Nelson Mandela

A Letter to Mr. Mandela

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Mandela

Dear Mr. Mandela,

I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to write.  I’ve intended to write you for ages and I am sorry that it took a glimpse of your mortality to remind me that I must seize this moment and not put it off any longer.

Mr. Mandela, when I read your book six years ago, I could not put it down.  I was completely mesmerized by your story and your heart.  I would read your words on the bus to and from work, frustrated by the lack of privacy that public transportation offered; trying unsuccessfully to hide my tears as they fell freely onto the pages.  I was moved by the mere fact that you existed – a man so wholeheartedly and single-mindedly devoted to a cause that it would enable him to lead an entire revolution from behind bars.  You, who were not free in the natural, had the ability to set others free because you knew where freedom existed in the first place.  And you held to this ideal even though it was rejected for years, and is still often rejected today.

“As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.  There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they are known to those who win them.  This is particularly true of prison, where one must find consolation in being true to one’s ideals, even if no one else knows of it.  Even in prison, I was assured that I would survive, for any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure.”

You humbly acknowledged that your strength did not come solely from some secret place within yourself, but that it poured forth from the strength of the collective identity that you had with your fellow man.  You wrote:

“It would be very hard, if not impossible, for one man alone to resist.  I do not know that I could have done it had I been alone.  But the authorities’ greatest mistake was keeping us together, for together our determination was reinforced.  We supported each other and gained strength from each other.  Whatever we knew, whatever we learned, we shared, and by sharing we multiplied whatever courage we had individually.”

Mr. Mandela, the profundity of your legacy is staggering.  It leaves me speechless, breathless, hungry, full of wonder and hope.  In order to lead a revolution of freedom, re-designing human thought, you had to know the life of a prisoner and the mind of the enemy who put you in chains.  Your entire platform of change was built on not only your vision, but your solidarity with those whom you were trying to set free.

“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”

Mr. Mandela, I’m so sorry that you are sick and that your tired body is finally giving out.  I’m sorry that I can’t sit by your bedside and sing you songs to usher you in to the other side, where you will finally shed this skin and be clothed in radiance.  And even now, I am weeping while writing this.  My heart is broken that I will never get to look into your warrior eyes and hug you and whisper words of gratitude.  But, I am confident that you are passing over peacefully and without fear.  You lived well.  You wasted yourself for the sake of others.  You achieved true vengeance over your enemies by bringing the fullness of life to those who were oppressed.  You sacrificed being a father to your own children in order to be a father to an entire nation.  I am honored to have lived on this earth while you walked and laughed and bled and wept.  Someday, I will visit Robben Island and touch the walls of your cell and cry and remember everything you did for our people and the price you paid to do it well.

May you go in peace,

Emily R. George

Exploring Stories of Forgiveness in South Africa

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I am in the middle of a personal explorative journey through South Africa’s history that began with the riveting experience of reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.  Captivated by Mandela’s unwavering devotion to reconcile the nation of South Africa and his courageous forgiveness of his oppressors, I read this book in its entirety in just a few sittings with tears streaming down my face and a passion burning my soul.

After Long Walk to Freedom, I read Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa by Antjie Krog.  After Mandela became president in 1994, he established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman.  The TRC was established after the abolition of apartheid and gave victims, as well as perpetrators, an opportunity to stand before the entire national and international community and share their stories of gross human rights abuses.  Mandela knew that in order for South Africa to move forward as a free democracy and a united nation, these stories could not be swept under the rug.  They must be told.  They must be heard.  They must be validated.  And forgiveness must be offered so that reconciliation between both victim and oppressor could occur.  Krog’s book outlined these stories in detail – depicting the horrors of apartheid.

One of the most impacting things I read in Krog’s book was the story of a woman named Normonde Calata.

Calata:  We were unhappy and we slept without knowing on Friday what had happened to our husbands.  Usually the Herald was delivered to my home because I was distributing it.  When the Herald was delivered, I looked at the headlines and one of my children said, Mother, look here in the paper…the car belonging to my father has been burnt.  At that moment, I was trembling, because I was afraid what might have happened to my husband — because if his car is burnt down like this, I was wondering what happened to him.  I started distributing the papers as usual, but I was very upset during this time.  After a few hours, some friends came in and took me and said I must be among the other people, and they said I must go to Nyami.  Nyami was there for me and I was only twenty at the time and I couldn’t handle this…so I was taken to Nyami’s place (cries loudly while interpreter finishes) and when I got there, Nyami was crying terribly…it affected me also…

After this passage, Krog writes that this woman was wailing so uncontrollably that the commission had to take a break before proceeding with the other testimonies.  Krog follows by saying:

“The academics say pain destroys language and this brings about an immediate reversion to a prelinguistic state — and to witness that cry was to witness the destruction of language…was to realize that to remember the past of this country is to be thrown back into a time before language. And to get that memory, to fix it in words, to capture it with the precise images, is to be present at the birth of language itself.  But more practically, this particular memory at last captured in words can no longer haunt you, push you around, bewilder you, because you have taken control of it — you can move it wherever you want to.  So maybe this is what the commission is all about — finding words for that cry of Normonde Calata.”

I am now reading No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu, recounting his own story of being chairman of the TRC.  Tutu gave this response after he was asked what kind of people he wanted to see on the commission: “People who were once victims.  The most forgiving people I have ever come across are people who have suffered — it is as if suffering has ripped them open into empathy.  I am talking about wounded healers.”

I love the idea that the TRC was appointed to find words for the cries of those whose lives were ripped apart by apartheid.  This idea resonated within the depths of my being and reminded me of why I am drawn to people like Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Rich Mullins, Henri Nouwen – all of these heroes dedicated their lives to finding words for those who could only weep – and maybe it is because of how familiar they are with the sound and sensation of their own tears and suffering.