When it became clear that there was a stalemate, Mandela opted for negotiations. He did this in the midst of violent conflict, between the apartheid regime and the forces for liberation, in his case the ANC and its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, and on the other side the apartheid forces, primarily the SADF. That conflict and the ranging of forces on both sides was part of the violent history of conquest and resistance in South Africa.

Opting for peace had great cultural and gender significance in South Africa given the scourge of violence that has always been a feature of South African life. It was not part of Mandela’s arguments that this would provide an alternative model of masculinity. But when the leader of the ANC’s military wing advanced peace, through negotiations, it did have considerable significance, insofar as Mandela acted out an alternative non-violent model of masculine conduct.

The overwhelming part of the history of South Africa was that of violence, through which the oppressed majority had been dispossessed and denied rights. Taking up arms was an act of self-defence and honour, but it was nevertheless an act within the understanding that the conflict and indeed the war would be resolved through the use of force, force of arms, not by logic and reasoning in order to convince contending parties.

Brave young black men and women were for the first time trained and given arms in order to defeat the apartheid regime. They had answered the question that the first announcement of the formation of MK had posed, that a time would come when a people had to decide whether to “submit or fight?” This was after the ANC had spent decades exhausting all alternative forms of engagement and resistance.

MK launched some significant campaigns, especially attacks on police stations and the military base at Voortrekerhoogte, the blowing up of Sasol and other acts. Insofar as this may not have threatened the military power of apartheid, it did inspire and help draw thousands of people into various forms of resistance and struggle.

Many were proud and inspired and over-estimated the military power of MK, assuming that the apartheid forces would be defeated on the battlefield. Mandela, like Oliver Tambo and some others knew this was not possible and sought a way of ending the bloodshed by trying to create condition for talks where an agreement could be reached with “the other side”.

The entire history of the ANC had been replete with attempts to sit down and resolve differences peacefully. Much of this is recounted in Nelson Mandela’s statement from the dock in the Rivonia trial and instances where the then prime minister did not even bother to answer correspondence from the ANC are mentioned in his earlier 1962 trial, known as “Black man in a white man’s court”.  In fact, prior to the Defiance campaign of 1952 and on various other occasions, letters were written to the apartheid regime asking for a new national convention or some other form of meeting and these were always spurned.

When Mandela acted to secure a negotiated settlement, he simultaneously broke a pattern that had its own logic. Force had to be used previously and was more likely to work since there had not been space for arguing the logic of one’s position. In this new situation, the logic of negotiations depended on argument, attempts to bridge gaps in understanding, opening up attempts to understand one another’s concerns.

Violence was part of the structural and legal foundation of apartheid South Africa, dehumanising and brutalising the population. Warfare always means attacking what becomes an indistinguishable mass of people, whose individual humanity would be extinguished through bullets. Negotiations opened up a new way of engaging.

That there were negotiations and limiting of the military conflict, did not mean that other forms of popular resistance would be curtailed. In fact, these needed to be intensified in order to strengthen democratic demands.

Whether or not Mandela saw his actions to change the mode of relating to the apartheid regime and vice versa as having a gender component, it did have that. To change patterns of conduct from violence, to sitting down and trying to find common ground, was to take a step towards re-humanising the conflict in South Africa by providing an option other than violence. This is not to suggest that the oppression and resistance had been restricted to armed activities, but that this component on which so much reliance was placed needed to be relocated to the background in order to secure peace, which is a condition for human respect.

In this context, we need to refer again to how Mandela conducted himself in this period when talks started. I have referred to the toyi toyi - a war dance, inciting people to “shoot to kill”, to “hit the enemy” and so on. But when Mandela entered dancing groups, his gestures were inclusive and unthreatening. He suggested a different way of relating to those who were adversaries in his self-representation and in other modes of conduct during this period.

It is not far-fetched to refer to this as gendered, especially because we are talking about Mandela, who epitomised the heroic male warrior, who pre-eminently symbolised the MK leader and fighter, joined later by people like Chris Hani. On this imagery many others had modelled themselves and their notions of masculinity. For Mandela to publicly reconceive how he acted as a man was a complex message to others.

At the same time, in this period some of what had been part of Mandela’s private self became part of his public persona. Reference has been made to his tenderness towards his children. One of the features of Mandela as president and retired president was his obviously unaffected love and gentleness towards children. What we see here is how aspects of his masculinity that had been submerged under the tough image of guerrilla leader and uncompromising trialist were foregrounded, in the context of his changed life conditions.

The Mandela who was released from prison was remembered as a dignified, yet angry man. The Mandela who emerged evoked gravitas. He would often smile, yet the angry Mandela had not disappeared and could re-emerge where conditions made that necessary, when he felt betrayed by apartheid leader, FW de Klerk.

In debates in the early years after unbanning Mandela’s anger was also directed towards comrades in the national executive where he had already made up his mind and others questioned a course of action. He may sometimes have been inflexible, but no enmity remained after these clashes.

In this time when violence is omnipresent in South African society, it is important in the celebration of Nelson Mandela that we do not neglect (as it is, regrettably, being neglected) Mandela’s changing and complex notions of masculinity. That is a model, among other features of his life, which needs to be widely diffused.

Looking closely at Mandela we see the significance of considering the way his conduct was gendered and how important masculinity was to his identity, albeit changing over time. This requires careful examination, especially in the times in which we live. We need to do this with as much information as possible without any attempt to suppress evidence that may be uncomfortable.

Raymond Suttner served 11 years in prison and house arrest. He was in the UDF, ANC and SACP leadership until the Jacob Zuma era. Suttner worked closely with Mandela in the early 1990s. He is currently an emeritus professor at UNISA