Do the Right Thing!

It was the memorial for Nelson Mandela today. It got me thinking!

In my early teens, I was seriously into Hip Hop and rap! I wore a British Knights shellsuit and matching trainers with the tongue the size of a cow's! Round my neck was a leather Africa and a mini-CD. I loved Eric B and Rakim, Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy. Being a wigga, I even got my strawberry blonde hair permed into tight curles! Unfortunately I didn't look like a Spike Lee character but rather, Ronald McDonald! Well gangsta! No, I don't have any photos!

Before the likes of NWA and Snoop Doggy Dog came on the scene, hip hop was more than bitches, hoa's and the buck! Yeah there was the violent side, but that's because most rappers came from tough communities where serious crime was endemic. But the major music corporations had not got hold and many artists were still heavily politicised. Selling out was not cool! Music was how I came to learn about people like Louis Farrakhan, Steve Biko, Haile Gebrselassie and of course Nelson Mandela.

I don't know enough about the Man.....I'm living in a world where I'm distrustful of the media, one which most people are in it for self-interest or self-preservation. However, Nelson Mandela appears to have been the good guy, someone willing to die for a right and just cause. Even in death, he towers above those who now lead the ANC, having kept his dignity. He must have had some machiavellian tendencies but no one is perfect.

Something that many liberals forget is that people are 'programmed' to recognise and be distrustful of difference. It takes skill and discipline not to show prejudice towards other people based on how they look, their colour, race or religion. In my teenage years, 'tribalism' was very apparent. I was from Stoneybank and we had a deep distrust of people from Pinkie! That sometimes resulted in aggressive name calling and minor violence. But then we joined together against other towns such as the Pans or Big T. It was low level gang culture, which luckily my mates n I didn't get overly involved in.

Apartheid is on this same path as this tribalism. The big difference is that one group has far more power than another and uses it detrimentally to those of another colour. Nelson Mandela committed his life to fighting these divisions and he won a significant battle but not the war.

Some things change us in our lives and my time in Marseille did that for me. When I arrived at my destination, I was alone with my bike, my books and a huge rucksack. The French security guard didn't give a shit and made no attempt to help me find my batiment. Fortunately, a 2m tall black guy came to my rescue....carried all my gear, got me in my digs and then took me to a party. I found myself with a group of crazy Senegalese immigrants playing drums, dancing and eating. They made me so welcome.

Marseille is a city of immigrants, mainly from North Africa. It's 3rd world in many respects and has a high crime rate. It's not the safest place on earth. But I always felt more welcome in the immigrant communities, more so than in native French areas.....People didn't mind that I struggled speaking French....in fact many took the opportunity to practice their English. I was even allowed to try food for free in the little stalls in the Algerian quarter. It was different when I went into a bike shop in the very French town of Carnoux with a bike mechanical issue. I tried my best to explain the problem, but the native Frenchmen in the shop laughed mockingly and refused to help. I had to ride home on a broken bike over a 3rd Cat Tour de France climb and they couldn't have cared less because I wasn't French.

This, I became to understand, is how many immigrants are treated on a daily basis....mainly low level racism. But to suffer it continually invariably leads to frustration, mistrust, divisions and occasionally violence. We see racially motivated rhetoric from many right-wing politicians in the UK because they speak to large swathes of the population who agree with them. Politicians are not a species unto themselves; they are a reflection of the society they live in.

Nelson Mandela was great because he realised that the only way to overcome apartheid in his society was with an open mind and an open heart. Truth and reconciliation is always better than vengeance and retribution. Mandela build bridges over vast canyons, to temporarily unite not only black, white and coloured people but Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Ndebele, Afrikaaners and those of English origin. Of course there is still a long way to go. Mbeki, his successor, supported tyrant Robert Mugabe over the border in Zimbabwe. Current president, Jacob Zuma favours his own Zulu tribe through nepotistic cronyism and alleged corruption.

It is almost inconceivable, that to prosper in such a complex racial and political environment as South Africa, that Mandela was a saint. But he did make a positive difference by making the society he lived in slightly more equal. We should do the right thing, not talking about the black or white thing!