Mandela: Secular Prophet

"All living beings will taste death" is the message that greets everyone as they enter Zincirlikuyu Cemetery in the heart of Istanbul. It is impossible not to notice the writing above the arch. It is a truism that probably affects all those who read it. It makes us take note that life on earth is finite.
 
It was such a thought that was particularly poignant on Tuesday when the memorial service for Nelson Mandela took place in Johannesburg. The event, rather than being a mournful, solemn-faced occasion, was transformed into a celebration of his life. Hagiography on a grand scale was clearly observable in the speeches made by world leaders stressing the positive qualities and attributes that he possessed.
 
What was clear for all to see was that this was an individual who had touched many others far, far away. To understand the impact that Mandela has had both in his motherland and beyond, it is necessary to know the turning points in his life his tribulations and, ultimately, his never-ending struggle.
 
Mandela was born into a prominent family in tribal South Africa just as World War I was coming to an end. He was the first in his family to attend school. In those colonial times, schoolteachers gave the children English names; hence, he became known as Nelson, not knowing then or since why he was given that particular name. Education was a privilege for the young Mandela, and he excelled in it from the beginning.
 
He was also getting used to the hereditary benefits of belonging to an important family. From an early age, he witnessed governance first hand, recalling that discussions prior to decision-making made an enormous impact on him. At such an impressionable age he experienced authority, division of labor and striving for the collective good.
 
Education
Proceeding along the different stages of education sounds familiar to everyone today, but that was not the case for black children growing up in South Africa in the interwar years. Mandela was intelligent and fortunate, too, as he attended the better schools of his region, finally going to a very good university for blacks. It was during these formative years that he made friends with others who were from different tribes and backgrounds.
 
Once again this sounds quite normal in today's environment, but in the South Africa of the 1930s, this was far from common. While interested in history and philosophy, he expressed interest in the history and background of his own people rather than focusing purely on the colonial power's past. Yet when the winds of war were felt, he desperately wanted Britain to engage in the fight against Nazi Germany.
 
The war years included periods of study and activism. Mandela became friends with white people who were communists and decided to join the African National Congress (ANC). While he always denied being a member of the South African Communist Party, recent scholars have written that he was indeed a party member. If he was, it was certainly due to the Communists opposing the South African regime rather than their belittlement of parliamentary democracy. Mandela considered the British Westminster model as one that worked well and could be adopted in South Africa.
 
African National Congress
Starting off with the youth wing of the ANC, he rose steadily through the ranks. At first he believed that the policy of Apartheid introduced in 1948 should be opposed peacefully. Demonstrating against such a vile division would be the cardinal principle. He followed the example of Mahatma Gandhi in organizing peaceful protests against the racist policy. By 1955, he had changed his mind. Apartheid could not be changed by means of peaceful opposition; it could only be overthrown by the use of force.
 
Given his outspokenness and activism, he quickly received the attention of the South African authorities. He was banned from making public appearances, which he did not obey, continuing to travel far and wide organizing the ANC. He was arrested with several others and tried for treason. The trial lasted for six years, during which the defendants were held in custody for many months, finally ending in 1961 with Mandela and his friends being found not guilty.
 
The trumped-up charges in the trial had demonstrated the depths the government would stoop to. That same year, capitalizing on his close relations with the Communists, he established the armed guerilla group Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), which later became the armed wing of the ANC. He traveled within and outside of Africa requesting funds and received guerilla training in Ethiopia. The armed group bombed various targets within South Africa and terrorized the white community.
 
Imprisonment
Partially in response, in 1962 Mandela was jailed for inciting strikes and a year later when other members of the ANC were arrested, he too was accused of ordering violence to overthrow the regime. Mandela accepted the charge of sabotage, though not of guerilla warfare. He was sentenced to life imprisonment along with his co-defendants. In 1964, they were all sent to an island prison to serve out their terms. That incarceration was to last 27 years.
 
What was the crime that Mandela had been accused of? In a celebrated defense at the trial, he declared that he had “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." He could not accept that a small minority of whites could willfully and legally discriminate against all others on the basis of race. Such institutionalized racism had to be opposed by all non-racists, and in this crusade he was willing to lead from the front suffering the consequences.
 
The prison years were not easy ones. Racism experienced in daily life was repeated in equal measure if not more so in prison, where for many years Mandela and his fellow black prisoners were not allowed to wear trousers, only shorts. This was another attempt to visibly demonstrate that black men were not the equals of white men. Robben Island prison, however, came to resemble a debating chamber and a place of learning for the anti-apartheid political prisoners. Mandela himself enrolled in a long-distance law degree program and engaged in discussions with those within and outside of the ANC in prison. Remarkably, he was able to communicate and over time create friendships with his prison guards.
 
The long prison years took their toll on family relations, and the international pressure that some had expected would lead to their release did not materialize. During the height of the Cold War, the South African government was able to successfully demonize Mandela as a Communist bent on overthrowing the regime to set up a pro-Soviet left-wing dictatorship. The depths of demonization stretched to a complete ban on any photograph of Mandela being taken and published. Despite these efforts, social democratic political parties did not forget nor abandon Mandela and were able to attract a steady number of supporters who campaigned for his release.
 
