It’s
pretty heartening to hear that South Africans have celebrated the 95th birthday
of their former President, Nelson Mandela, on July 18th with
school-children across the country singing a synchronized Happy Birthday to him
while he is recovering fast from his current ill-health in a hospital in
Pretoria that earlier sent shock waves across the nations.
Mr.
Mandela—whose birthday is declared by the UN as Nelson Mandela International
Day to recognize his contribution to reconciliation—is revered all over the
world for his concern to promote “a fair, just and equitable world” as is
reflected in one of his birthday urges: “Poverty has gripped our
people. If you are poor, you are not likely to live long. There are many people
in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so
fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.”
Right
from the early days of his fight against apartheid, Mandela—being theoretically
and ideologically influenced by the readings and hearsay about Das Kapital and
Marxists’ revolutionary traditions, his personal encounters with other people’s
liberation movements, particularly, Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of Satyagraha that
he preached and practiced that ultimately freed India from the colonial rule,
Shakespeare, who, for him, is ‘the writer’, the Bible, the Quran, along with
the genuine African influences—has developed a vision of a state that belongs
equally to all its different people, nations and tribes. That is what indeed
echoes in what he, while defending himself against the charges of sabotage and
attempts to violently overthrow the government in the Rivonia court, said: “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 need be, it is an ideal for which I am
prepared to die.”
It is the
same spirit that we saw him exhibiting when he became the democratically
elected first black President of South Africa. Despite being imprisoned and
banned for 27 years by the rulers of the apartheid, Mandela showed an uncanny
sense of that ‘middle road’ which upheld his basic principle of Ubuntu,
‘fraternity’—which implies “compassion and open-mindedness and is opposed to
individualism and egotism”—which he passionately got incorporated into the
manifesto of his newly formed ANC Youth League in 1944 thus: African “regards
the universe as an organic whole in progress towards harmony where individual
parts exist only as aspects of this universal unity”—all through his presidency
and leadership that worked for national reconciliation. It is this ‘color-blindness’
that he ardently cultivated, perhaps, in his long days of solitary confinement
that enabled him to see the smooth transition toward a new South Africa that is
governed by a black President but administered by white bureaucracy. It is this
courage, integrity and wisdom that enabled him to create Truth and
Reconciliation Commission as a ‘good compromise’—between creation of a special
court to prosecute human rights violators under the erstwhile authoritarian
rule and granting a blanket amnesty for those involved in such crimes—to handle
the evils of the past and thereby empower the young independent South Africa
reject the idea of ‘partition’ and the ills thereof as witnessed in
India/Pakistan; Malaysia/Singapore; Israel/Palestine and survive the transition
by attracting international community’s economic and political support for its
stability and progress. This rare vision of humanity of “looking ahead to South
African reconciliation instead of back at the deep wounds of the past” won him
the Nobel Peace prize, besides showing the world how deep-rooted conflicts can
be resolved peacefully.
All
through his anti-apartheid movement, Mandela exhibited an unusual sense of
‘flexibility’ in the pursuit of his goal— anything that helped him achieve
freedom for his black brethren became ‘tact’ for him. When in 1985
the then government offered to release him from jail, of course, subject to his
giving up his anti-apartheid struggle, he declined it saying: “Only free men
can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.” But the same Mandela
proved to be ‘large’, and comfortable to ‘contain multitudes’ when he, much to
the surprise of his followers, initiated negotiations with the same government
for peaceful reconciliation, without of course antagonizing any of his
followers and staying solidly on course. His whole life’s journey reveals that
what should matter to a leader is: “What the goal is and what the most
practical way to achieve it is.”
As
President, Mandela, by entrusting day-to-day business to his deputy, Thabo
Mbeki, concentrated his energies in building a new international image for
South Africa and ensured that multinational corporations stayed invested in South
Africa. As Ramaphosa, one of the great leaders of modern South Africa and a
favorite of Mandela, said, his leadership style proved that a leader’s job is
to ‘set the course’ but “not to steer the ship”. It is this belief of him to
‘lead from behind’ that culminated in the most defining moment in his life:
much against the traditions of many of the African countries, and for that
matter even against the political culture that prevailed among the many
newly-freed countries from the colonial rule, Mandela announced his decision,
that too, early in his presidency, not to stand for re-election. He thus set an
unprecedented example of depersonalized leadership in simply
‘institutionalizing’ the transfer of power in newly liberated countries. It is,
of course, a different matter that he too, like Gandhi, lost out in his battle
to have his favorite anti-apartheid activist, Cyril Ramaphosa installed as his
successor. Yet, he will be remembered for generations to come as a ‘unifying
figure’ who with his “dazzling, beatific, all inclusive smile” successfully
transformed himself from a leader of liberation struggle to a promoter of
peaceful co-existence with the same forces against whom he headed the
liberation struggle.
It is
earnestly hoped that he would soon recover fully from the current ill-health
and continue with his mission of bettering the lot of lesser fortunate.
We offer
our prayers for his quick recovery.
Children's image: Courtesy - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23349739
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