In the late 80’s I was a very politically aware teenager.
But it was more about the miner’s, Thatcherite travesties, the threat of student loans…
BBC coverage of Soweto uprisings, talk of apartheid, of an old chap who had been in prison for some god-awful amount of years because he felt he was equal to white people?
Well. Much as I agreed with them all – wanted an end to this crazy segregation – this appalling apartheid-thing…much as I signed the petitions and wore the t-shirts and applauded the sentiments.
I didn’t get ‘it’ -the bigger picture. Of why it happened. Until (by accident) I saw my own mother standing, staring at a TV set in east Manchester in 1990 and watching Mandela on that Walk….and she was crying and she had never been anywhere near Africa, but she was saying “at last – something GOOD comes of it all.”
That was Mandela. And yes – forget the soundbites.
His legacy LIVES.
Ask the children. But more importantly- do not forget the legacy of apartheid – and of imperialism – in Africa…
