An extraordinary person who has led a simple yet inspiring life

Former US President Bill Clinton (L) shaking hands

 with former South African President Nelson Mandela

 during the inaugural Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture

at the Johannesburg Civic Centre on July 19, 2003.

In Summary

• Mandela really launched his career as we know it with his famous speech at his 1964 sentencing
• Released in 1990, he became South Africa’s first democratically elected president a mere four years later

By Sim Kyazze

The world, and especially South Africa, held a collective breath in the waning days of February at news that the great old man Nelson Mandela had been taken to hospital.

So serious was the news that news organisations rented caravan space at his official home in a leafy Johannesburg suburb; and also at Qunu, his Eastern Cape country home—just in case. They got the usual sound-bites from political types, tourists and neighbours and the whole saga was front-page news across South Africa. Even the Presidency [this time of Jacob Zuma] weighed in with statement proclaiming that Madiba was in hospital, he was OK, and had just been admitted to treat a long-standing complaint.

In any event, Mandela was discharged after a day in hospital.

But one need not be a sadist (or a journalist brushing up on significant historical moments) to have began the count-down to, er, the time when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela would be extensively honoured—for the last time. It is just that at 93 going on 94 (on July 18, 2012), Mandela is increasingly frail and is hardly ever seen in public (he even missed the funeral of his own sister in early February).

Still, even Peter Vale, one of South Africa’s leading public intellectuals, seemed short of superlatives when asked to comment on this global icon. “This is an extraordinary person who has led an extraordinary life,” said Prof. Vale, until recently—and ironically—a Nelson Mandela Chair of Politics at Rhodes University and now a professor of humanities at the University of Johannesburg.

“He needs to be honoured by having a country named after him; not a bank note as has been proposed,” Prof. Vale said.

And it’s not just that he outlived one of the most obnoxious political ideologies of all time. Indeed, while his African National Congress (ANC) prevailed in the confrontation with the racist National Party (the party that gave us Apartheid in 1948), Mandela transcended politics in a way that few others ever have, and perhaps ever will. Prof. Vale had trouble finding comparable Africans who played such a heroic role (only mentioning Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt).

“Nehru was such a figure,” Prof. Vale said, before moving to Europe and mentioning Giuseppe Garibaldi (of Italy), and Otto Von Bismarck (who famously said that the great questions of the day would not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions, but by iron and blood and prodded Prussia into becoming modern Germany. In the America’s Prof. Vale could only find Abraham Lincoln and Simon Bolivar, the 19th Century Venezuelan and Latin American revolutionary leader.

“In many ways, he reflects the story of this country,” Prof. Vale said, “Here is this elitist Brahminian figure who comes from the ruling class, but aligns himself with ordinary people and in many ways manages to grab the historical coat-tails of a revolution and recognise the influence of violence in it, in much the same way that the Chinese, Cuban and American revolutions did.”

FAMOUS SPEECH

Mandela really launched his career as we know it with his famous speech at his 1964 sentencing (for terrorism—ironically!) in a Rivonnia, Pretoria court room: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. 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 needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Most casual historians can quote that paragraph word for word, but only dedicated buffs know that the entire 10,701-word speech was the embodiment of Mandela’s charisma, humility and unflinching conviction in the rightness of his cause. Prof. Vale does not even consider the speech to be that the kind that a Nehru or a Fidel Castro would have made. “This was legalese; a speech made by a lawyer pleading for his life,” Prof. Vale said.

In any case, his speech in mitigation did not prevent Mandela from being sentenced to life in prison and only being saved from the hangman’s noose by the kindness of the judge. During 27 years at Robben Island, and later Pollsmoor Prison where he became arguably the world’s most famous person, Mandela accepted his 27-year incarceration as a the legal constraint placed on him and emerged from it completely reconciled with his the sentence.

“He was able to recognise that you don’t hold out for grudges,” Prof. Vale said, “but for the dignity of people. It’s the commitment in a traditional African setting, of years and years of deep understanding of being dignified.”

Mandela’s life out of jail has been no less enchanted. Released in 1990, he became South Africa’s first democratically elected president a mere four years later and famously declined to run for a second term in office a mere five years after that, preferring the life of an elder statesman and global ambassador for worthy causes such as the fight against illiteracy and HIV/Aids.

Sim Kyazze is a Ugandan journalist who lives and works in South Africa