SAINT MANDELA

I was flabbergasted when I heard the news that the world’s most loved person became ill and admitted to hospital. I also heard that people everywhere around the world were praying intensely that Mandela, 92 years old, quickly recovers from his latest illnesses. I saw the scenes outside his Johannesburg hospital room which offered a hint of the grief the world will share with South Africans when a man I would like to call Saint is no longer with us.

He has been receiving round-the-clock medical care at home following his release from hospital in January where he was treated for an acute respiratory infection

His foundation has urged people to do 67 minutes of voluntary work on his ninety-third birthday - to represent the 67 years he devoted to South Africa's political struggle.

South African companies, charities and celebrities have all announced plans for voluntary work they will do on Mandela Day, began in 2009, and the South African government and United Nations have been pushing to make it an international event, encouraging people in every country to give 67 minutes to a humanitarian cause or to do just a virtuous effort.

Saint Mandela, celebrating his ninety-third birthday, is not just the face of South Africa but a symbol of humanity in a world always traumatized by conflict, greed, power, nepotism, intolerance,  disparity & the list goes on. Mandela’s struggle against injustice in his own country by rulers of the colonial era settlers, it could be said, place him as a saint above Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi as the most inspiring immortal of the twentieth century.

He was born Rolihlahla (troublemaker) Mandela, on July 18, 1918, a name given by his father. Nelson was given to him on his first day at school by his teacher, Miss Mdingane. Giving African children English names was a custom among Africans in those days and was influenced by British colonials who could not easily, and often would not, pronounce African names. It is unclear why Miss Mdingane chose the name “Nelson” for Mr Mandela. This shouldn’t be a surprise to Africans or anybody whose name is not Anglo-Saxon who have encountered tremendous social incarceration & pressure to relinquish their birth right names for “John” and “David” to fit in. Likewise, as you might have read, my “SELF REVELATION” story in my blog, I was formerly called “Simon”.

Mandela believed in the cause of freedom; an ideal for which he was willing to die when the forty-six year old told a trial judge in 1964. He lived for his ideal for a free society with equal opportunities with colonial settlers and would die for that ideal, if need be. Rather than face execution, Mandela wasted away in Robben Island prison for twenty-seven years refusing conditional offers of release because he placed the cause of freedom for his people and his country above his personal liberty in the hope of the unlikely fulfilment of his ideal.

He went to the island prison young and proud and released wailing and proud. After he was released from prison in 1990, he said he had climbed a great wall only to glimpse more hills.

Later in 1994, Mandela was elected president and proved that he was a better saint than he was a politician. Mandela was South Africa’s first black president and nursed a nation long torn by apartheid cruelties towards a vision of equality that all races living in harmony.

One might think the tragic condition has been averted by his full recovery which could have disrupted South Africa’s sometimes painful re-emergence as a powerhouse democracy on the African continent.

I remember the local South African, Melbourne resident, band called Jabulani who have played a song Free Nelson Mandela which reverberated messages of anti-apartheid movements around the world campaigning for the release of Nelson Mandela and against racial inequality. I would follow the band wherever they went and request them to play the song and dance until the early hours chanting for his release and leave the venue exhausted; however, feeling good, I believed, at least, that was my share of contribution to the worldwide support for his immediate release unconditionally. Sorry, the following is not Jabulani band but the music is the same.

Soon after his release, Mandela, as Deputy President of the African National Congress (ANC), made an official visit to Melbourne, Australia in 1990 and I immensely thrilled to seeing him and welcoming him, with lots of supporters, on his arrival at the Grand Hyatt on Collins St where he stayed.

Perhaps his greatest legacy will be grace in the facing adversity when he could have sought revenge against his oppressors rather pursued forgiveness. He never expressed acrimony for the hardships he endured in his fight against the worst of humanity and his name will embark on as a timeless exemplary of the best in humanity. That’s the legacy which should stay imbedded in all of us. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MANDIBA!!!