I am pleased to kick off the New Year with this fascinating article from Philip Grant. Thank you very much Philip for your many valuable contributions to Wembley Matters.
The struggle against apartheid
in South Africa is now history, and a talk at Wembley History Society on Friday
18th January will relate how Brent and London played a part in the
movement which helped to bring about freedom, equality and democracy in that
country.
But is the
Anti-Apartheid story, and that of Nelson Mandela, the key figure who symbolised
the struggle, still relevant today? I would say that the answer is a definite
“Yes”. Many abuses of human rights remain in our world, and there are lessons
to be learned about why and how they should be challenged, and how they can be
overcome.
Visitors are welcome at
the history society’s talk, and I hope that many will come, and be inspired by
it. By way of encouragement, I will share with you a little “local history”
about Nelson Mandela.
The African National
Congress, a multi-racial organisation seeking the right to vote for all South Africans,
not just those who were white, was in its infancy when Nelson Mandela was born
in 1918. He joined the ANC in 1943, while working as a lawyer in Johannesburg.
His active involvement in the campaign against apartheid (the racial
segregation imposed on his country by a hard-line white-only government) often
saw him arrested for alleged sedition, and even prosecuted (unsuccessfully) for
treason in 1956.
After the ANC was banned
in 1960, Mandela went “underground” to organise resistance against South Africa’s
repressive government. Early in 1962, he secretly left the country, visiting a
number of African countries and coming to England in April. It was during that
visit that he addressed a meeting of the Willesden Trades Council at Anson
Hall. I have not been able to find any mention of this event in the “Willesden
Chronicle” microfilm records at Brent Archives, so the only item I have to
illustrate his visit to the borough that year is a photo of the hall.
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Anson Hall, Cricklewood, in 1960
(from Brent Archives online photos, No.82 |
On his return to South Africa, Nelson Mandela was arrested in August 1962, and
jailed for five years, after being convicted of leaving the country without
permission. While serving that term, he was charged, along with other ANC
activists, with sabotage (which he admitted) and plotting the violent overthrow
of the government. Following a trial in 1964, at which Mandela’s defence speech
gained world-wide attention (despite the South African government’s attempts to
censor it), he was sentenced to imprisonment for life.
That might have been the
end of the story, but Suresh Kamath’s talk will show that it was not. The
Anti-Apartheid Movement in this country eventually led to a “Free Nelson
Mandela” concert at Wembley Stadium in July 1988, marking his 70th
birthday. The growing pressure for change in South Africa, from this and other
initiatives, finally saw President F.W. de Klerk lift the ban on the ANC and
release Mandela from prison in February 1990.
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Badge for the 1990 Wembley Stadium concert (from Brent
Museum).
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There is much more evidence of Nelson Mandela’s second visit to Brent, in April
1990, than the one 28 years earlier (with all but a few months of that time as
a prisoner). He was invited to address a “Free South Africa” concert organised
in his honour, at Wembley Stadium on Easter Monday. He came, and gave a moving
speech calling for a continued effort to end apartheid, and bring democracy for
all in his country. This aim was finally achieved four years later.
Front page report of Nelson Mandela
at Wembley, from the “Wembley Observer” 19 April 1990.
Unfortunately, although the front page of the “Wembley Observer” showed a
smiling Nelson Mandela meeting Brent dignitaries, it was another local story
that grabbed the headlines. Brent had planned to mark the occasion by making
Mandela a Freeman of the Borough, but the plans went wrong at a Special Meeting
of the Council the previous Thursday. Party leaders had agreed that it should
be a free vote, but at the last minute Conservative councillors were instructed
to vote against awarding the honour, and the resolution did not gain the
necessary two-thirds majority.
Extract from the scroll which would have been
presented to Nelson Mandela in April 1990, making him a Freeman of Brent.
In an attempt to ensure
that ‘it was duly resolved’ to award the honour to Nelson Mandela, a second
vote was taken, and this time the resolution was passed. However, in order to
stop the Mayor and Council Leader (Labour’s Dorman Long) from going ahead with
the presentation of the scroll and ceremonial casket (which had already been
prepared, at a cost of £1,500), the Conservatives obtained a High Court
injunction, on the grounds that the second vote was void.
If anyone who was at
that Special Council meeting would like to add a comment below, I would be
interested to know what the reasons were for the preventing Brent’s award of
the Freedom of the Borough to Nelson Mandela in 1990.
It was not until June
2013, a few months before his death at the age of 95, that our Council
unanimously resolved to confer the honour of Freeman of the London Borough of
Brent on Nelson Mandela LINK . By that time it was clear to all, from Nelson
Mandela’s words, actions and example, that this was a man worthy of the honour.
Even though his time in our area was only a brief one, Brent’s links with his
name and the anti-apartheid struggle, and the lessons to our community from all
that he stood for, are strong.
Last year, on the
centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, Martin posted a blog calling for some
lasting recognition in Wembley for the 70th birthday concert at the
Stadium, which ‘did an enormous
amount to communicate the struggle against apartheid’. LINK
With the Council gearing-up its plans to celebrate being London Borough of Culture
in 2020, it is surely time to push for a permanent memorial to Nelson Mandela’s
links with Wembley.
Philip Grant