Cold War realities
During the 1980s, conservative leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were led to believe that Mandela was indeed a communist terrorist who would be better to remain in prison rather than be permitted to overthrow the racist South African regime. Certainly, both despised the Apartheid policy that was pursued but believed that the international circumstances were not ripe for any other alternative action to be taken. Neither Britain nor the US wanted to see South Africa join the socialist camp.
 
During these years, however, violence in South Africa escalated, and due to calls from Western pressure groups and some governments, foreign investment in the country dried up. The South African economy, once the jewel of the continent, began to stop and sputter, which made the white minority very sensitive to growing international opposition. In 1985, the South African authorities decided to offer Mandela release on condition of him renouncing the use of violence. He refused. There was no point in transferring from a small prison to be relocated in a larger one.
 
One can only imagine the thoughts that must have run through his head when the offer had been made. Imprisoned for his thoughts and actions for more than two decades, it must have been a very difficult choice to opt to remain in prison for quite possibly the rest of his life. Clearly, he had accepted and advocated that his personal destiny was coterminous with the people whom he supported and defended.
 
The ultimate turning point in Mandela being released was in 1989 when the hard-line South African President P. W. Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced by the more pragmatic Frederik Willem De Klerk, something which was accompanied by the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The socialist bloc was crumbling, and the clear, frozen borders drawn during the Cold War were thawing fast. De Klerk released all political prisoners except Mandela. He accepted the fact that the world had changed and so must Apartheid. After negotiations, in 1990 Mandela was unconditionally released and all formerly banned political parties legalized. He had served 27 years in prison and was nearly 72 years old.
 
Peaceful reconstruction
Many had wondered about not only what Mandela thought but also what he looked like. The only photos were of a young, tall and large man with a beard. Would they be met by a bitter old man who was intent on settling old scores? Someone who was hell bent on embarking on a Marxist struggle to dominate the economy, taking a stranglehold on society? A man who had swallowed hard for close to three decades who would take each and every opportunity to crucify and ultimately destroy the racist state, irrespective of the costs to all sides?
 
What the whole world witnessed was far from what was expected. He had returned to his original position of peacefully dismantling Apartheid. Here was a wise old man who had been able to expel all the hatred and feelings of revenge from both his head and heart. One can only presume that had he not done so, he would have been overwhelmed by the weight and crumbled underneath.
 
The years had not changed Mandela in terms of his central beliefs in a free society bereft of racism. The years could only be seen in the lines of his face, though not in the lines he had uttered in the past whether in the dock or in political meetings or at the time of his release. Here was a person committed to democracy, which meant that domination by any race, be it black or white, had to be opposed in equal measure.
 
The strive for democracy that South Africa engaged in took several years, finally culminating in the first free and fair elections of 1994 whereby all citizens irrespective of race had an equal vote. Mandela became the first president of the multiracial republic, presiding over a national unity coalition government, guided by a new constitution granting democratic rights to its citizens. For his endeavors, the international community acknowledged him as well as De Klerk by awarding them the highest accolade possible: the Nobel Peace Prize.
 
Teacher, liberator
At his memorial service, the United Nations secretary-general identified him as a great teacher. Few if any can be considered as such looking at today's flock of statesmen and stateswomen. US President Barack Obama referred to Mandela as the last great liberator. He certainly liberated himself and all his countrymen from domination and discrimination. He was able to change an evil system into one that is incomparably better. This in itself provided hope for the future as it demonstrated that no injustice in the world could last forever. Few would have dared to hope that Apartheid had only a few years left the day before the Berlin Wall fell. Even less that it would take place without a civil war or great bloodshed. Yet that is precisely what was achieved.
 
Just as ordinary funerals attract mourners, so too do those of international statesmen. However, no memorial service since Churchill's in 1965 has witnessed such a large gathering of heads of state and government. More than 90 made the journey to be part of history. A story about an individual who faced an impossible task. One that was deemed unattainable -- to dismantle Apartheid. Yet, despite the overwhelming odds, the man succeeded.
 
It is always difficult to pass a verdict on political leaders in the period immediately following their death. The consideration and emotional impact of loss cloud judgment. In death the tradition is always one of magnanimity and the elevation of the positive, alongside the diminishment of the negative. Good deeds are at the forefront and mistakes confined to silence.
 
Moral compass
Mandela was certainly placed on a moral pedestal at his memorial service. Nothing else could have been realistically expected: a high level of courage and perseverance against which every other leader present had to measure themselves. Looking at his almost one century of life that was lived, it is hard to deny that his moral compass ever wavered from pointing to the true north.
 
Certainly, there may have been some slight wavering throughout the course of the struggle in terms of courses of action to take and which strategy to pursue, although in the end Mandela can be considered a freedom fighter in the true sense of the concept: a soldier battling against injustice that came close to the stench of Nazism. There are few universal common denominators, although surely discrimination on the basis of the color of one's skin is one, and in trying to right this wrong Mandela's battle was admirable and exemplary.
 
As General Douglas MacArthur famously proclaimed, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." Mandela will not be forgotten but will gently recede into an eternal sunset. He shall be remembered fondly as someone who bravely upheld a principle and founded a modern democratic state. History will carefully record his life and write kindly about the secular prophet.