Nelson Mandela 1918 - 2013

In June this year, I wrote an article about Nelson Mandela. It was written at a time when the world’s media were camped outside his house waiting to break the news to the world that he had died.

I wrote how he would be remembered for his dignity and courage and for dismantling Apartheid.

Last night the world began to mourn the death of Mandela, in his 95^th year, as he finally succumbed to the lung infection he had battled for months.

Tributes flooded TV screens and social media sites as politicians past and present, people who spent time with him in captivity, and friends and family members queued to heap praise on the man who many can honestly say is the most influential figure of our time.

I wrote in the summer that Mandela was no saint, being the co-founder of a militant group in the 1960’s, which led him being jailed for attempting to overthrow a government. I also wrote of the dangers of prohibiting people like former EDL leader Tommy Robinson from having a voice, and how he could become a free speech and human rights martyr.   

In contrast to those celebrating the life and mourning the loss of Mandela, there were right wing political commentator’s whinging about Margaret Thatcher getting less favourable coverage. There were left wing supporters attacking the right for once calling for Mandela to be treated as a criminal and a terrorist.

Whatever the opinion of Mandela’s early life, those political wanabees could learn many a lesson from the first black president of South Africa’s later life. When Nelson Mandela emerged from prison in 1990, his attitude was that of reconciliation rather than resentment or revenge, his demeanour full of dignity and strength not hostility.

The two sides bickering like children over who loved him or hated him the most are futile and pointless, disrespectful and distinctly trivial when compared to the fight Mandela fought. With hardly room for cigarette paper between the beliefs of the left and the right in this country, it is hard to believe that so recently in South Africa, people actually believed that the rights and lives of people were decided by something as simple as the colour of their skin. It seems ludicrous today that people with dark skin were not allowed to ride on the same bus or buy food from the same shop as people with white skin. There simply is no justifiable argument to support those beliefs. These were the evils Mandela was fighting.

I read somewhere among the tributes last night, someone had written “let us pray that we see the likes of him again”.

I commented “let us pray we never have to”.

I and millions of people living in South Africa and around the world, believe that thanks to Mandela, we never will.

As hard as it to believe the struggle Mandela and his fellow black people faced in those days, it is even harder to imagine the sacrifice he made in pursuit of his beliefs.   Offered conditional freedom years before his eventual release, Nelson Mandela had the courage of his convictions and the strength to say no to that freedom. He believed that his release had to be unconditional, and he gave up his right to a life, his right to see his family grow up and his right for freedom so that others could have those things today. On his release he refused to call for Black preference or to fight for the rights of just black people. He wanted freedom and equality for all.  

He famously said during his trial in 1964 “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

 

When he passed away last night he left the world a place much closer to those ideals than the place he began his life.

As he made his exit, in a final twist of fate, the story of his life “Mandela: Long walk to freedom” was coincidentally premiering in London.  This coincidence will quite likely fuel the conspiracy theories that he either died months ago or even that he is still alive, and that it cannot be just a coincidence that he died on the day of his film premier. There are always such theories when the most powerful and influential people in history die.

It is no coincidence either that Nelson Mandela will be in the history books forever as a leader, a politician and man of greatness.