Nelson Mandela in British popular culture

Nelson Mandela cast a wide influence over British culture, from the concerts he inspired to flats that Del Boy and Rodney lived in for the TV show Only Fools and Horses

1 November 1997: South Africa's President Nelson Mandela is flanked by Spice Girls Mel B  and Geri Halliwell at the presidential residence in Pretoria, ahead of a concert in aid of Nations Trust
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1 November 1997: South Africa's President Nelson Mandela is flanked by Spice Girls Mel B and Geri Halliwell at the presidential residence in Pretoria, ahead of a concert in aid of Nations Trust Photo: John Stillwell /PA.
In the early Eighties, Nelson Mandela was a relatively obscure figure, certainly in comparison with what he would later become. Having served nearly 20 years in jail, his name was known to millions in South Africa and around the world, but he was very far from being an international icon or even the central focus of the anti-apartheid struggle. Indeed, his status as the best-known anti-apartheid figure had been usurped by the younger, more radical and brutally martyred Steve Biko.
Over the following decade, as the ‘Free Mandela Campaign’ – originally started in 1962 – gained a new momentum, Mandela underwent an extraordinary media transformation, from niche political prisoner to global embodiment of tolerance, pragmatic decency and humanity.
During that time, the Mandela name and image began a somewhat less glorious, but no less intriguing trajectory through the British media and popular culture. It’s a progress that tells us as much about ourselves and the way we react to the rest of the world as it does about Nelson Mandela. Yet the view from the British sitting room and street hasn’t been entirely insignificant in the growth of the Mandela phenomenon.
When, in 1981, John Sullivan chose Nelson Mandela House as the name of the domicile of the Only Fools and Horses anti-heroes Del Boy and Rodney, it was plainly a dig at the pretensions of loony left Inner City councils. This was the era of Labour’s Militant Tendency and the so-called People’s Republic of Islington, when Ken Livingstone’s GLC was still in the process of being elected. The idea that a tower block in Peckham would be named after a Third World freedom fighter: it really said it all.
As if in self-fulfilling prophecy, by the mid-Eighties, there was barely a mothers’ drop-in centre in London that wasn’t named after Winnie Mandela, who with the publication of her auto-biography ‘Part of my Soul went with him’ had become almost as much of an icon as the husband she hadn’t seen for decades; though her stock with well-meaning British liberals plummeted after apparent involvement with gangsterism and her endorsement of the grotesque practice of ‘necklacing’ was publicised in 1988
The large fibreglass bust of Mandela, emblazoned with the words ‘the struggle is my life’, erected by the GLC by the Royal Festival Hall in 1985, was immediately vandalised and eventually set on fire. There were grumblings from many quarters about the prominence being given to a "foreign" (i.e black) revolutionary, jailbird and avowed socialist. But by this time there was a mood among the public that Mandela was a figure to be known about and respected, assisted not least by Jerry Dammers and the Special AKA’s 1984 anthem ‘Free Nelson Mandela’. With its irresistably breezy tinge of South African township jive music, the song brought references to the ANC onto Top of the Pops (it peaked at number 9) – though the Specials’ founder admitted he had barely heard of Mandela until he attended an anti-apartheid concert the previous year.

The Specials - Nelson Mandela on MUZU.TV.
Heard on endless Anti-Apartheid marches around the world, and even in South Africa itself, the song helped inaugurate an era of party-pop-protest that rolled inexorably into Live Aid, which opened the consciousness of a generation to Africa and its problems, and made South Africa’s predicament feel much nearer. It also created the expectation that pop could do something about these things; a rather vain idea, though it was a powerful impulse at the time.
The Nelson Mandela statue at London's Southbank Centre
In Africa itself, the expansion of the mass media was making South Africa’s travails vastly more present; where the country had been little more than a name over much of the continent, now its horrors were being seen live nightly on the neighbourhood television. The name Mandela was everywhere. There was barely singer who didn’t dedicate a song – if not several – to Africa’s new hero. And with the expansion of the World Music market, they were bringing them over here; not least Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour, one of the few Africans to be allowed to perform – and then in a supporting capacity – at the Nelson Mandela Birthday Tribute in 1988.
The taste for cause-inspired mega-events, created by Live Aid, meant that Mandela’s 70th birthday could be celebrated in only one way: with another super-concert at Wembley Stadium. The usual suspects were wheeled out Sting, Peter Gabriel, Whitney Houston (Whitney Houston?). Veteran activist and musician Harry Belafonte gave the opening address, but wasn’t allowed to sing for fear he would cause a mass switch-off among the millions watching on BBC television. That this great global event climaxed with a full set from those masters of suburban sitting-room rock, Dire Straits, seemed anomalous, even at the time. But the fact that Mandela was still in prison and South Africa was far from free kept the mood of self-congratulation just about in check, and, while it’s easy to sneer at the vanity of rock stars, the fact that millions of people around the world were tuning into this euphoric event did not go unnoticed by Mandela’s captors.
When Mandela was finally released he didn’t disappoint. Whatever the moment, he had the dignity, the authority and the charisma to live up to it. The fact that he’s been impersonated by comedians in a variety of preposterous roles, from selling alcopops and ecstasy to reeling around plastered at his own 90th birthday party, is merely an indication of the near universal affection in which he is held. He had photo-opportunities galore, from the England football team to the Spice Girls.
I only ever clapped eyes on Mandela once, at a risible South African-British friendship concert at the Royal Albert Hall, which, for reasons that were never made clear, featured Tony Bennett and Quincy Jones (Mandela should have had an award for the number of bad concerts he’s had to attend in his own honour). Towards the end of the evening, a spotlight swivelled up to the Royal Box and there was Mandela, impressively tall in a dark suit, majestically smiling and grooving easily to the rhythm, accepting the musical tribute and graciously reciprocating – as the Queen, who looked tiny beside him, looked on like an anxious schoolgirl. The man was then 75, his favourite music was Handel’s ‘Messiah’, but his mojo was still very much working.

Generally people don’t groove in front of the Queen. If the Queen grooves, they groove politely in sympathy. Unless of course they happen to be Nelson Mandela.
 
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