Reply #51: Nelson Mandela, Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer [View All]

[HamdenRice]

Everyone knows who Nelson Mandela is, of course. They may not be aware of the almost unprecedented mix of moral strength, idealism and pragmatism that enabled him to survive being a political prisoner (largely by choice -- he was offered release if he denounced the ANC's armed struggle), and then leading the negotiations to democracy.

Almost no one outside South Africa knows who Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer are, however. They largely are the fathers of the South African Constitution and entire new political order.

Ramaphosa had been a career labor lawyer and union negotiator. After gaining about a decade of experience negotiating for black trade unions with South Africa's biggest corporations, including the mines, and rising to the leadership of its trade union confederation, he was tapped by the ANC to lead their constitutional delegation.

Roelf Meyer also a lawyer and a member of the white, Afrikaner dominated National Party, which had given South Africa apartheid, was the head of one of South Africa's intelligence agencies, and an early proponent of talks with the ANC.

In one of the most important personal incidents in South African history, Ramaphosa and Meyer became close friends just as the negotiations were starting because Ramaphosa performed impromtu surgery on Meyer! Ramaphosa, an expert fly fisherman, was trying to teach Meyer how to fish, and Meyer got a hook caught in his finger, which Ramaphosa extracted.

Despite horrific political violence, endless party political squabbling and eventually civil war, Rampahosa and Meyer remained close and determined to give birth to a democratic constitution.

Interestingly, both of their parties ditched them shortly after the democracy was born -- probably because they were both so competent they were a threat to the existing party heirarchies.