I didn't know Nelson Mandela. I only know of him because of the legend he has become during my lifetime. Others have eulogised him far better than I could. His memory and legacy will remain long after he has gone. It isn't often that one person has the impact that he has had, so the temptation to deify him is strong.
I do hope we will resist that, because the really extraordinary thing about Mandela is that he was not a saint. He was an ordinary man - Gifted, intelligent & relatively privileged compared to many of his compatriots. Mandela's power lay in the articulate simplicity of his message & his willingness to sacrifice everything he had in order to overthrow the abomination that was Apartheit and White Supremacy in South Africa.
One of the interesting things about Mandela is the complexity of the things he did & stood for. How did he reach the balance between passive resistance & "terrorist" action? There are real contradictions in his life as there are in all our lives. We all make mistakes, as he did, about AIDS & corruption in the ANC for example. Somehow he is the better for that & gives us hope that we might be the better for our mistakes.
Mandela allows himself & us to be fallible and imperfect yet ultimately triumphs over that. Mandela holds out the hope for all of us that the world can be a better place where peoples can live in tolerance & understanding. There is a place for redemption & reconcilliation in this mired world of conflicts.
The world needs more Mandela's. Sadly they are in very short supply. All we have is two dimensional politicians who are passionate about nothing except self & power. Mandela didn't need "focus groups" or PR to tell him what to think or do or believe. Mandela knew what was right & did not let himself be deflected from that by self aggrandisment or expediency.
A life well lived. May he rest in peace.
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