Madiba Lives On

Today, I share with you the full text of Kingsley Opia-Enwemuche's informative and inspirng mail to our group of friends. I also include my short response to the mail.

He writes:

Friends,

Greeting. Hope you are having an interesting time with work and getting to learn daily. Over the weekend, Mr. Nelson Mandela, the first black African President of a democratic South Africa and Nobel Laureate, attained the age of 90 years. I have looked at his life and the celebration and decided to send you this piece hoping that it will inspire you.
Born on Thursday, July 18, 1918, at Mvezo, a tiny village on the banks of the Mbashe River in the district of Umtata, the capital of the Transkei, Nelson Rolihlahla ('troublemaker') Mandela was the son of a Xhosa-speaking Thembu chief, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa. He attended the University of Forte Hare in Alice, where he became involved in fervid political struggle against the racial discrimination practised in South Africa.
In 1940, he was expelled from the University for his involvement in student activism. He then moved to Johannesburg, where he completed his course work by correspondence through the University of South Africa and bagged a Bachelor's Degree in 1942. He later studied Law at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and became increasingly involved with the African National Congress (ANC), a multiracial nationalist movement, which sought to bring about democratic political change in South Africa. In 1944, Mandela helped to establish the ANC Youth League and became its president in 1951.
When, in 1948, the National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa on a political platform of white supremacy and enthroned a pernicious policy of apartheid, or forced segregation of the races, the ANC, of which Mandela was then a deputy president, staged in 1952, the historic Defiance Campaign during which protesters, nationwide, refused to obey apartheid laws. Also in 1952, Nelson Mandela and his bosom friend Oliver Tambo became the first blacks to open a law practice in South Africa. Following the stringent implementation of the apartheid policy by the NP government, Mandela, with Oliver Tambo and others, moved the ANC in a more militant direction at the tail-end of the 50s. They called for nationwide demonstrations against South Africa's pass laws, which hampered the movement and employment of black South Africans and forced them to carry identity cards.
Thus far, Nelson Mandela's civil rights activity was moderated by Mahatma Gandhi's policy of satyagraha (or the doctrine of non-violent resistance). However, when, on March 21, 1960, the Afrikaner police massacred 69 unarmed black South Africans demonstrating in Sharpeville (the notorious Sharpeville Massacre), the ANC abandoned the strategy of non-violence, and Mandela helped to establish the ANC's military wing, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) in December 1961. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the movement, and went to Algeria for military training. On his arrival in South Africa, he was arrested, tried and sentenced, in August 1962, to five years in prison for incitement and for leaving the country illegally.
While still in prison, a number of ANC operatives were arrested at Rivonia, in the outskirts of Johannesburg. Mandela was put on trial with them for sabotage, treason and violent conspiracy. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, in June 1964. He spent the better part of his 27 years in prison at Robben Island, where he and his jailed fellow compatriots were held under harsh and inhuman conditions. In spite of such conditions, Mandela was able to keep in touch with the anti-apartheid movement covertly. He wrote much of his autobiography clandestinely in prison. The manuscript was smuggled out and was eventually completed and published in 1994 as Long Walk to Freedom. Throughout his stay in prison, he became an international symbol of resistance to apartheid as world leaders continued to demand his release.
On February 11, 1990, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was released from prison, and his popularity soared. In 1993, he and F.W. de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And on April 27, 1994, he was popularly elected first black African President of a democratic, non-racial South Africa. A strong believer in a strong, non-racial South Africa, Mandela's political philosophy was woven around a South African society in which "both black and white will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity - a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world." "I know," he says on page 680 of his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, "that people expected me to harbour anger towards whites. But I had none... I wanted South Africa to see that I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one another...."
The new South African Constitution, which Nelson Mandela signed into law in 1996, allows a maximum of two terms for a president. Mandela voluntarily elected to quit office in 1999, after a single term in office, very much unlike many other African leaders; nor does he belong to the category of African presidents who shift the goal-post (amending their constitutions to incorporate longer terms of office).
Nelson Mandela is a veritable man of the people, self-abnegating, humanistic and altruistic. Upon his release from prison in 1990, his people made to usher him into a palatial edifice. In his words, "There were many in the ANC who advised me to move to the home a few blocks away, in Diepkloof extension, that Winnie had built while I was in prison. It was a grand place by Soweto standards, but it was a house that held no meaning or memories for me. Moreover, it was a house that, because of its size and expense, seemed somehow inappropriate for a leader of the people. I rejected that advice... I wanted to live not only among the people, but like them...."
Away from government, Nelson Mandela made HIV/AIDS the target of his new "war", code-named "46664 campaign", a combination of his prison number-466-and the year he was incarcerated-1964. Quite obviously, therefore, Nelson Mandela and other African leaders live in separate worlds.
I believe we too will come to a point in our lives when we shall be celebrated and the mention of our names will evoke sweet and pleasant events. Let’s keep hope alive and do our best to be the best that God has designed us to be.
Regards,

Kingsley Opia-Enwemuche, Esq
LL.B(Hons.), B.L.
Mobile: +234-8056743986


Here's my response:

Hello PK,

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece! The objective achieved! Quite inspiring and informative.

It really set me thinking along these lines…
1. It doesn’t really add up to set out it in life with the object of “recognition”. Nay, “recognition” is all but a product of excelling in that which you’re convinced in and ready to stake all to achieve. The Great Madiba was all impassioned at fighting all traces of injustice, least of all, the arch-evil of apartheid; he stayed true to the course, forfeiting all in the processes; and today, he stands as one of the most influential men in the world, of course the most influential in Africa!

2. Mis-steps (mistakes) are natural with all progress. Infallibility is at best an enemy to good progress. Madiba’s renunciation of Satyagraha for the philosophy of Violent-Resistance, could with the benefit of hindsight, be regarded as strategically incorrect (in the light of the superior weapon power of the apartheid regime); however, without such mis-step, Robben Island may not have housed him, and probably we might not have a Great Madiba today. Hence it stands to reason that in our individual journeys in life, all our steps in life (be it good, bad, right, wrong, sane, insane) are risks that should be taken! Where it leads, humanly speaking, no one knows…but we must take steps. The fear of a mistake should not birth inertia.

3. Detachment is a virtue worth grooming. The ability of man to see himself as nothing more than an instrument in the Hands of the Almighty for all his good works would ensure that he never sees himself more than a temporal phase in the line of progress. Never as an establishment! Madiba, recognized his transitory role in the history of South Africa, as one destined to end the Apartheid Regime and not a leader of the republican South Africa. He left the scene when the ovation was loudest, and of course when reasonability demanded that he left. Indeed, reasonability and the virtue of detachment are in short supply in Africa; ranging from business to politics and to religion, most men are ready to perpetuate themselves as eternal beings…a coup against the Divine Order! Man should always see his destiny as simply being a useful tool for the solution of time-bound and specific issues that confront his society, hence the provenance of the word “tenure”.

Once again Kingsley, thanks for the great stuff! Look forward to more of this interactions amongst all of us…you sure are a Starter!

Bidemi Olumide Olowosile
Tel: 08034293518; 07025281008
Blog: bdolumide@blogspot.com