Did Nelson Mandela say, “If the ANC does to you what the Apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the Apartheid government?”
Here are the facts.
In light of the ever-growing disappointment from some South Africans about their government, an old quote supposedly uttered by President Nelson Mandela has re-surfaced.
This quote has done the rounds over social media and has even been published in reputable media outlets. It is commonly used to make arguments around the failings of the ANC government over the last 24 years of democracy.
However, the validity of this quotation is factually uncertain because it has been paraphrased over the years and now exists in variations.
These are the two most quoted variations:
“If the ANC does to you what the Apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the Apartheid government”.
And,
“You must do what Apartheid did to you”.
Fact check
The Nelson Mandela Foundation website has archived the former president’s quotes and speeches for public perusal. A search on the speech archive website for this specific quotation returns no results.
However, this does not rule out the quote’s validity. The Nelson Mandela Foundation archive only includes selected official speeches.
The website states:
“The Nelson Mandela Speeches Database consists of interviews, speeches, addresses, messages, media releases, testimony, lectures, toasts, tributes, oaths and declarations made by the late Nelson Mandela…This is an ongoing exercise as we continually identify additional speeches made by Mr Mandela. Every speech is verified prior to accessioning…This database is a work in progress”.
The origin of the quotation:
Upon further research it has been discovered that this quote is in fact true. However, over the years it has been recontextualised and badly paraphrased.
This factual information is on the accord of issue 134 of The African Communist, a journal published by South African South African Communist Party in 1993.
The journal article entitled, ‘Will the ANC sell out workers?’ (p. 7), details that during an address at the September special congress of COSATU in 1993, Nelson Mandela gave a prepared speech. Upon completion of his speech Mr Mandela put aside his notes and addressed the congress directly.
To much applause from the crowd, Mr Mandela said,
“You must support the African National Congress only so far as it delivers the goods, if the ANC government does not deliver the goods, you must do to it what you have done to the Apartheid regime.”
Verdict
The life of this quote struggles to find validity because it has most probably been passed on through a broken chain of communication. As this was not Mandela’s official speech, there is little written recording of what he had said.
However, the quote must be read in context of Mandela’s full address which was intended to unify the Tripartite Alliance and trade unions before the 1994 national elections.
