Short Stories

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MANDELA

What could be more challenging than recommending a man you barely know? While the facts about Nelson Mandela will invariably change as they are bound to, the truth about the man he was and the life he lived will remain immutable in the passing phases of time. Like every man, he was conceived and born of a woman. He must have had a like passion; he walked on two legs and raised only one head; but there was something different about ‘Madiba’ as he was called and still called today by a host of admirers. He journeyed that less traveled road and understood how far it goes. He lived a dream and loved his country. And what love could be possibly greater than the love of a country and the people thereof?

Journeying through the chapters of time and expediting the dog-eared pages of history, every unbiased mind would realize and appreciate that a forgiving spirit broods over the continent, Africa. Though many factors and chronicles of facts point to this veracity, Nelson Mandela spent his later years as a blazing arrow pointing towards the verity of this glaring attribute. Warriors often die warring; brave hearts breathe their last in the surging heat of tenacity and doggedness. And when the accounts of great men are paged, they often highlight and point to men of pomp and pride, victors at battles, conquerors of territories, vanquishers of nations and plunderers of lands. They rarely speak of peacemakers; men whose silence and distinct choice of solidarity inevitably paved the way for decisive words and definitive actions that has channeled a better course for humanity. ‘Madiba’ stood in this rare light. Need I say more?

The tender hands and warm cuddle of a good woman ought to pacify every whining little child. And the words of a good man should be at best to instill a trusted counsel into every wayward heart. In Mandela’s own words, “a good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.” I’d say in an evident similitude that every man or woman ought to possess a variance that can be easily spotted as something special. Though ‘Madiba’ was very much like any of us, he had a variance that portrayed empathy and wisdom at a time when such virtues were rarely embraced. While the world stood and watched in admiration on Sunday, February 11, 1990, he giftedly was set to devise a new template for truth and reconciliation in his country, South Africa. Without a doubt, he made difficult choices and firm decisions. And in his choice of words, ‘it was indeed a long walk to freedom’.

Born on the 18th of July, 1918 in a rural village in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, Nelson Mandela was the youngest son of a respected African chief in his hometown Mvezo near Qunu. ‘Madiba’ spent his childhood in Qunu and embraced the culture he was raised and nurtured to appreciate. He had an opportunity to get an education and he studied at the universities of Fort Hare and Witwatersrand to become a qualified lawyer. When a man is denied his rights on the soils whereon he is a son, such a man is bound to question the audacity of authority and discard the scales of justice. Worse still, when a man is judged by the color of his skin rather than the content of his demeanor, he is made to feel inadequate. And here is a timeless philosophy, ‘every underdog will someday rise in righteous vengeance to break the jinx’. Suffice it to say that the recurring injustices he experienced during his law practice aroused his curiosities and influenced him a great deal.

Nelson Mandela joining the company of many other faithful South Africans began his political struggle against the clutches of neo-colonialism in the early 1940s. It was a fierce struggle for which most of the key players were willing to die as martyrs. However, Nelson could not carry on for so long after he was sentenced to life imprisonment along a few others in the early 1960s. A sentence he eventually served for twenty-seven years, six months and six days. I can’t tell accurately what takes place behind penitentiary walls and I can’t give a detailed account of a life lived in solitary confinement. Nonetheless, I’ve read and heard it is a dark place where wills are broken; a turbulent sea where old dreams are flushed away with every passing current and new ones are birthed unconsciously; a perilous path that guarantees a furlough and freedom that ends in an epiphany if so desired.

What price could be greater for a glorious freedom? And what more pain is there for a gainful end? If in general we think of a generation as twenty-five years, then it took Nelson Mandela two generations behind strange walls of solitary confinement and bars of solitude to justify the anti-apartheid struggle. Though some of his countrymen are still of the opinion that he betrayed the struggle in taciturnity, his exemplary feats in leadership, charity and humanity cannot be overemphasized. As a matter of fact, he lived a life such that the world he influenced positively was not keen to know his religion or his spiritual inclinations. In all honesty, the world didn’t have to know...

Forever in our hearts, Nelson Mandela!
(July 18, 1918 – December 05, 2013)

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