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L Dialogue an INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW PUBLISHED by the INSTITUTE for GLOBAL DIALOGUE ASSOCIATED with UNISA L dialogue AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DIALOGUE ASSOCIATED WITH UNISA Volume. 18 August 2019 CONTENTS 1 The Mandela-Obama effect: Legacies, divergences and convergences Bob Wekesa The Mandela-Obama effect: Legacies, 3 divergences and convergences Style form and substance in Obama’s Mandela lecture Bob Wekesa: Researcher, Wits African Centre for the Study of the US Nancy Okang’a and Bob Wekesa 6 One of the major series of events in South Africa in 2018 was the commemoration of Comparing Mandela and Obama’s approach to Africa the centennial of Nelson Mandela’s birth. At the peak of the event, former US president Christopher Williams Barack Obama delivered the sixteenth annual Nelson Mandela lecture on 17 July, 2018. 10 Thousands of South Africans braved the July chill in Johannesburg to listen to the then Mandela, Obama and gender agenda much-anticipated speech. Millions more around the world tuned in placing the Michelle Small commemoration among the mega global events of not just 2018 but the second decade 13 of the 2010s. The Mandela-Obama legacies in comparative perspective and reflections on Obama’s commemorative lecture The Wits African Centre for the Study of the United States saw it fit to organise two Francis A. Kornegay open forums to debate, deliberate and discuss the two giants of history before and after 17 the annual lecture. Indeed, this was among the first public engagements of the then Obama’s Mandela speech: democracy, human newly inaugurated Centre. The first forum, held on 10 July ahead of the annual lecture, rights and civil liberties perspectives Alice Brown was anticipatory in nature, teasing out the potential for contemplating the implications of the commemorations for the icons. The second forum, held on 27 July, reviewed 19 Obama’s annual lecture, again, gauging the appraisal of the event in South Africa and Mandela and Obama in global peace and security around the world. Michelle Small The forums compared and contrasted the combined and separate personas of 22 Mandela and Obama thus providing a canvass for reflections not just on Mandela’s and African media’s discursive framing of Nelson Obama’s traits but what they mean for Africa-US and global issues. The events brought Mandela’s centennial celebrations Nixon Kariithi together a diverse cast of academics and intellectuals to unpack the multiple viewpoints 26 with the understanding that this would enrich our elucidating, extrapolating and Thoughts on comparing Mandela and Obama interpreting as much the explicit as the symbolic themes thereof. The forums cross-cut J. Brooks Spector three overarching sub-themes: the significance of Mandela and Obama for Africa, the 28 US and the world; implications for foreign Policy, governance and diplomacy and The portrayal of Mandela and Obama in Africa and American media Andrew Meldrum 30 Mandela and Obama: the convergences of legacies Bob Wekesa 33 Legacies under siege: a view from the Donald Trump and Ramaphosa presidencies John Stremlau GLOBAL DIALOGUE August 2019 . 1 representational perspectives drawing on media coverage. The think narratives. They go well beyond the Mandela centennial into the pieces in this policy brief are drawn from the presentations made past, the present and the future. Following on their presentations at during the forums. The broad objective is to record, document and the forums, the authors were afforded leeway to approach their sustain the discussion, nay debate on the impact, implications and topics with a style of their choice as reflected in the mixed voices, significance of the legacies bequeathed by these global African differing thematic thrusts and disciplinary interests. In the briefs, greats. The pieces explore the intersections of Mandela and Obama readers will interact with perspectives from scholars as well as as individuals and institutions and connect Africa and the US as well practitioners thus offering variegated windows on the worlds of as the world rather than treating the two in distinct or separate ways. Mandela and Obama featuring personal accounts as well as detached As intersections, a number of the pieces bear semblance no doubt analyses. borne of drawing on the similar if not the same sources and We thank the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD) for making this publication possible. GLOBAL DIALOGUE August 2019 2 The Mandela-Obama effect: Legacies, divergences and convergences Style, form and substance in Obama’s Mandela lecture Nancy Okang’a: Social science researcher based in Nairobi Bob Wekesa: Researcher, Wits African Centre for the Study of the US Barrack Obama has come to be seen as one of the master delivery providing a broad canvas upon which Obama canvassed his public