THIRTY YEARS ON: A NOBLE LEGACY IN PERIL By Asithandile Gxumisa

"I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying." These wise and truthful words could only have been said by a man of advanced years, who had lived through the ennobling fire of sorrow and had tasted of the bitterness of human moral frailty even as he bravely strove for that nearly unattainable pinnacle of virtue. Thus did Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela honestly testify about himself in his twilight years. Today marks the 30th anniversary of Mr Mandela's release from prison on the 11th of February, 1990. That historical event marked the beginning of a "New Dawn" for South Africa even as George H. W. Bush would later, in that same year, memorably announce the advent of a "New World Order". It was no coincidence. Apartheid was slowly unraveling and communism in the East was sinking into the abyss of memory.

Indeed, of all the men who stood tall during the trying days of white minority rule Mr Mandela had a far better right to lead the nation into the post-apartheid dispensation. Not due to any discernible personal superiority over his comrades-in-arms, but due to the fact that at the time his mighty role in the formative years of the "new South Africa" seemed to have been written in the stars for all to see. Only Whites who were still hopelessly too drunk on the venomous wine of racism could not read the signs that signalled the end of their house of cards which, I dare say, an Oriental astrologist might have worked out from the pattern of the heavenly bodies. And only Africans to whom Mr Mandela's vision of the future appeared too lofty to reach could not fathom that his vision was in truth the only just choice for the Republic. Still, very fortunately, enough South Africans chose to follow where he led them.

A man of high birth on account of his rich royal Thembu lineage and, by all accounts, a man of indomitable character, Mr Mandela was more deserving than most of that interesting appellation "born-(a)-leader". His kindly old countenance almost always wore a Sun-like smile, and his eyes communicated to anyone attentive enough a depth of thought and nobility of spirit that, if it were possible, could have won the adoring loyalty of the meanest spirit in Tartarus. After all, this man was not a child of the clinic, and neither did he grow up in some noisome Megalopolis. He was born and bred among the great African heights of Thembuland which must have defined the contours of his clear moral imagination. He forded the tawny and winding rivers of that old land, and these may have given him his long vision which was distrustful of quick solutions which many of his friends loudly advocated for. In him the African village spirit ran true and lastingly; and the long years in prison and cold cities could not corrupt it - a testament to the enduring wonders of our ancient homes in contrast to the glories of the cities, which are here today and gone tomorrow.

Thus, it is no surprise to me that practically all men who met him fell easily in love with this great figure. Even the world beyond our borders could not miss the lustre of his star. In 1993 when Chris Hani was shot dead in cold blood by the radical Janusz Waluś, when South Africa in Mr Mandela's words "teeter[ed] on the brink of disaster" following that hateful incident, when nay-sayers prophesied civil strife, it was Nelson Mandela who took it upon himself - and indeed the only one who could - to show both the White man and the African man that their war was not a struggle of one against the other but a battle against the forces of hatred and irrational prejudice that threatened to take away "what Chris Hani gave his life for - the freedom of us all." In my humble opinion, that was the greatest trial of his leadership and, indeed, of the country as democracy knocked on its door. It was also his finest hour as - in the great speech that he gave while addressing the nation - he chose unity over division, forgiveness over blind retribution and appealed for calm rather than violence. Mr Mandela being acutely aware of the communal bonds that held his own people in perpetual community back home knew more than most men that the South African commonwealth could only be sustained if the African man and the White man chose to live in brotherly love and worked towards a shared future of common interests. 

That speech of his which he gave after the assassination of his friend, of his neighbour, and of his comrade-in-arms was the clearest indication of Nelson Mandela's unwavering commitment to a South Africa whose political and constitutional culture would be underpinned by fraternal solidarity, by a collective effort towards undoing all the regressive legacies of Apartheid, and by a bold aspiration to build a Tomorrow in which the welfare of all would be the chief object of the concern of our democratically elected leaders. At that moment of bereavement, and at that hour of heart-rending grief Nelson Mandela had every right to curse every White South African, he had every reason to give up on the high dream of a 'Rainbow Nation', and he could very justifiably have called upon the African man to take up arms and unleash Hell. However, because this would have been the easy way out, that route that only purblind ideologues are wont to take, Nelson Mandela characteristically chose prudence for a guide and, for so worthwhile an end, exposed his person to the possibility of being denounced by his 'own' as a traitor, as a sell-out and as a mouthpiece for White minority interests. The great sacrifice on the part of Nelson Mandela that that moment involved has unfortunately not thoroughly been appreciated by many, and this may be why today there echoes across the length and breadth of this Republic a refrain that his decision to reach out to the White man was a reflection of a half-hearted concern for the economic plight of his own people which has gone on unabated. I say that this criticism is most unfair and is utterly unreasonable - not least because it is likely  founded upon a very childish assumption that Nelson Mandela had the intellectual and physical resources at his disposal to solve all the problems of the African at that moment. I fear that I cannot say more on this point in this little article.

Now, obviously, this new relationship which Nelson Mandela called upon us all to aspire to demanded incredibly great sacrifice on the part of the African man - whose memory still recalled clearly the long and painful years of dispossession, oppression and brutality from his White neighbour. But ressentiment - what Nietzsche once called the ''witch's brew'' - could not do as the foundation of a new viable nation. Something older, something nobler, and something stronger was necessary. That something was Ubuntu. Mr Mandela's appeal to this old and grand African ideal - rather than to any of the shallow ideologies of our own Age - showed a mind that still venerated the wisdom and memory of his forebears. And so it is that the Republic of South Africa was - first and foremost - founded on Ubuntu. An ideal that still sought justice for the atrocities of the past; but, nevertheless, such justice as would restore the broken ties of fellowship among South Africans. Only on this sure basis has the existing relationship among the many "races" in the Republic been made possible. Today this great and noble legacy is in mortal peril as usurpers - noisy children of the clinic and thankless fanatics of Megalopolis - yell for the elevation of all such shallow differences as set each of us apart by dangerous rhetoric deceptively cloaked as solicitude for the injuries of the downtrodden. Before the advance of these dangerous wolves who sadly associate words like sacrifice and patience with treasonous vice, greyheads who once were drawn to that glorious vision of Mr Mandela retreat and begin to lose hope in a South Africa "that belongs to all who live in it". I will not be too specific about how this phenomenon as most fair-minded people should be aware by now of the source of these threat.

This is quite a tragic turn of things. The Republic is only more than two decades old and already its survival begins to be in doubt. We have a past. It is full of many lessons. We have only to humble ourselves and look back for inspiration before the future with all its vague promises blinds us for good to the light of the wisdom of our ancestors. Mr Mandela is all the evidence we need in order to know that - contrary to much else that might be said about us - our past hides treasures far more precious than the very contents of the Louvre. And Ubuntu - chief among them - still calls for new votaries. To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God is, ultimately, our highest call as one prophet once declared. Justly did Nelson Mandela act, mercy did he love and as for his walk with God I must admit myself to be ignorant. Still I count myself to be privileged to have seen and learnt something from the greatest statesman South Africa will ever know. From the precipice of civil war, from the brink of tribal rivalry and out of the conflagration of racial bigotry, it was his noble spirit, his wise heart and prophetic mind that charted for an entire nation a sure path to unity, forgiveness and relative prosperity. We owe it to each other to keep that legacy strong.