Madiba
Today marks the 31st anniversary of Nelson Mandela's election as the first President of a multiracial South Africa. This event serves as a lesson for us all in today's world, where things seem to be moving backward instead of forward.
I am a child of the Cold War.
In the seventies and eighties, I shared the belief of many in the West that Nelson Mandela—Madiba—was a communist terrorist, determined to destroy the free world and transform apartheid South Africa into a nation of communist oppression—trading one set of shackles for another. While apartheid was abhorrent, the alternatives in a Cold War context were equally concerning.
As the Berlin Wall crumbled, my binary worldview transformed into a new way of thinking and a new way of looking at the world. I began to see the chance for social justice becoming a reality for all and not just a few. I began to see democracy as something that the many could achieve, and not just those in the West. And I began to see leadership not as the strength of ego, but the strength of personal humility, belief in the power of forgiveness, and the power of love.
This all occurred in the shadows of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela – Madiba, who was freed from prison to liberate his people – white, colored, and black – from the bondage of the past to a new future. This future was to be a rainbow country, as he called it, reflecting the diversity that the world has to offer.
I was in South Africa as Canadian Government spokesperson with my minister, the late Honorable Christine Stewart, in April 1994 to witness the country's transformation and observe the elections.
I remember our Ambassador’s black driver going in to vote and emerging from the polling station with tears in his eyes, expressing that he felt like a human being in his own country for the first time. We all shed a tear that day, mourning an unjust past while celebrating the future that was about to begin.
Mandela once said that, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” He went on to note that, “there is no such thing as part freedom.”
Mandela was a leader in every sense of the word. He understood when to gain power, how to wield it for the benefit of many, and when to relinquish it with his head held high, preserving his dignity and reputation.
He learned to unite adversaries for a shared purpose and inspired them in a lasting manner.
In just thirty-one years, we have transitioned from a scenario of hope to fear. One might argue that the nineties in Rwanda and Srebrenica were stark reminders of man’s inhumanity to man and that they should never be forgotten or forgiven. Even during times of hope, we have witnessed great suffering inflicted by some upon others; man’s inhumanity to man persists relentlessly.
However, today, the dreams of unity and solidarity seem to have further diminished, as populisms and harsh nationalisms expend more energy defining enemies rather than fostering understanding.
Today, the “other” is to be feared and marginalized. Hatred and exclusion are being preached from the highest political pulpits, even from some like Hungary, which had lived for decades under the oppression of the Soviet Empire.
Today’s nationalisms are once again emerging almost in unison, advocating a “strong” leadership that is neither “strong” nor “leadership.” This so-called leadership is weak because it exploits the fundamental weaknesses of the human condition and is not leadership because it offers little hope for the future.
Leaders with vision and compassion are being replaced by hard-hearted individuals seeking to control their populations and weaken, if not eliminate, the structures of democracy.
Madiba would feel out of place here; however, he would likely have thrived, given his tenacity and commitment to the human spirit, freedom, and uniting people rather than driving them apart.
Not everything is well in today’s South Africa, mainly because Mandela's successors lack the vision and sense of leadership he possessed.
His words—“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others”— resonate in today’s uncertain world.
As Madiba showed us, nobility and leadership arise from humility, compassion, and hope.
Today’s leaders should learn this.
I am inclined to believe that there is evil in the world, and it is manifested in all of those leaders and their followers whose cruelty we cannot understand. I would like to believe that their existence can be explained by the premise proposed by Yehuda Berg in his eye-opening book Satan: an Autobiography. But maybe they're simply grotesque mutations. If the first, then we have something to learn, something to correct, so there is hope. If the second, there is no choice but to excise them from the human race, for indeed, they only exist in the human race.
Great perspective flowing from your privileged position as an observer of history… but I thought the current regime in Pretoria was going to get chewed out a bit…however you left it alone…aretheyworsethan the commies you were taught to fear?