Christians can’t take credit for Mandela

It would seem that, now that Nelson Mandela is dead, everyone wants to claim him. This proprietorial impulse takes many forms, some more benign than others.

There are those who revere him almost as a saint, and others who are more inclined to point out his moral failings. He was a human being, with all the complexities and contradictions which exist in all of us.

Now, just days after this death, the Rev Dr Robert Anderson (Letters, 9 December) has credited this great leader’s beliefs and actions to his childhood Christian education, as if Mandela’s humanist views could only have been forged in a Christian context.

In fact, as Fred Bridgland states in his excellent obituary on Mandela (7 December), he never became a committed Christian, though he appreciated the rigorous mental training which he received in the mission schools, and made full use of it throughout his life.

Dr Anderson conveniently ignores the fact that, before he was imprisoned, Mandela certainly did not preach conciliation and forgiveness of the persecutors of black South Africans – and indeed, it would have seemed perverse for him to have done so.

His long imprisonment gave him the opportunity to study, think, and form his personal philosophy, which encompassed an unshakeable belief in justice, human rights and equality.

These values are not the sole preserve of Christianity, so it is insulting to all non-Christian leaders, African or otherwise, to suggest that they are somehow morally deficient by definition.

It may well be that Mandela’s beliefs had their grounding in the idea of “ubuntu”, a worldview which is imbedded in humanist African philosophy.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a firm proponent of ubuntu, and South Africa’s post-apartheid truth and reconciliation commission, which was chaired by Tutu, would have been underpinned by ubuntu philosophy.

In a nutshell, ubuntu teaches that human beings can only exist through interconnectedness, that we are one common humanity, each of whose actions engenders reactions in others.

Mandela recognised this, and summed it up in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom: “I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.

“A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred.”

Carolyn Taylor

Gagiebank

Broughty Ferry

The Rev Dr Robert Anderson claims that without his Methodist upbringing, Mandela would not have been such a great leader. But this is speculation.

Utterly outrageous is his closing suggestion that “lack of Christianity” diminishes politicians elsewhere. Mugabe, Nguema, Chiluba, Bokassa, Mobutu, Taylor and many other revolting dictators, past and present, were or are Christians.

And what does Anderson mean when he refers to “what is happening elsewhere in Africa today”?

The current pogrom against gay people led by local pastors and incited by US evangelicals?

The persecution of “witch children” by charismatic churches?

The Vatican’s resistance to family planning and condoms, despite over-population and Aids?

The genocide in the most Christian of African countries, Rwanda?

There are good Christians doing great work. But their credit account should be balanced against the debit.

Stephen Moreton

Marina Avenue

Warrington, Cheshire

Will the reputation of Nelson Mandela be enough to prevent civil strife, possibly even conflagration, in the South Africa of the future? It would be unrealistic to think that world leaders attending his memorial service and state funeral in the coming days have not pondered on the matter (your report, 9 December).

It may be that the problems of poverty, racial tension, poor housing and lack of opportunities for the non-white population were simply held in abeyance during his time in office.

Most of the world was grateful enough that he has established the principle of equality for all the races in that troubled land.

But the underlying problems of crime, corruption, disease, a lack of jobs in many areas, remained and needed a long-term strategy, not the illusion of a quick fix.

The most direct European parallel for all this lies in the Balkans, and the former Yugoslavia. The death of President Josip Broz Tito in 1980 was followed a decade later by the break-up of the federation and resumption of strife between Croat, Serb and Muslim.

Some of the dreadful ghosts of Europe’s past stalked the newly independent countries until at last United Nations intervention secured a semblance of peace.

Of course, a direct comparison between Mandela and Tito would be simplistic.

The Yugoslav leader held the nation together by developing a reputation as a world statesman, projecting a third way for international development; his domestic methods were sometimes totalitarian, some minorities were persecuted by him, but he tried to introduce a more modern face to communism.

He kept ethnic tensions in check but it needed a charismatic leader to do so. Mandela will be remembered simply because he was the symbol of the worldwide campaign to end an odious apartheid.

But he too needed charisma to do that even through the long years of his imprisonment. Nobody can quite replace him, but world leaders need to be watchful that his passing does not in time create another 1990s Balkans that could reduce his legacy to rubble.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes