Mandela as reminder and symbol

Thinking about Nelson Mandela’s birthday, what comes to mind is how I felt—how the world felt—watching his release over a decade ago. Watching him walk down the road, hand in hand with his now ex-wife, Winnie Mandela. Watching South Africa prepare for its first full elections in 1994. Watching him assume the Presidency. Watching him re-marry, this time Graca Machel, the former wife of his slain Mozambiquan comrade, Samora Machel.

There were so many moments that made me cry. Cry that they, we, Africa, the world had done it. South Africa was free. We could all therefore aspire to freedom—believing, knowing it could be achieved, in our lifetime. And Mandela had finally found personal as well as political peace. Meaning that we could all find love, even in the setting of our lives—with whole histories, legacies behind us.

Hope was what Mandela symbolised then. He represented the very best of us. And he symbolised our hope that Africa as a whole could—and would—realise the best of itself.

Today, however, not so many years later, I wonder what has become of those aspirations—for freedom, for love, for hope in the best of us. The electoral process—so important in 1994 for South Africa and the rest of us as we moved back towards political pluralism—is now a travesty. From Ethiopia to Uganda to Nigeria and, most recently and tragically, to Kenya and Zimbabwe, it is clear that even those most basic of human rights were not won definitively in the 1990s. And South Africa has now well lost the moral high ground that it had assumed in 1994.

So the question that comes to mind now, thinking of Mandela’s birthday, is how he can use his own moral authority to help us aspire again. He is just one individual—but he’s an individual who transformed himself from being the founding member of the Africa National Congress (ANC)’ armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), to being one of the most beloved personages on this planet. His own beliefs and ideals did not change. But his tactics necessarily did, even though MK’s existence arguably helped force the settlement reached. And the world’s perceptions of him changed as well. How do other individuals respond to that transformation? Other Africans in positions of leadership? Us all? How do we maintain our beliefs and ideals, while changing tactics when necessary and forcing change in perceptions of us?

This is the challenge that we all face, as Africans wanting to aspire again in freedom, love, hope. As Africans wanting to believe it is all possible—and in our lifetime.

Happy birthday Nelson Mandela. Thank you for existing. Thank you for making your own existence worthwhile. Thank you for becoming the reminder, the symbol that you have.

*L. Muthoni Wanyeki, is the executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

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