Viva Madiba!

There are times in my life where I realize that what I thought, or was led to believe, was off target. I recently went to see the movie "Invictus" with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It is a story of Nelson Mandela during the first year of his Presidency in South Africa. I recommend the film highly. It is one of the best dramatizations of the power of forgiveness that I have seen in recent years.

I was so impressed by the portrayal of President Mandela's character, I went to my local library and checked out his autobiography, "The Long Walk to Freedom". My first awareness of South Africa's struggle was in the late 60's and 70's when the quest for freedom in that country was coming to a head. I did not know that that conflict had been going on since the 1920's and that Nelson Mandela had been a leader in that effort since the 1940's. Much of what I heard through the media, as it turns out, was biased and often false.

I came away from the book (a 635 page odyssey) with a sense of remorse that in a civilized world that the subjugation of a people would be tolerated as it was for over a century. I was humbled by the patience and longsuffering of the African people under the iron fist of the National Party. Through it all, Mr. Mandela fought for the rights of people under the rule of law, even in prison. When he became president, he fought for the rights of his former oppressors against the popular mood that they should be punished.

Some books changes the reader. Old paradigms sometimes melt like an icicle on an eave, and sometimes they shatter as it turns loose and hits the sidewalk. This book did a little of both for me. The abuse of one people by another for economic, political or prejudicial reasons will be a force in our world as long as there are people, I suppose. Our people are just as guilty of the same offenses over the years. That does not make it right. "The Long Walk to Freedom" has helped me to view these situations differently. (Madiba is a term of respect for Nelson Mandela attributed to his tribal royal lineage)