the site of the  old Johannesburg  prison that had held political prisoners including even Ghandi. This was another sign of transformation, as was the anti apartheid museum, where I was confronted by the site of  the posters I had myself pasted  up decades before.

We have even seen a welcome change of view from  those who did little to combat apartheid in the UK. I remember when I was a young councillor in Westminster, the resolution I proposed to give Mandela the Freedom of the City was  scornfully voted down by the Conservative Party, a Party who have now embraced Mandela’s ideals.

This article is also about Madiba the man, not just his achievements as a leader. In a strange way, it I feel mixed emotions about the passing of a great, and I think the greatest, politician of my lifetime. It is a time not just for sorrow, but for the celebration of a life’s goals reached.  I remember him with fondness almost as if he were a close relative – and in a way he was a close relative of everybody: he was not just the first citizen of South African, but of the whole world.  His was a lifetime of struggle and hardship, but one lived without rancour, one which saw his ambitions for his people start to be realised, with the first free elections under universal suffrage.

I remember not just his achievements, his principled stand and personal sacrifices,  but also his humanity and his self deprecating humour. How he introduced himself at the Labour Party Conference. as an “unemployed pensioner with  a criminal record”, and his  seemingly  never ending smile. And even in retirement his commitment to  keep going at the issue of world poverty when  I saw him at the LSE, speaking on one of his many visits to London.

We will not see his kind again.