Mandela's legacy was about human dignity

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." -Nelson Mandela

South Africa's first democratic president Nelson Mandela passed away yesterday. Mandela is the most important world statesman of the last 70 years.

Much has been said about the great man's contribution to justice and reconciliation, so I'll focus on something different.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Anyone can overcome adversity. If you really want to test a man's character, give him power."

And this is perhaps the most significant way in which Mandela distinguished himself: by NOT pretending he was indispensable to his nation's fate.

He could easily have erected a cult of personality around himself. So many liberation leaders around the world fell into that trap. His insistence on instead choosing the greater good is one of the biggest reasons he is so universally admired.

He was denounced as a terrorist by misleaders like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. But as state sponsors of terrorism themselves, they were in no position to cast judgment on a man who was fighting for freedom as they fought against it.

But much like with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mandela's legacy is usually oversimplified, at least in western countries. It's oversimplified into his role in the fight for legal equality for black people. In fact, his real quest, much like Dr. Lking's was for the complete, fundamental dignity of human beings. That included legal equality but was much broader.

He argued that poverty and inequality "have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils."

That was his legacy.

20 years after a hero's liberation

"Anyone can handle adversity. If you really want to test a man's character, give him power." -Abraham Lincoln

I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge today as being the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's liberation from prison. Mandela remains arguably (though not arguably in my opinion) the greatest living political figure and certainly one the greatest of the 20th century. Not simply for his role in liberating South Africa from apartheid but for his sage guidance of the country during the early years of the country's real democracy. I maintain that the greatest thing he ever did for South Africa, even greater than leading the apartheid struggle, was to serve only a single term as the country's president. In doing so, he prevented the country from trading one oppressor for another. The decision prevented the development of a cult of personality and sent a loud and clear message that the well-being of the state must never be dependent on the beneficence of a single individual. He thus fulfilled his promise upon being released from prison that he stood "not as a prophet but as [the people's] humble servant." This mentality, the mark of true statesmanship, is likely the biggest single reason South Africa has so far avoided going down the road of other countries with similar liberation struggles like Zimbabwe and Angola.



Note: The South African Broadcasting Corporation has coverage here, here The Johannesburg Daily Mail and Guardian has reports here and here. The BBC has a report here as well as memories here and here as well as pictures.

Happy birthday Madiba

I am remiss for neglecting to post an entry marking
the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.

It's probably a little happier now that the US government has finally figured out that he is not a terrorist.

At his birthday celebration, the Nobel Peace Prize winner made remarks calling for closing the chasm between rich and poor.