My thoughts on one of the greatest men of this century
August 29, 2007 | 10:40 amOne of the things you need to know about me is that I am addicted to the Biography Channel. In fact, biographies are one of my favorite types of books too. And since I can be just as shallow as I can be “deep and meaningful”, I’ll take as much pleasure in watching a biography on Charlie Sheen as I do on Nelson Mandela (granted, i would probably not take the time to read Charlie’s bio…).
But since this post is not in the shallow “That’s Hot” category, my post is about Nelson Mandela. This man is definitely one of the great people of this century, a hero to his country, we all know how he spent 27+ years in jail for a cause he believed in, how the people of his country remembered him and continued fighting in his name, how he came out of jail and ended apartheid, became the country’s official leader and held the first free multi-racial democratic elections in the country.
What I found particularly striking and I find reflects on the core of who he is as a man and a human being, is the fact that the lifetime he spent in jail did not remotely make him bitter or angry. He persevered until he reached his goal, and he rarely used guerrila warfare and violence. With regards to this, I want to highlight the following from Wikipedia:
Mandela explains the move to embark on armed struggle as a last resort, when increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had achieved nothing and could not succeed. Mandela later admitted that the [African National Congress] ANC, in its struggle against apartheid, also violated human rights, and has sharply criticized attempts by parts of his party to remove statements supporting this fact from the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
I don’t think there is anything I could say in this post that hasn’t been said before on this great man, but what I reflect on is how his struggle to end apartheid was not motivated by anger and hate, be it before or after his 30 years in prison. I believe THAT was the variable that allowed his struggle to be successful. So how does a man who sees such injustices not become bitter and enraged? The answer, I believe can be found in his childhood. Mandela was born in a very influential and important family in his region, his great-granfather was the King of the Thembu people, and his father was chief of his village. The point is, for the first 18-20 years of his life, he lived in regions of South Africa that were all-black, and therefore, he did not grow up confronted on a daily basis with racial hatred, he was never meant to feel inferior for the color of his skin. Anyone growing up in an environment of hatred, violence and racism can only end up bitter and angry. Mandela did not feel any of this growing up. THIS, i believe is the key to how Mandela chose to fight his struggle.
*warning: random thoughts ahead 
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I find Mandela such a beautiful person. I am not someone who is very much into analyzing people’s auras (in fact, i know nothing about auras), but i believe that he must have the world’s most impressive aura. Mandela has often mentioned that one of his greatest influence is Mahatma Gandhi, and I believe this is very obvious. One of the contemporaries that he admired greatly too is ex-US President Jimmy Carter, someone I also admire for his stance on peace throughout the Middle East (yes, yes, I know, Jimmy wasn’t the world’s greatest US president, but I don’t believe this should take away from his amazing foreign policy).
So is Mandela perfect? No, i think not, and in fact, I think that anyone who could devote his entire life to his country’s struggle in such a steadfast and focused way, must be a very difficult man to live with (or without, considering that he spent most the life he shared with his 2nd wife in jail). I think he made a choice of which way his life would go, and that meant that the more time he spent struggling, the less time he spend being a private man, a husband and a father. Life must not be easy being the child of Nelson Mandela. I just think it’s important to acknowledge his family for the sacrifice they were asked to make for the sake of their country.
Last random thought: this man is now 89 years old, and he has retired from public life… Sort of… Last month, he created the council of Elders, which, I know, sounds like something out of Star Trek or Harry Potter, but is, in fact, an amazing way to unite all the great living men and women of this century who have knowledge, wisdom and experience to:
“speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken. Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair“.
I do believe that you probably have to be 70+ to join the club (i’m only 1/2 kidding, i think that to understand and share your perspective and wisdom, you can’t be 40-odd years old), and includes such greats as Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Muhammad Yunus and Jimmy Carter, each of these people having their own specialty and area of expertise.
I am thankful that there are people like Nelson Mandela in this world.
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I am also grateful – but I fear that there are too few if any people to take their place. Who do we have that is young and vibrant and leads with equal determination to make this world a better place?
Our world is obsessed with celebrities and superficial fluff. Yes, oprah and a few others occasionally remind us of more – but they do so with a certain amount of hypocrisy. Living in luxury and for the almighty dollar first and their beliefs’ second.
So who?? I ask will take the mantel at the elders council years from now?
I think the world has changed. we’re into immediate gratification. We want everything now. In the old days, people used to understand the concept of working towards a better world, you sacrifice something now for a better tomorrow… now, it’s just, i want this TV, that iPod, the sumer house and winter chalet, just like Oprah, we’ll help once we’ve helped ourselves.
Just like i sometimes think that chilvary died with Mr. Darcy, i think that the honest-to-goodness need to see this world as a better place has disappeared, maybe it’s just no longer possible to imagine the world as a better place? are we really that jaded?
A thought that’s been going on in my head for 6-10 months now is the feeling that the world has just gotten a lot more complicated. I used to think that it was how everyone felt, growing up and becoming adults. But now it think it’s actually true… our generation is so clueless and lost…
i am grateful for the world around me, for MY world. That i have control over… but to hold oneself responsible for the greater good, it’s a tougher task every generation. If we only had a 3-5 Mandelas last century, imagine how many we’ll have this century?
Well the world has certainly gotten more complicated but I don’t think this means that even in the era of “being clueless and lost”, we can’t have Mandelas.
