‘Where is the Nelson Mandela in all of us?’
ONCE upon a time not so long ago, South Africa’s most powerful currency, one Nelson Mandela, traipsed almost effortlessly on to a stage destined for doom and gloom.
His immurement of 27 years as a prisoner, because of his conscience and the dictates of his heart, belied what he was about to offer to a land that relegated him to an almost non-entity and to pariah status.
Even the most hardened among us would not have begrudged him had he, upon his release, became a vengeful and vindictive being, for such is human nature when a person is unfairly and unjustly denied his inalienable rights to freedom and dignity.
Instead, he consciously chose to dilute what had to be extreme bitterness as he forsook revenge in lieu of reconciliation and the greater humanity that he evidently stood for.
He may have even been forgiven for the venial sin of believing that the South Africa that was to be, was only for “his people” and “his people” alone – due to centuries of oppression and subjugation that was imposed as a result of colonial and racial domination.
That the country was ravaged by serious undertones based on race against which he relentlessly fought, Mandela, being the warrior of his conscience that he was until his last breath, remained true to the words he uttered upon being incarcerated – that South Africa was a land for all its people, irrespective of their hue, creed, religion, ethnicity or belief systems.
Therein, perhaps, lay his epitaph of greatness. It is very rarely in the history of mankind that we have had one person of such calibre that transcended the bounds of human fallibilities and frailties to inflict a sense of humanity on to a world so desperately in need of it.
The raging foe, the belligerent cynic, the obliging friend – each in their own way, subtly or overtly, could not help but respect and admire a man whose devout obedience to his kindly human conscience challenged our very own. But in the end, he did overcome – and in doing so, he bequeathed a legacy that gave spirit and hope to a country for a future that seemed no longer as forlorn or as destitute in hope and faith, as the doomsayers made it out to be.
In many respects, Mandela’s humane philosophy and outlook epitomised the tripartite motto of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”, made popular during the French Revolution by Maximilien Robespierre, and adopted by France and the Republic of Haiti – a motto he took to his grave.
Mandela did not acquiesce to the mediocrity of thought that one can ever be superior to another for any reason, and he cherished this belief to the benefit of an entire country, if not the world.
What then has gone so awry in a land of promise and hope and of great dreams?
Where is that Mandela in all of us and why do we invoke his greatness only as a means of political expediency and not as a reality of tangible action?
The reasons are many-fold and no one reason can do justice in explaining the degradation of a land once steeped in the glory of the whole planet.
In a country where the prosperity of every citizen is inextricably linked, where profound challenges abound daily and where new threats position themselves as obstacles to progress, the talisman that Mandela was, must become firmly ensconced in all of us, so that each and every citizen whose abiding shared history links us in ways we never imagined – as we rise above our petty differences and also overcome.
The current daily discourse with the attendant unsavoury acts of poor leadership, corruption, greedy civil servants, cadre deployment, nepotism and a whole plethora of degenerative acts have become anathema to the “Mandelian” ethos of fair and just opportunities.
The onerous task of friend and foe alike cannot be played in a theatre of revenge and hatred; the aspirations of a generation longing to determine its own destiny cannot be diminished in a laager of the past; the irresistible temptation of the corrupt cannot be left unchallenged and the compulsion to be driven by conscience alone cannot be alleviated by excuse or rhetoric.
This is what Nelson Mandela taught us – and as real patriots who seek nothing more than to live out our lives in purpose and happiness, we are instructed to nidify his philosophy into acts that become germane to the country we want to see and live in.
The long and bloody struggle to secure the freedoms and civil liberties of this country through the struggles of slaves and immigrants, women and ethnic minorities and persecuted religions was pivotal to Mandela’s inherent credo, espoused in exemplary manner when he had the right to demand all, punish in vengeance and rule with exclusivity.
That he did not bears ample testimony to his greatness and statesmanship – sadly his values are being perverted to undermine a country once soaked in that promise of a “better life for all”.
Nelson Mandela was truly a man amongst men. He showed us the way to stand firmer, speak louder and fight harder so that every single citizen could feel and live a South Africa like never before.
He was an aggregate of many things but above all else it was his enduring spirit for a better mankind that he so cherished and left for all the world to follow – and we are obliged to follow suit, no matter how difficult. While his soul rests in peace, his immortal words reverberates even stronger when he said, “it always seems impossible until it is done”.