Mandela Meditations

It's been quite a week.  Intriguing.  At times moving.  Quite remarkable.


Yesterday more than 100 world leaders attended the Mandela memorial along with 70 000 South Africans in a stadium that many associate with the 2010 soccer World Cup.  Madiba worked so hard and so long to bring that tournament to Africa.


I will just share a few highlights of my reflections during this grieving process...


I saw Bill Clinton being interviewed.  He and Mandela were concurrent presidents in their respective countries.  They remained good friends.  Both have strong Methodist roots.  Clinton said that he once got up the courage to ask Mandela if, as he famously walked out of those prison gates, he really didn't hate those people who kept him incarcerated for 27 years.  He answered Clinton: "Briefly.  But I knew that if I kept hating them, I would still be their prisoner.  And I wanted to be free. So I let it go."


This says a lot to me about the nature of forgiveness.  It is not only good for those we forgive.  It is good for us.  "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us."  At some stage, we need to let go of hate, and put the past behind us.


President Obama's eulogy yesterday was the best.  He included a Mandela quote that has fascinated me: "I am not a saint, unless by that you mean a sinner who keeps trying."  I resonate with this comment.  For far too long I somehow associated the word "missionary" with the saints.  But I myself am living proof that this is not so.  But I do keep trying to contribute.  At the end of my CV is my epitaph:  "I came.  I saw.  I contributed."  I am not a conqueror.  Or a saint.  But I am a missionary.


The third Mandela quote that has intrigued me is from the Treason Trials.  Obama reminded us that this speech was at the time of Kennedy and Kruschev!  "I have fought white domination and I have fought black domination."  Years later, no, decades later, he was still fighting both.  The main plot was of course ending white minority rule.  But there were those who wanted to replace white domination with black domination.  That was the sub-plot to the story, and we have to recognize Mandela's role on that front as well.  His parting with Winnie could be construed in this light.  He was President of all South Africans, and she had become embittered and radicalized.  Mamphela Ramphele calls it "woundedness" - generically, I don't mean that she said that of Winnie specifically.  Some people, no, many people, still can't get past "the past".  Mandela’s great spirituality stems from that one word in his reply to Clinton: "Briefly."  He felt it... then he let it go.

By the way, the movie Long Walk to Freedom does Winnie a big favour - by putting her militant attitudes in context.  She really suffered for the cause... in solitary confinement for over a year.  A mother parted from her children.  It's funny, many are quick to forgive her, who are slow to forgive and forget "the past".  Mandela somehow managed to get above it all.


My mind keeps asking: What is the difference between “black domination” and affirmative action that favours the large majority?


That brings me back to another favorite theme and person... I see that TIME magazine has voted Pope Francis I to be Person of the Year for 2013.  I second the emotion.  Here's why, from an article by Mike Kohen this week called Our country is still in white hands:


"The stability that Mandela engineered in those early days after apartheid never made South Africa an economic dynamo.  Economic growth has averaged 3.5% since 2004, compared with 10.5% in China.

"Moreover, the Gini coefficient, a measure of economic equality, has risen to 0.63 in 2009 from 0.59 in 1993, making South Africa one of the world's most unequal countries."


The risk to Mandela's legacy is that "inequality and exclusion" (to quote Pope Francis, again generically speaking) could drain the gains.  In any country, regardless of the colour bar, poor people can come to resent the rich.  Not always and not everywhere, depending to some extent on the local culture's comfort or discomfort with what Gerte Hofstede calls "power distance".  But where the disparities are acute and glaring, it will breed discontent.  Aristotle said that inequality is the mother of revolution.


Yes, there has to be redress, no question.  But when is the cut-off point for affirmative action?  Or will there ever be one, when the rich are getting richer and ranks of the poor are growing?  Also, as the ranks of the rich include more and more "successful" blacks, is not a class system being created?  Put another way, many poor people will not be in a forgiving mood, ready to forget "the past".  So it is double-jeopardy for South Africa to let the "wealth gap" increase.

If you are rich by your own standards, the question is: How much is enough?

If you are “historically disadvantaged” and thus deserve positive discrimination, the question is: How long should you have that advantage, before YOU end up with more than enough?


Thinking Locally, Acting Globally

For non-South Africans, the example of Nelson Mandela is also relevant.  For in his own rural poor context, he was also privileged – from the royal family, getting early exposure to leadership role models and an education.  After urbanizing, he became a professional, a lawyer, and co-owned a law firm with Oliver Tambo.  So he was (relatively) well off, although among the oppressed.  Even in prison, he was a political prisoner, not a criminal.

The point is, look what he did with the few advantages he enjoyed.  I was reduced to tears this week when Mac Maharaj, a co-prisoner at Robben island, described how Mandela would sometimes be served better food than the other prisoners because of the esteem that even his jailers had for him.  Like bread, when everyone else got only pap.  He would call over other  prisoners, especially the younger ones, and share it with them, recognizing the deprivation that they faced because of a shared cause.

We need to apply the biblical principles that are there in the Old Testament Poor Laws – sabbath, sabbatical, Jubilee… to keep leveling the playing field.  This has to be continuous.  Pope Francis is right that money can end up being a form of idolatry, like the Golden Calf.