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Former United States president Barack Obama has lamented the “reversal of the gains of freedom and democracy” that has swept the globe and threatens to undermine the work and values of struggle stalwarts such as Nelson Mandela.
Delivering the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Obama said democratic and economic gains achieved in the years subsequent to Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 were slowly being eroded by “authoritarian regimes that do not respect human rights and by global corporations that put profits before people”.
Although addressing a South African audience that had braved the chilly Johannesburg weather to fill up the 15 000 capacity stadium, Obama’s message also bemoaned America’s current administration.
He said an entire generation had grown up in a world that had gotten “steadily more free, wealthier‚ less violent and more tolerant, all real strides made possible by Madiba stepping out of confinement”.
The former American president, however, acknowledged that the divisive forces that had consumed South Africa had “never been fully dislodged and had never really gone away. Because of the failure of government and powerful elites we now see much of the world returning to an older‚ more dangerous‚ more brutal way of doing business”.
He said it was a known fact that racial discrimination still exists in both America and South Africa.
“Today’s society is comprised of political and corporate leaders who look like us but still save the underhanded desires of the very people that struggle stalwarts such as Nelson Mandela fought against.”
True democracy, Obama said, was “being in touch and in tune with life as it is lived in our communities” and not by merely “changing the colour of those that are at the top”.
He warned that countries and governments that advance nationalism and xenophobia instead of opening their borders to genuine migration and globalisation were doomed to failure.
“It is not wrong to insist that national borders matter, but this cannot be a legitimate excuse for immigration policies based on race or religion,” said Obama.
South Africa and the US have in recent years been plagued by incidents of xenophobia, the former afflicted by citizens attacking other African nationals, while the latter has seen a rise in xenophobic sentiments with the ascension of Donald Trump to the White House.
Obama said it was especially in such a global environment that Madiba’s values of equality for all should be embraced.
“We are going to have to work harder, we are going to have to be smarter and we are going to have to learn from the lessons of the recent past to attain true freedom and democracy that people like Mandela fought for,” he added.
Obama was welcomed by chants of “yes we can” – a slogan that saw him ascend to the highest office in America in 2009 and a second term in 2013 – concluded by urging young South Africans to keep believing, keep marching, keep building and keep raising their voices.
Obama shared the stage with President Cyril Ramaphosa‚ Mandela’s widow Graça Machel‚ businessman Patrice Motsepe and Nelson Mandela Foundation trustee Njabulo Ndebele.
Motsepe, foundation chairperson and co-organiser of the event, also stressed that corrupt leaders were enabled by corrupt businesspeople and he urged those in the corperate sector to maintain the values of ubuntu and equality which where prioritised by Mandela.
