The world's rainbow man

Photo: AFP

Urbanity drips from Nelson Mandela. The kind of decency you would expect from a great man but do not usually come by is something which comes to him naturally. He rises from his chair every time a visitor, no matter how important or how insignificant he or she might be, walks into the room for an audience with him. It does not matter that his aides keep telling him he does not have to be on his feet all the time. Like all men of substance, Mandela knows that every individual deserves respect. And he respects everyone.
In a world where greatness is a fast dwindling quality, Nelson Mandela happens to be one individual who draws our respect, even our veneration, for the definitive manner in which he has made history. One other individual who is the repository of your respect at this point of time is Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, for reasons we hardly need to recapitulate. Our sadness, though, is in knowing of the paucity of a bigger number of larger than life figures, of statesmen in our times. And you feel that sense of vacuum intensely when you recall the times once known for the galaxy of political stars they accommodated, to the intense delight of the world. Mandela's tragedy, and ours, is in inhabiting a world where not many are ready or experienced enough to measure up to his stature.
The roots of Mandela's greatness, of his place in history, lie in his childhood. The African tribal tradition being a healthy cultural landscape of ideas, Mandela was able, at an early age, to imbibe the degree of wisdom he saw his elders give voice to in his youth. He listened to his tribal elders pronounce judgment on the issues of the day and quickly drew the conclusion that wisdom was a matter of ageing. It came with a graying of hair, with sharpness of vision in the eyes. The more one advanced in years, the more the possibility of one's bringing to bear on society one's increasingly profound perceptions of a cracked, wounded world. Mandela learnt from those meetings of elders, from the flow of arbitration which went into a resolution of tribal crises. The non-violent streak that has consistently defined the Mandela character is essentially a truth shaped long, long years ago in the oral tradition of African narrative.
But the placidity of temperament for which Mandela remained famous in prison and outside may perhaps have been rooted in the traditions of old. Speak of the Rivonia trial, speak of his position vis-à-vis apartheid. The rebellious streak in him was of a kind which did not seek to incite catastrophe, though it did ignite a fire in his countrymen and around the world. At his trial in the early 1960s, his calm demeanour impressed the world, though it did not save him from the wrath of the racists then in control of his country. And yet, for twenty seven long years, Mandela refused to let himself be pushed into a hate mentality. As hard labour on Robben Island consumed his physical strength, it was the spiritual side of his nature that kept him and his fellow African National Union prisoners going. Verwoerd, Botha and the other white supremacists could not break his spirit.
What Mandela calls his long walk to freedom came to an end in 1990, on his terms. Now that you look back on the day he walked out of prison, his then wife Winnie by his side, it is easy to think of that release as being inevitable. The truth, though, is different: Mandela might never have emerged free, might have died in prison, might indeed have been reduced to impotence as a political figure. The mere fact that he survived the ordeal and eventually rose to being South Africa's first black, elected president is nothing short of a miracle. And miraculous too has been the manner in which he was able, through his wisdom and his power, to transform a racially divided country into an inclusive society. He called it a rainbow nation. The combination of colours is a rich statement for South Africa, a metaphor for the modern state. Alone among so many nationalist leaders taking charge of their nations, Mandela was careful not to let the new South Africa slide into chaos. An angry majority beside an arrogant minority is always a recipe for disaster. Mandela proved that his country was an exception to the rule, that anger and arrogance could be neutralised through visionary leadership. Mandela reached out to all South Africans. Then the world reached out to him.
Mandela was not allowed to be at his mother's burial in 1968. In 1969, his appeal for leave to have a last glimpse of his son, who had died in an accident, was ignored. It was not before 1980 that he would come by news of the 1964 Labour electoral victory in Britain.
And yet bitterness did not consume Mandela. Prejudice is a malady he has kept at arm's length. Which is why any celebration of Nelson Mandela is a paean to the power of the intellect, to the throbbing of the heart so necessary for life to be raised to the heights of sublimity. In his twilight, Mandela is the world's hold on the old-fashioned principles of noble humility and classic valour. After him, there will be loud silence.
(Nelson Rohlilahla Mandela, born in 1918, is ninety-four today).

The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.
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