The Meaning of Mandela: A Literary and Intellectual Celebration Book

I picked this book up because the chapter on South Africa in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is formed in major part by this book.

The better parts of the book deal with how the ANC did a U-turn from being a left-nationalist organisation to becoming an organisation which unshackled the burden of the left, workers and the poor in favour of big business and privatisation a la GEAR (Growth Employment and Re-distribution). Its a very good case study for how radicalism can become recuperated from the pressures put on them by international agencies and the domestic economy. Maybe everything would have been different under communist hardliner - Chris Hani, but Mbeki's leftist rival was killed by fearful Afrikaners before events could truly unfold. Has the author acknowledges, "if there is a single defining event in the battle for the organisations soul, it must be the internal struggle over economic policy." (Page 165)

The immediate post-apartheid narrative however is the pinnacle of the book. Alongside this there are some good commentaries on AIDS, Mbeki's Tony Blair style of political cronyism, the ANC's relationship with Robert Mugabe and the anti-globalisation currents that are gaining in South Africa. The remaining and for the most part, reoccurring theme is that of a scatter-gun approach which imbues the dialogue with an exhausting hint towards social policy and political commentary which makes for difficult reading.

A book whereby the essays should be selected according to relevance, rather than something to be read from cover to cover.