Re-reading
Travels through the Mandela mind
Helal Mohammed Khan analyses the life of the greatest man in these times
Struggle, power and vision. All three waited to be combined by one man. And that brought the South Africans their freedom, and to the world an apartheid-free existence at least the hope of it. It was no surprise to see how anxiously whole world searched for that one black face at Soccer City stadium. Born in the quiet village of Mvezo on the banks of the Mbasa, Nelson Mandela is far more than a legend. He is 'the legend', and a living one! Surely, you don't need a World Cup in South Africa to remind the world of Mandela. The call for humanity and equality that he universalized from the 1960's to the 1990's saw him well through to the new millennium. After all, our earth is still peopled by the demons of apartheid, with issues of human rights book-shelved into distant libraries. I say, it is easier than ever for every living soul to feel like a Mandela. Time for a Christ reborn? I wonder... Nelson Mandela: born 1918, reborn 2010? My Mandela reckonings, I hope, did not put you into a state of slumber. The UN has declared July 18 as 'Mandela Day' worldwide from this year on. Then you have all the recent media spotlight on him and his family. The death of his grandchild affected the World Cup opening. And no less captivating was the row over Naomi Campbell's diamond transactions, as it got dragged to an official of the Mandela charity. Clearly, the world is far from forgetting a 93-year-old ex-South African president. All these told me to retrieve the Mandela memoir from my bookshelf. Looking at the 2006 edition (Abacus) of Long Walk to Freedom, I remembered all the engineering it took to have the book first published in London in 1994. The manuscripts were hidden in various places (the story was quite similar to how the 'Rommel Papers' had to be kept away from falling into Allied or even German hands). And Mandela acknowledges it right at the beginning of his memoir: "As readers will discover, this book has a long history". In many ways Long Walk to Freedom does turn out to be an interesting embroidery of South African history. Riveting, and sometimes painfully honest, Mandela constantly reveals the rottenness of politics and depicts the waste of human potential under colonial regimes. With a life-story that is at once appalling and inspirational, he easily makes his reader believe that his triumph in South Africa is only synonymous with the triumph of the human spirit. And then you have its above-average literature. With sharp, poignant and elegant words, often told with cynical expressions (thanks to the William Phillips' edits), Mandela writes with rare and moving appeal. Great leader and politician that he is, he is nevertheless keen to reflect on himself as a mere mortal. It is a life story of hardship and resilience told with clarity and eloquence. No wonder the Los Angeles Times termed it as "one of the few political biographies that's also a page-turner." The first part of this eleven-part work illustrates Mandela's country childhood. The simplicity of life in the villages of Mvezo and Qunu stands as an ideal launching pad for a life of struggle that is yet endowed with great serenity. Like Mandela, you get to be a small 'Xhosa' (that's Mandela's tribe) kid, and learn the essential arts of survival: "…to knock birds off the sky with a slingshot, to gather wild honey and fruits and edible roots, to drink warm, sweet milk straight from the udder of a cow, to swim in the clear, cold streams, and to catch fish with twine and sharpened bits of wire". Then you carry yourself into some tenderly romantic ventures. Why not? Mandela did! And you sure do not miss the amusements of a Xhosa 'circumcision parade'. Childhood of Rohilala (yes, it is the birth name of Mandela, meaning 'troublemaker') takes you all the way to a distant African soil. The subsequent parts (two and three) discover Mandela in Johannesburg, his thoughts now shaping into a fresh political mindset. Out of the rubble of apartheid, you see the rise of a leader destined to lead his people from behind bars (Mandela's jail term in total accounts for some 27 years)! And now he gradually unveils the darkness of colonization. Disgust is the only feeling you have, as you come to know how only the 'colour' of the skin governed the fates of people in that age of darkness. And then you are happy to discover the 'Freedom Charter' which Mandela drafted for the ANC in a bid to rationalize its struggle for a new independent South African nation. You will find its clauses, with their universal appeal, outclass parallel works like the American Declaration of Independence or even the Communist Manifesto. Your disgust of apartheid turns into sheer horror when Mandela unravels (in parts five to seven) how