Yesterday
the world bid goodbye to Nelson Mandela. Readers of the Wrongologist Blog may
remember that he and Ms. Oh So Right visited South Africa in 2012. You can read
about the visit to Soweto here.
Nelson
Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi were the three great moral
icons of the 20th Century. All were reviled in their own time by the
domestic power structure in their home lands, each inspired people all over the
world. Each appealed to the best in the rest of us; that is what made them
transcendent global figures.
Mandela,
like the others, fought the institutions of racism and/or colonialism. Their emphasis
on love and forgiveness made it easier for each to form alliances with sympathetic whites
within their country’s power structure.
Beyond
simply inspiring their people, each won a great victory in their countries.
Of the three, Mandela
suffered the most personal hardship. Much of his moral authority came from the
decades he spent as a prisoner. He was the only one to hold public office and
the only one to die a natural death.
We
visited Mandela House in Soweto. The Mandela House is located at 8115 Orlando
West, on the corner of Vilakazi and Ngakane Streets. Vilakazi Street is the best known street in Soweto. It is
the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners have lived:
Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Mandela lived at #8115 and Tutu about 50 yards
down the street. Mandela’s home is now a museum, where Ms. Oh So Right took this photo of the Mandela
bedroom:
In
his book, The Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote the following
after his return to his home in Soweto after his release from 27 years in prison
in 1990:
night I returned with Winnie to No. 8115 in Orlando West. It was only then that
I knew in my heart I had left prison. For me No. 8115 was the centre point of my
world, the place marked with an X in my mental geography
The
house was built in 1945, part of a Johannesburg initiative to build new houses in Orlando.
Mandela moved into the house in 1946. Winnie, his second wife, moved into the
house in 1958. She lived in the house with her daughters while Nelson Mandela
was in jail, until she was exiled to Brandfort by the government in 1977, where
she remained under house arrest until 1986 before returning to Soweto.
Mandela
lived in the house for only 11 days after his release from prison in 1990, the
family, however, continued to occupy the house until 1996.
More
from Mandela:
was the opposite of grand, but it was my first true home of my own and I was
mightily proud. A man is not a man until he has a house of his own
There
is a high-end shopping mall in Sandton, which is an upscale part of
Johannesburg. It is packed with shoppers of all races.
In
the “Nelson Mandela Square” in the center of the Mall, there is a
larger-than-life statue of Mandela.
The
Wrongologist had a coffee at an outdoor café, the Caffe Della Salute, and
watched locals, of all races, stop to take a family photo at Mandela’s feet. All
smiled and hugged their family members.
It
is striking to think that on the Mall in Washington DC, the Statue of Martin
Luther King, Jr. also depicts a larger-than-life representation of our
non-violent revolutionary, and Americans of all races also snap a photo at the
feet of our great man.
Starting
in 1972, the US House of Representatives tried to pass legislation to create
economic sanctions against South Africa until Apartheid was ended and Mandela
released. It was only taken up in 1985, and then passed in 1986 as The
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. The Congress had to override
President Reagan’s veto of the bill, and a Republican-led Senate did just that.
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was one of those who voted to override, while Dick
Cheney voted against the House resolution.
The
sanctions were repealed in July 1991 after South Africa met the preconditions
of the act.
How
quickly we forget that Mandela was thought to be a terrorist well into the 1980’s
by many. Margret Thatcher had called the African National Congress
(ANC), Mandela’s party, a “typical terrorist organization”.
William
F. Buckley in 1990 on the release of Mandela:
release of Mandela….may one day be likened to the arrival of Lenin at the
Finland train station in 1917
(Finland Station is a
train station in Saint Petersburg, Russia handling transportation to destinations including Helsinki. The station is most famous for being the place
where Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland on April
3, 1917 just ahead of the October Revolution.)
There
is an Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg that offers an education on the subject
of Apartheid. It also delivers a similar emotional impact to the Holocaust
Museum in Washington DC. There is a quote by Nelson Mandela on a wall outside
the Apartheid Museum:
be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains but to live in a way that respects
and enhances others
Perhaps
his greatest legacy was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that allowed
the stories of the Apartheid era to be told. Although few whites in South
Africa took part in the process, it offered a cleansing and a release for most
people in the country and allowed them to move on peacefully.
Had
another leader been the one released from prison, it is quite likely that the
transition from Apartheid would have been bloody and violent.
The National Review was often more interested in the socialism and communism of opponents of racism, than in the racist oppression that drove the oppressed into the arms of the hard left.
Oddly, Mandela’s righteousness was revealed in his acceptance of reconciliation rather than retribution. He was a giant and an icon.