Nelson Mandela died in December 2013 but he had long before been canonised as a secular saint. Many people \u2013 particularly on the political right \u2013 found it convenient to forget that for decades they had regarded him as a terrorist. He had become the world\u2019s grandad: an icon of spiritual generosity and reconciliation.<\/p>\n
This three-part series directed by James Rogan ends in 1994, when Mandela became president of South Africa and that process of sanctification was under way. It\u2019s gripping, it\u2019s revelatory and it pulls no punches. It evokes the grim reality faced by Mandela and his allies during their decades-long struggle against apartheid. It\u2019s a world of white South Africans suggesting their Black compatriots had \u201conly just come down from the trees\u201d. Of British young Conservatives<\/a> with their \u201cHang Nelson Mandela\u201d posters. Of physical violence, emotional torment and awful economic unfairness.<\/p>\n It tells a sprawling story with many moving parts, both inside and outside South Africa. Mandela is mostly present as a looming absence \u2013 he is central to the narrative and yet, as a prisoner, aside from it. His half-life on Robben Island becomes a framing device, as an array of characters \u2013 lawyers and activists; journalists and judges; politicians and pop stars \u2013 are pulled into his slipstream. As Dali Tambo, the son of former African National Congress (ANC) leader Oliver, says: \u201cHe became more than himself.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mandela and other ANC leaders languished in captivity, the series tracks the diasporic face of the resistance. Musicians Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela went into exile abroad but relentlessly spread the word. Via disrupted sporting events and street protests, the likes of Peter Hain engaged in activism in Britain. Inside South Africa, ANC fighters, such as James Mange were at the sharp end. Mange eventually ended up on Robben Island, where Mandela was startled by the movement\u2019s new militancy.<\/p>\n Ndileka Mandela gives personal insights into her grandfather Nelson and grandmother Winnie in the documentary. Photograph: Rogan Productions<\/p>\n But events recorded in history books are barely half the story. This telling brutally emphasises the personal cost of Mandela\u2019s resistance. He lost his mother and son in consecutive years and mourned them remotely. His wife Winnie, meanwhile, is a complex figure about whom the series is wisely nonjudgmental. If, eventually, her radicalism became incompatible with her husband\u2019s gentle pragmatism, it is made clear that she had every justification for her rage. Over the years, we see her harden, and no wonder. She was physically and mentally tormented by the South African authorities. She was forcibly moved to a town full of racist white Afrikaners. Her house was burned down. \u201cMy grandfather was insulated by prison,\u201d says Nelson\u2019s granddaughter Ndileka Mandela. \u201cShe was in the eye of the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n The case of Winnie Mandela becomes a metaphor for the wider dilemmas Nelson Mandela faced. There\u2019s an enlightening explanation of the philosophy of Ubuntu, which is rooted in various African tribes. It translates as \u201cI am because you are\u201d. It expresses intertwined humanity and is anathema to apartheid. But, as violence escalated through the 80s, it arguably wasn\u2019t compatible with the anti-apartheid movement\u2019s wilder fringes either. This was the treacherous ground Nelson Mandela was forced to navigate, and his three-way release negotiation \u2013 with the ANC, his fellow prisoners and the South African authorities \u2013 remains a miracle of diplomacy.<\/p>\n It was helped, however, by a world waking up to South Africa. There will be those who catch the faint scent of white saviour syndrome in the prominence given to the artists involved in the series of huge concerts first demanding then celebrating Mandela\u2019s release. However, it\u2019s hard to argue that mainstream British and American engagement with the resistance wasn\u2019t a significant driver in apartheid\u2019s demise. It\u2019s also surely impossible to dispute that Free Nelson Mandela by the Specials<\/a> is both the most joyous and most effective protest song of all time. Writer Jerry Dammers describes its performance at the 1986 Festival for Freedom as \u201cthe proudest moment of my life\u201d.<\/p>\n By this time, it\u2019s clear that the movement had gathered unstoppable momentum. The reminder of the BBC\u2019s decision to screen Mandela\u2019s 70th birthday concert in 1988 in the face of legal threats from Conservative MPs is poignant in the light of the BBC\u2019s apparent unwillingness to interrogate hard right, anti-immigrant tropes. As Neil Kinnock puts it: \u201cIn the Commonwealth, South Africa\u2019s only friend and defender was Margaret Thatcher.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the flux of the world in 1990, Mandela\u2019s release seemed inevitable at the time. This series shows that it wasn\u2019t, and demonstrates how much could have gone wrong. The conclusion alludes to the Truth and Reconciliation process that took place in South Africa through the 90s but steps away at this point \u2013 Mandela\u2019s post-prison life is worthy of another series in itself. Instead, alongside victory, there\u2019s a lingering sense of loss.<\/p>\n Free Nelson Mandela is nuanced enough to explore activism as a life\u2019s work: a road without end. Activist Barbara Masekela says of Mandela: \u201cWhen you worked closely with him, there was always a kind of deep sadness.\u201d Finally, this documentary suggests that Mandela\u2019s impending sainthood was a product of that. His years of resistance sharpened him but tempered him too. By the time of his death, he had come to represent light. But that was because he had spent so much time in the darkness.<\/p>\n Free Nelson Mandela is on Channel 4 now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nelson Mandela died in December 2013 but he had long before been canonised as a secular saint. 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