By Jideofor Adibe
July 18 of every year, which is Nelson Mandela’s birthday, is celebrated across the world as Mandela Day. It should be recalled that the United Nations General Assembly declared in November 2009 that July 18 of every year should be commemorated as Mandela International Day in recognition of the contributions of the late South African President to the culture of global peace. The Mandela Day was essentially aimed at honouring the late anti-Apartheid activist’s lifelong commitment to social justice, reconciliation, and human rights.
The day also encourages individuals and communities worldwide to engage in acts of service that will make a positive impact in their communities. In December 2015, the UNGA extended the scope of the Mandela Day to also include promoting humane conditions of imprisonment, raising awareness about prisoners being a continuous part of society and valuing the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance. The UNGA adopted the revised UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and approved that these should be known as the “Nelson Mandela Rules”.
Born in 1918 in the village of
Mvezo, Mandela was given the forename, Rolihlahla, which literally translated
means “troublemaker”. Some say he lived up to the name because as an
undergraduate at the University of Fort Hare, he was suspended for joining a
protest boycott. Mandela later studied law at the University of Witwatersrand
and soon became involved in the anti-apartheid movement, African National
Congress, ANC, which led to his being arrested several times, culminating to
life imprisonment in 1962.
During his years in prison,
Mandela was seen as the symbol for the struggle against racial oppression in
South Africa and one of the most influential leaders in the anti-apartheid
movement. Though he dedicated his life to the struggle for freedom of South
Africans, he also had the wisdom to recognise that non-violence and
negotiations were the most efficient path in the fight to end apartheid. In
1993, Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize. As the first Black South African
to serve as the country’s president, Mandela spent his years in office (1994 –
1997) promoting the transformation of the country into a rainbow nation founded
on the promotion of reconciliation.
As President, he was neither
corrupt nor tyrannical. He was rather seen as a symbol of decency and
reconciliation. The United Nations General Assembly marked this year’s Mandela
Day with an informal plenary meeting. The Speakers were Csaba Kõrösi, President
of the77th session of the General Assembly, António Guterres, UN
Secretary-General and Andrew Young, a politician, activist, and former
Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations.
In his speech during the
plenary, Csaba Kõrösi, remarked: “In times of turbulence and uncertainty, there
might be little room for idealism. But we need ideals, in both sense of the
word. Meaning, on the one hand, standards of perfection and, on the other hand,
people we can respect. Role models, if you wish, men and women who influence
others by serving as an example. Let us follow Madiba in embracing the power of
resistance to oppression, justice over inequality, dignity over humiliation,
and forgiveness over hatred.”
In commemorating this year’s
Mandela International Day at Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate,
Professor Wole Soyinka, urged Nigerians to strive to be like Mandela rather
than just celebrating him. Soyinka who was the special guest of honour at the
occasion was quoted as saying that there are “many Mandela among us…. We should
do everything to free them and celebrate them wherever they are to save the
coming generation.” What can we all learn from the life of Mandela? One, our
leaders can learn that the key responsibility for driving a reconciliation
process in any polarised and fractious society lies with the leadership of that
country.
Since the leader of such a
fractious society necessarily belongs to one of the fault lines or contending
blocs in such a society, he or she has to make an early choice whether to
deliberately transcend the extant fault lines (at the risk of displeasing his
or her ‘own people’ in the short term) or politicise those fault lines by
cultivating some and alienating others in a bid to entrench himself or herself
in power. Mandela chose to embrace all, including the Whites who promoted
Apartheid and imprisoned him for 27 years – to the consternation of many
Blacks who fought the Apartheid system and itched for revenge.
He eschewed any temptation to
privilege his Xhosa ethnic group and instead set out deliberately to support
the construction of a rainbow nation. In Nigeria, one of the causes of the
anarchic nature of the struggle for power, especially at the federal level, is
the fear that the group that wins power will use it to privilege its in-group
and disadvantage others. The actions of some of the country’s leaders since
1999, especially the Buhari government, seem to justify those fears.
Two, Mandela was a synonym for
reconciliation. Jailed for 27 years for his opposition to apartheid, he came
out of prison in 1990 expressing no bitterness towards those who deprived him
of 27 years of his life. When he was sworn in as post-apartheid South Africa’s
first democratically elected President in 1994, many Black hard liners wanted
justice for the sins of apartheid while many White people were apprehensive of
their fate under Black majority rule. Mandela opted to champion reconciliation
among the country’s fractious population, espousing the principles of nation-building
and co-operative governance.
When he set up the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in 1995, the emphasis was on reconciliation in sharp
contrast to the approach taken by the Nuremberg Trials and other
de-Nazification measures. Even before he became President in 1994, Mandela had
chosen to be a reconciler. A clear demonstration of this was in 1993 when a
White right winger murdered Chris Hani (at the time arguably the ANC’s most
popular leader after Mandela).
Many Black South Africans simply
wanted war. But Mandela thought otherwise. In one of his most impassioned
speeches, Mandela declared: “Tonight I am reaching out to every single South
African, Black and White, from the very depths of my being. A White man, full
of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that
our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster…. A White woman, of
Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice
this assassin.” Mandela promoted ‘politics without bitterness’ – in deeds, not
just in rhetoric.
Three, Mandela’s greatest legacy
was his uncanny ability to steer South Africa through the crisis of its
rebirth. Though South Africa still remains a divided country, it would
certainly have been worse without Mandela. By choosing to be a symbol of peace
and reconciliation, Mandela became a figure who transcended all the fault lines
in South Africa, Africa and even the world. This is the missing link in
Nigeria today in its arduous journey to nationhood.
There is no individual or group
which commands legitimacy across the country’s fault lines and therefore
capable of resolving amicably the conflicts resulting from inter-group
interactions. Distrust is very entrenched and quite often just a person’s name
makes the person a suspect on which side the person is likely to be in the
various contestations in the country. By the time Mandela died on December 5
2013, he had become one of the greatest moral authorities in the world.
*Adibe,
a professor of political science, is a commentator on public issues
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