speakers of times. Indeed, his speechifying has been ideological thought. “… Because history also shows the power of identified as one among other assets that lifted him to the oval fear. History shows the lasting hold of greed and the desire to dominate others in the minds of men”, et cetera. office. The structure and flow of the lecture was cleverly wrapped, Closely following the plot of the speech delivered at the sixteenth weaved and mapped around the life of Nelson Mandela, thus Nelson Mandela Annual on 17July 2018, this commentary piece providing turning points, context and themes. In the first phase, focuses on the style of delivery that Obama used during his speech. Obama took his enraptured audience back one hundred years to There was warmth and flow for significant engagement in his words, Mandela’s 1918 birth. It is a period of: European colonial voice and general demeanour. The introductory part of his speech domination of Africa; the building blocks of apartheid are being put was characterized by a sense of humour, gratitude, and humility. in place; the First World War has just ended; exploitation and When beginning his speech, he announced that first and foremost he poverty reign supreme and discrimination on racial, ethnic, class, had “a correction” and “a few confessions” to make. In response to religious and gender lines is the order of the day around the world. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa who had invited him to Obama painted a grim picture of the second decade of the twentieth the podium, he light-heartedly praised his “good” dancing skills but century in which Mandela was born. self-deprecatingly confessed his “poor geography” in not knowing He signalled the transition to the second phase of the lecture with that South African Julys are wintry - there was a burst of laughter the phrase: “That was the world just 100 years ago”. Here, we saw and a bond was established at the outset. Indeed, in many other Obama applying the rhetorical device of contrast between the pre- instances, he strategically paused to absorb the applauses that Second World War period in which Mandela was born and the post- followed from the audience. Second World War in which he came of age. At the outset, he The speech was powerful and persuasive in the use of simple and intoned: “it is hard … to overstate the remarkable transformations evocative language, touching on peoples’ emotions. Obama that have taken place since that time” (the post-World War Two era). achieved this by utilizing a combination of voice intonation and The world is on the march, with “self-determination, democracy and choice of words. In terms of the rhetorical accolades in service to rule of law and civil rights and the inherent dignity of every single Mandela’s legacy, Obama grasped the role assigned him by his individual”. Union movements emerge; health, safety and hosts. It was the celebration of a “life of one of history's true giants” commercial mechanisms are established; access to education is of “a young black boy [who would] alter history” and one whose expanded. “light shone so brightly”, et cetera. The third phase of the lecture, going with the trajectory of Mandela’s He invoked moments in Mandela’s life as a rhetorical devise to life as the basic framework, began with the release of Mandela. At speak directly to the audience about Mandela’s legacy: “you all that point in the late 1980s to early 1990s, the world had made “very remember”, “you'll recall”, “Madiba teaches us”, “he (Mandela) real strides … since that moment when Madiba took those steps out explained from the dock”, et cetera. History loomed large in the of confinement”. It coincided with “the fall of the Berlin Wall” and GLOBAL DIALOGUE August 2019 3 a “wave of hope … washed through hearts all around the world”. just afraid of.” Through words, Obama painted a picture of the Obama implored his audience: “Do you remember that feeling?” current world’s state of affairs, evoked specific memories and in the Rhetorical questions were spewed at the appropriate moments in end presented a vista of hope. Interesting to note is the manner in the speech. Some were meant to make the audience to momentarily which, throughout, he largely posed as a speaker who is merely think. “Should we see wave of hope that we felt with Madiba’s stating facts. To emphasize this, he urged his audience to “look at release from prison, from the Berlin Wall coming down – should we history”, “look at the facts” and “check the history books”. see that hope that we had as naïve and misguided? Should we In parts of the speech, he came out forcefully with regards to his understand the last 25years of global integration as nothing more convictions. “Let me tell you what I believe,” he said to his than a detour from the previous inevitable cycle of history…?” he audience, “I believe in Nelson Mandela's vision.
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