Aug 29, 2009

Senator Edward Kennedy, who many were proud to call a friend, cared deeply for this country and took up the liberation cause with aplomb and distinction in the American corridors of power and across the free world.

But it was his elder brother, Robert, who came here first, in July 1966. The two brothers shared the same boyish zest for life, sparkling humour and that inimitable Boston penchant for straight talking.

I met Ted Kennedy for the first time when I was in the US in 1971. The senator, unlike his liberal counterparts here, supported sanctions. He told me matter- of-factly that the South African sugar quota to America had only been saved by two votes.

I replied, “Oh, you nearly did wonders, but please in future don’t do it, because it is going to harm us.”

Fifteen years later, in January 1985, I again met with the senator in South Africa. Times had changed. In the intervening years, his career had been blighted by the Chappaquiddick tragedy and the vilification campaign against me was in full swing.

The senator could not make up his mind whether to meet with me privately or publicly, if at all. A meeting was agreed at the Royal Hotel in Durban.

I spoke to Kennedy of my frustration at President P W Botha’s intransigent refusal to take negotiations with blacks further and why, in any case, serious negotiations were impossible while so many black leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were still in prison. I also told him that I believed that the siren calls for disinvestment were “madness”.

As South Africans, we, perhaps, more than any nation, will appreciate how Kennedy became the Democratic Party’s leading champion of liberalism, focusing his energies on healthcare, education, civil rights and immigration.

As Obama said in his tribute: “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic wellbeing of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.”

I would also add that, until Obama, Kennedy’s conventional liberalism would not have been able to overhaul the Republicans. In the year that he was a viable candidate for president, his liberalism was not a viable philosophy.

So it can be said that in the year of his passing, his political vision has come to pass in the Age of Obama. In that sense, the Kennedy inheritance has been secured for this and future generations.

Kennedy also demonstrated the merits of authentic bipartisanship and the value of friendship across party lines. — Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the IFP (This is an edited version of a motion made by Buthelezi to parliament this week)

thetimes