Mandela was forgiving and generous to all

Dear Editor,

There are times when it is exceedingly difficult for me to find the right words to convey the depth of my feelings. These are the times when grief overwhelms so completely that there is no relief even in tears.

Now, such a time is upon me as I strive to dry my tears and control my emotions and come to terms with the passing of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

I remember a few months ago in the summer when he was taken to hospital and the world held its collective breath thinking that his end was near, it was not. Like his defiant struggle to end apartheid in South Africa that few believe would have happened, he was determined to prove us wrong again for the last time.

Although I never met nor even caught a glimpse of Mandela he, by his actions, words and deeds has changed me in the most profound of ways. I am extremely blessed to have lived in the same era as such an iconic figure, a man, who harboured no ill-feelings, bore no malice or envy, who was forgiving and who had an infectious smile.

Frankly I cannot even claim to have known much about Mandela, the ANC, or his struggle against apartheid in South Africa other than what I read and heard in my early years. My first awakening came not with Mandela but what I read about the Soweto uprising of 1976 and the murder of Steve Biko a year later while in police custody.

It was those events which awoke me to the barbaric acts committed against South African blacks by the brutal apartheid regime and as I read more, I came to understand that there was one Nelson Mandela who had been imprisoned for life for taking up arms against the white racist South African minority regime. It was around that period that I first read and was moved by his eloquent and beautiful statement to the court at the time of his trial in 1964.

A defiant and unbroken Nelson Mandela 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. For it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”

My greatest joy came when Nelson Mandela was released from prison on February 11, 1990, and while I rejoiced like so many others, I had no great expectations that he would change to any significant degree the predictable course of events that seemed destined to unfold in South Africa.

Everything that I understood about politics in South Africa, everything that I knew about human relations, and all my readings of history led me to one conclusion about what was about to happen in South Africa.

I was truly convinced that South Africa would have plunged into a bloody racial war between whites and blacks following his release, the outcome of which would be the destruction of the country because the whites could not win and the blacks would not lose.

I was terribly wrong. Four years later, in May 1994, he was inaugurated as the first black President of South Africa. For me the legacy of Nelson Mandela occurred in those four years during which, through his indomitable spirit, implacable will and a forgiving soul, he brought his countrymen, black and white, to love their country more than they feared or hated each other.

It is difficult now for persons who did not bear witness to the vicious practices of the apartheid regime to get a sense of or to comprehend the terror and the hate which stalked South Africa during those trying times. It is difficult to appreciate that just ten years earlier, in 1983, a dreaded intelligence unit was formed as a secret force within the already feared state police. Almost everyone thought that a race war was just waiting to be ignited. But Mandela saw the transcendent vision of a united South Africa that no one else envisaged and invite all, blacks and whites to subscribe to it. When he became the nation’s president he went out of his way to show respect and courtesy to those who had been the bastions of the apartheid regime.

I was amazed at Mandela’s ability to unite South Africans and as it came into being before my astonished eyes I quickly realized that there are no limits to the triumph of the human spirit. I understood that all men no matter what their history or condition are capable of reaching for greatness. And I learnt for the first time that the role of great leaders is to paint a vision to which all can aspire notwithstanding their differences.

This was the vision of the iconic Nelson Mandela that allowed him to unite his countrymen and save South Africa. In one of his famous speeches, he said, “The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.

“The time to build is upon us … We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity—a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”

The loss which the South African people are suffering as a result of Mandela’s death is a loss which is shared by the entire world. I believe that even in his death, those things for which he stood will be strengthened. It is time for us to reassure ourselves that he lives, and it is death that is dead, not him.

Finally, as an activist, Nelson Mandela was a rebel and a defiant fighter; as a prisoner, he was uncompromising and unbroken in spirit; but as President, he was forgiving and generous to all, especially to those who had imprisoned him. This was Madiba’s precious gift to me and to all humanity.

May he rest in peace.

 Yours faithfully,

Dr Asquith Rose