Maybe not like him, who stayed in prison for years for what he believed in, but now we have people who help the “Humanity” by their noble ideas; examples: Inventors of the idea of “Blogs”, that gives the opportunity to people to express their ideas on the web: helping the freedom of speech, Creators of a website like “Youtube” which is now taken into consideration seriously in the central institutions of democratic representative governments, elections, and so on.
So, I would say that we still have our own Mandelas; People who devote their time -if not their lives- to improve our world; our values.
Yeah, but i’m still struggling to find someone who is willing to die for his cause. There’ll always been inventors, that definitely helps a society’s progress, but at the end of the day, the inventor benefits himself, too. I’m pretty sure the founder of YouTube and Facebook and g-zillionnaires, and Bill Gates, bless his soul, while having revolutionized technology, probably didn’t do this out of selflessness or sense of duty and calling
…and don’t get me wrong, to prove your worth, you don’t have to end up your whole life in prison like Mandela, there are varying degrees of this, but like i said, i think devotion to the cause is a lost art, just like chivalry.
We’re going to remember Mandela and Gandhi, but we’re not going to remember Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Chad Hurley (YouTube)… actually, the only reason i know their names is because i work in the IT industry…
Sure, we’ll have our Mandelas, eventually… but i’m not sure i’ve seen any worthy contenders come up just yet, the race is wide open…
Maybe we should believe that the nature of the causes has changed! Maybe, the world has changed in a way that the societies don’t feel to be in need of another Mandela, another Gandhi, …
Lets look at the causes which made such great people to stand up and become a pioneer in their countries. How many countries in the world do have the same situation now as of South Africa or India, when Mandela or Gandhi started their fight against injustice or their movement toward independence?!
Probably we are looking in the wrong place and that’s why we are not able to find “someone who is willing to die for his cause”. we are looking into developed societies, forgetting that those HEROES showed up in places where basic aspects of human being were in dangerous not the luxury part of the life…
really? seriously? you don’t think that 1/2 the countries in Africa and Asia that are in conflict are looking for a hero to save them out of poverty, hunger and more? someone to put them on the map and bring their cause the world’s sensibilities?
For every Rwanda and every Afghanistan, there are 10 countries that are just as much in conflict and dire need of help, but that are NOT being talked about until some celebrity à la George Clooney decides to give a press conference about it (like he did with Rwanda).
See here:
http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/conflict.htm
A list of countries listed as “in conflict”.
Hungry, racial unrest, slavery, all these things require a hero to rise out from the mist, put a name on the problem and bring it to the world stage.
You have a point though. Mandela and Gandhi were pre “global media”, and i think that makes a difference. These days, anyone can have their 15 seconds of fame, and you can be as fluffy as Paris Hilton, and still appear on Larry King and state that you want to visit Rwanda and help the conflict. With so much of the media being filled with such fluff, how is anyone with any substance supposed to make a mark? A hero could be right there, telling us what he is planinng on doing to help, and we wouldn’t notice him for all the fluffiness on our media these days.
Do we even know how to distinguish what real and what’s not these days? Are we so blazé that as soon as George Clooney makes a heartfelt plee during a press conference, that’s it, we’re done, our guilty conscience is appeased and feel like the cause is out in the limelight, so now, there’s no more need for a hero?
See? I knew free speech and free press were going to back and bite us in the a*s!! I vote for controlled state television for all countries!!!
… i’m kiddding!!! was supposed to make you smile, you know, haha, funny?
FINE, i’ll be quiet now… *sigh*
hey hey hey! I think my point has been misunderstood and that’s my fault…I don’t mean that there is no places in the world that is in a real conflict, I don’t mean that there are no human beings who require specific attention when our priorities have become “who will be the next US president” or “How will the world deal with a country which seeks nuclear energy” and so on….
I am wondering that if we still need heroes for every conflict in our world, then what’s the function of all those international organizations that WE have invented to make our world a place out of poverty, discrimination and war?! United Nations, UNESCO, etc. Don’t need to give me the answer cause I already know that.
Sorry but my problem is that I don’t believe in HEROES! If we are just sitting and looking for someone to stand up and start to fight then I think we shouldn’t expect more than George Clooney, Paris Hilton or Madonna! Actually heroes don’t intent to be heroes when they start fighting for their cause…The hero is among us, ourselves! and how true Gandhi says “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Have we ever asked ourselves what we have done to make our world a better place?
ok, this is starting to make more sense.
Well, i’ll still answer your 2nd paragrpah, and i think that yes, it’s true, those organizations didn’t exist before, but now they do, i think it’s hard for them to actually achieve much without years of approval process and negotiation. But yes, you’re right, still, they have taken the place of the “heroes”.
But to answer your 3rd paragraph, yes, agreed, gandhi’s mission wasn’t to be a hero for his country. I’m just saying that if there is someone out there like him, right now, who’s really making a difference in his for his country, how are we ever supposed to hear about him. He’ll just get lost in a world of scrolling tickers, and if he does suddenly get recognized, for every fan, he’ll get criticized too, again, i think, due to the over-mediatization of this world.
Well, the media are like double sided swords…on one hand, if there is a person who is trying to make a change in his/her society, without the help of the media, s/he will probably be ignored! On the other hand, we are directed to see, what they want us to see and in the way they want!
How many of us would have known about the conflict in Myanmar and the military government’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators last month if CNN or CBS or CBC and so on, wouldn’t report it? But what happened after a few weeks?! Is everything now OK over there that we are not hearing any news on the air anymore?!! isn’t it because our media want to focus on another issue?!
like i said, we live in a world of over-mediatization and scrolling tickers… Newsworthiness is measured in milliseconds.