Nelson Mandela: postcolonial thinker, postmodern icon, modern world leader

从他早年作为一名反种族隔离律师和拳击家兼革命家，到他在卸任总统后在消除全球贫困和提高本国对艾滋病的认识方面取得的成就，纳尔逊·曼德拉不仅成功地不断重塑了他的社会正义思想和广泛的教会政治斗争，而且还塑造了他的社会对自身的理解，以及世界对非洲的看法。该研究项目表明，这一政治和文化成就代表了一种“行动理论”，创造性地动员、改编、扩展，在某些情况下重振了现在被称为后殖民主义的核心概念：主动与被动抵抗并存；彩虹或混合身份；以及一种新的或重新定义的人文主义。背景：迄今为止，吉洛尼奥、迈尔、桑普森、洛奇等人对曼德拉的研究无一例外地严格按照传记、时间和经验的术语来对待他的职业生涯，这种方式往往与他作为南非国父的自我表现明显重合。更多针对他1994年后的新自由主义的怀疑论，比如亚历山大或布鲁图斯的那些，同样没有表现出将他的政治视为一个完整的伦理体系的兴趣。最近的后殖民批评工作探索了反殖民抵抗和后殖民思想之间的关系。这项研究将扩大这类辩论的范围。目的和目标：具有讽刺意味的是，曼德拉的政治“哲学”虽然具有影响力，但却以支离破碎和不确定的形式存在：在1964年前和1990年后的演讲、采访和公报中；在零星的监狱著作中；在他(虚构的)自传《走向自由的漫漫长路》中。虽然与甘地主义相比，很难谈到曼德拉主义，但研究的关键任务将是从这些不同的、不同的说法和实践成就中收集他的政治道德的核心戒律。目标是从他的传记和后殖民理论的几个主题标题下分析他的折衷方法。潜在的应用和好处：曼德拉作为一名政治领导人在国家和国际舞台上的贡献，尽管他有广泛的影响力和声誉，但作为独立后的一套伦理或一种哲学，人们仍然很少被理解。这本书将解决这一疏忽，建议后殖民主义的核心批评概念本身需要根据曼德拉既是非洲主义又是多元文化主义的成就进行修改。这项研究将史无前例地证明，正是因为缺乏连贯的哲学，曼德拉才有了变色龙般的政治灵活性，以及他在操纵媒体形象(他的国家、非洲社会等)方面的多才多艺。此外，他的折衷主义使他能够追求后殖民国家建设的创新模式。一方面，作为一个民族主义者，曼德拉将非洲传统的方方面面与殖民现代性结合在一起，将它们描绘为既现代又独特和本土化的(就像他的理性主义共识建立一样)。然而，另一方面，在90后，他一直担心掌握现代技术，以便对抗那些声称这些技术起源于西方的人。近年来，对于一些西方世界领导人和本国人民来说，他已经成为一块屏幕，一系列不同的道德和政治十字军运动投射到屏幕上。然而，在整个过程中，他一直保持并坚定地主张，社区(‘Ubuntu’)、同志情谊和‘良心的统一’的相互关联的价值观。总体而言，从英国读者和国际读者的角度来看，这本书将带来对后殖民领导和独立以及跨国和多文化身份的新理解。

From his early years as an anti-apartheid lawyer and pugilist-revolutionary, to his recent post-presidential achievements in fighting global poverty and raising AIDS-awareness in his country, Nelson Mandela has succeeded not only in ceaselessly reinventing his ideas of social justice and broad-church political struggle, but also in shaping his society's understanding of itself, as well as the world's perception of Africa. This political and cultural achievement, the research project suggests, represents a form of 'theory-in-action', which has creatively mobilised, adapted, extended, and in some cases reanimated the core-concepts of what is now termed post colonialism: amongst others, active alongside passive resistance; rainbow or mixed identity; and a new or redefined humanism.Context: Studies of Mandela to date, by Guiloineau, Meer, Sampson, Lodge, amongst others, tend without exception to approach his career in strictly biographical, chronological and empirical terms, in ways that often markedly coincide with his own self-representation as South African father of the nation. More sceptical accounts, which target his post-1994 neo­ liberalism, such as those by Alexander or Brutus, have likewise shown little interest in looking at his politics as an integrated ethical system. Recent work in postcolonial criticism has explored the relation between anti-colonial resistance and postcolonial thought. This study will extend the parameters of such debate.Aims and objectives: Ironically, Mandela's political 'philosophy', influential though it has been, exists in fragmentary and inconclusive form: in speeches, interviews and communiques both pre-1964 and post-1990; in scattered prison writings; in his (ghosted) autobiography, 'Long Walk to Freedom'. While acknowledging that it is difficult to speak of 'Mandelaism', in contrast with Gandhism, the key task of the research will be to glean from these diverse and divergent statements and practical achievements the core precepts of his political morality. The objective will be to analyse his eclectic approach under a number of themed headings, derived both from his biography, and from postcolonial theory.Potential applications and benefits: Mandela's contribution as a political leader, on both the national and the international stage, remains poorly understood as a post-independence set of ethics or philosophy-of-a-kind despite his wide influence and reputation. This book will address this oversight by suggesting that post colonialism's central critical concepts themselves demand modification in the light of Mandela's at once Africanist yet multiculturalist achievements. The study will make the unprecedented case that it is precisely the absence of a coherent philosophy that has given Mandela his chameleon-like political flexibility and his versatility in manipulating media images (of his country, African society, etc.). Moreover, his eclecticism has allowed him to pursue innovative modes of postcolonial nation-building. On the one hand, Mandela has as a nationalist intercalated aspects of African tradition with colonial modernity by representing these as already modern and yet as unique and native (as in his rationalistic building of consensus). Yet, on the other hand, post-1990, he has been concerned to seize hold of modern technologies in order, if anything, to outface those who would possessively claim these as western in origin. In recent years he has become for some- western world leaders as well as his own people- a screen on to which a range of different moral and political crusades has been projected. Yet throughout he has retained, and robustly asserted, the interlocking values of community ('Ubuntu'), comradeship and a 'unity of conscience'. In general, from the point of view of its British and its international readerships, the book will bring a fresh understanding of postcolonial leadership and independence, as well as of transnational and multicultural identity.