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Musings on Mandela

SOUTH Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela has been the most essential public person of my lifetime.

Political analysts will undoubtedly give more impartial versions of victories and letdowns, the decent and injurious aspects of his legacy in the next few days as the country recovers from a scare of this past week.

This past weekend the country woke up to the shocking news that Mandela had again been admitted to a Pretoria hospital for a recurring lung infection.

The nation got more worried when it was told that his condition was “serious but stable”. This was his condition for four days this week.

We were told that his condition started deteriorating on Saturday morning at about 01:30. On April 6 this year Mandela was released from hospital after nine days of treatment.

Prior to the latest attack, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate had suffered lung ailments. Early in March this year, he was in a Pretoria hospital for a general check-up and went home the day after. 

In December last year, Mandela was in hospital for 18 days for an operation to do away with gallstones and treat a lung infection.

Later this week, President Jacob Zuma said the former president had made a nice recovery and was breathing on his own. Great news indeed.

Me? I would just like to say that “Diba King” - as the late sports journo Sipho Mthembu, his elder brother and many others used to affectionately call Mandela - is among many world leaders that made the contemporary world possible.

To name just a couple of instances: Mandela curbed the rightwing AWB, which was threatening to tear the country apart if  all-race elections were held in the country.

He cleverly shattered tendencies within the ANC and the new government which were calling for the nationalisation of the country’s economy.

He introduced capitalism with a human face in South Africa, allowing for the development of the poor. 

He mortified racists who thought a black person would never run the country properly, and would want to hold on to power like his contemporaries in other parts of Africa.

Mandela only served as president of the country for one term instead of the two the constitution allows.

An indication of his eminence was certainly not only the facts themselves, but how he implemented these matters.

For anyone who was alive and kicking in the early and late 1990s, it's impossible to belittle Mandela’s power to persuade.

Many had to adore Mandela for introducing a society that suddenly didn't put limits on what black (African, Indian and Coloured) people could do. Many facets of Mandela's legacy can be interrogated, but it will be hard to tackle this particular point.

He taught many South Africans that being black in South Africa is not some sort of curse.

He taught the nation that being black is the beginning of bigger things to come. Being black permitted us to be tough and moral. He did this with a great sense of panache.

In Sophiatown, where Mandela lived before moving to Phefeni (Orlando West), they would say: “What a clever old timer.”

 - Fin24

*Mzwandile Jacks is a freelance journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
 
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