barbarous 'government machineries' (include the darkest laws) are applied to forcefully silence the anti-apartheid movement. The witty performance of some of the lawyers (most of whom, not surprisingly, were 'sympathetic' whites) in defending those 'helpless' cases, nevertheless, beautifies the struggle. You will also note some of the cynical remarks by Mandela during 'Treason Trial' (as he describes the judiciary): "It is said that the mills of God grind exceedingly slowly, but even the Lord's machineries cannot compete with those of the South African judicial system". In describing the movement, Mandela never misses out the sacrifices and contributions of like-minded and sympathetic whites. The selflessness of Bram Fischer, Mandela's lawyer and friend, will touch you to say the least. Mandela does not also hesitate to talk about his own period of life underground. And finally he gives interesting details of his clandestine journey through a newly independent Africa, a journey which, in due course of time, would earn him worldwide support. Moved by his 'total sacrifice' for a noble cause, you also see a Mandela yearning for a family life. "Time may seem to stand still for those of us in prison, but it did not halt for those outside", writes the off-rooted man, trying to accept the realities of life (his first wife left with his children and who still had his mother's death to confront). "A mother's death causes a man to look back on and evaluate his own life…Had I made the right choice in putting the people's welfare even before that of my own family?" You are not surprised to hear it from a man with a political career of fifty years. And just in case you look askance at the exhaustive list of the book's 'dedications' not making any mention of Mandela's wives, you end up charmed as Mandela's memoir never falls short of crediting his success to the love, care and sacrifices of his wives and children. The latter chapters describe Robben Island. This is the island-prison where Mandela stayed for the greater period of his captivity (it was later listed as a UNESCO heritage). Ah, there are the unending sorrows, eternal hopelessness and the occasional joys of prison life! Mandela carries you along with him in his six feet by five feet cell. There you come to know (as I did) that "the most important person in any prisoner's life is not the minister of justice, not the commissioner of prisons, not even the head of prisons, but the warder in one's section"; and that it is a place where access to newspapers or even being permitted to put on full trousers beats everything else. Then there is also the other side of the Mandela coin. Mandela justifies (in chapter eight) the violent struggle by MK, the military wing of the ANC of which Mandela himself was the leader. Referring to MK's May 1983 car bombings which left nineteen people dead and two hundred plus injured (the action originally targeted an air force and military intelligence office in Pretoria), Mandela says unequivocally: "The killing of civilians was a tragic accident, and I felt a profound horror at the death toll. But disturbed as I was by these casualties, I knew that such accidents were the inevitable consequences of the decision to embark on a military struggle . . . Human fallibility is always a part of war, and the price of it is always high" he sure knows what he speaks of! His memoir, in fact, is pregnant with issues of his indirect approach for peace. That is how he rises to the demand of freedom for his people 'at any cost' and is able to say the unsayables. In the concluding parts, Mandela deliberates on how flexibility of political ideals displayed by politicians on both sides of the struggle brought a peace for all in South Africa. There was always light at the end of the tunnel, and the journey was difficult to say the least. But by mingling perseverance and selflessness with a rare sense of unity so much absent in that cosmopolitan country of blacks, whites and coloured, Mandela's triumph left everyone as winners. The Mandela memoir thus turns out to be a pathfinder for peace in any part of the world. The deep impression that it creates every time I turn over its pages has an effect of healing in itself. As I take leave of you today, please allow me to remind you of the disputed cartoon that made headlines in July. It featured Mandela's 'dead body', with several other living South African leaders staring at the dissected corpse of their 'father of the nation', as if wondering what all really consisted of a Mandela. As for me, I really wish I knew what unearthly elements in a human being make a legend of him. On your part, dear reader, it might be of some worth to take a walk along the trail blazed in Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom.
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