Nigeria: The Founding Father

9 December 2013

The strong expressions of emotion, the statements from statesmen and virtually every head of state in the world within 24 hours of the announcement of his "departure" by President Jacob Zuma should really not surprise anyone. Nelson Mandela deserves every good thing that has been said about him since he died on Thursday.

If Mandela had not happened on South Africa, the story of the entire southern Africa would have taken a different trajectory. His speeches when he was still much younger and on the run from the evil apartheid leaders, and during the Rivonia trials, showed a leader even in those days. Those speeches would still have been great speeches today. At a time when the apartheid regime had disenfranchised and even de-civilised blacks, when it could have been in order for a black leader to call whites non-South Africans or even non-Africans, he declared as an ANC leader that he believed that South Africa was a multi-racial country. He also declared his belief in a democracy on the basis of one man, one vote. In other words, he was much more civilised than his white repressors. During the Rivonia trials, when the judgement could have been the death sentence, he gave a speech and a declaration which became the defining credo of not just the struggle for the soul of his country but of mankind itself. "I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination," he said. "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." He also repeated this statement 27 years later in Cape Town after he was released from prison, showing that truth and the best ideas always stand the test of time. During the trial, he also declared that, "We are not anti-white, we are against white supremacy... We are against racialism no matter by whom it is professed."

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