Mandela: more earthly than heavenly

Masi Noor, a psychologist researching forgiveness, considers the nature of  Nelson Mandela’s main achievement and argues that it is something to which we can all aspire.

Love your enemy? Easier said than done.
Photo: World Economic Forum

Death unites people. Mandela’s departure has certainly done so. In the wake of the storm of the public messages, obituaries, tweets and blogs I wonder though, if something profound may be missing and potentially trivialising of Mandela’s character and legacy.

The dominant theme is one of veneration. This is unsurprising given Mandela’s achievements. But to canonise him as a super-human is to close the door to him as a source of inspiration to us and in the realm of the small and the ordinary. History is full of such deified Mandelas. Sometimes they are called Buddha, Jesus, Einstein, Mary, Mohammed or Maslow. Whatever the name, they remain inaccessible to most of us, so that their lifetime achievements eventually dissolve into mystery. The possibility of emulation becomes extinct.  This would be tragically counter-Mandelan.

By his own admission, Mandela never had an epiphany moment. Instead, he was ordinary, struggled to sustain romantic love and to find ways to remain human within Apartheid’s dehumanising context (and almost 30 years in prison). At times he was angry, stubborn, fragile and unsuccessful in his pursuits of his academic studies. At other times, he was a shrewd strategist who knew when to boycott, when to use threat of militancy and when to offer personal forgiveness. And sometimes he got all of them wrong. I’d suggest that this not only made him the Mandela we idolise, but more importantly someone we can emulate.

Madiba's magic

 Following the death of Nelson Mandela Angela Gilchrist reflects on her time as a young journalist in South Africa and the process of national reconciliation.

Soweto 1976. A long road back.
Photo: Soundprint Media

South Africa had reached one of its most defining moments in history, the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Before then I hadn’t taken much notice of the name Mandela. I had fallen into journalism as a skinny 19-year-old who still had orthodontic bands on her teeth and little knowledge of the world. I had lived in the safety of the 'white' suburbs on the eastern edge of Johannesburg. But in Soweto I saw violence and brutality that I can never forget and it was then that my political consciousness began to sharpen.

The African National Congress was banned and scores were detained without charge or trial. I didn't then even know what Mandela looked like as no images were available. He was spoken about in whispers and disparaged as a 'communist terrorist'. (Communism included any notion of racial equality). It wasn't possible to have access to his thoughts without going across borders. South Africa was without television until just five months before Soweto erupted. And once it had arrived, one of its main functions was to sell apartheid as a necessary tool for the salvation of the country. Mandela was described as an agitator and someone whose detention was necessary for our safety. He remained faceless, dangerous and disparaged.

South Africans thus had access to a limited number of opinions, debate was restricted, and views became deeply polarised. When conversation did take place about the matters of the day, it was often ill-informed and based on hearsay or propaganda. Being young, female and curious about the country's political peculiarities, represented a tricky set of challenges. People, men usually, would tell me that I was too young to understand or that I ought not to be bothering my pretty head about such things. My open support of racial equality meant that I was sometimes shunned and branded as a communist.