The Mandela Legacy - The Repetition of Violence.pdf (original) (raw)

Nelson Mandela was both a man of peace and a leader that deployed violence during South Africa's national liberation struggle. This ambiguous legacy, and particuularly the part which involved the resort to armed struggle, creates a context for the use of violence in the post-apartheid era by certain formations. It is argued that such violence, however, to the extent that such formations eschew other channels of democratic expression, closes downs democratic space and detracts from processes of strengthening democracy. This situation, this article suggests, calls on proponents of non-violence to more assertively and skillfully challenge those who espouse violence, even if it means revisiting and reframing the strategies used by Nelson Mandela.