In an era when national leaders, elected or armed, were preoccupied, slyly or crudely, with antics which certified them as sworn Enemies of the People, Nelson R. Mandela showed over and over again in word and deed and demeanor that he was the people's truest friend -- South African people, African people, all of the world's peoples.
His simple greatness touched four generations and spanned, uniquely, two centuries; and it moved two millennia. He was father-figure to millions -- who were fatherless. He was partial to an electrifying kind of dance. And only Madiba could dance that Mandela Dance, In the only way it could possibly be danced.
Mandela is dead but the legend lives. His legacy stays in our hearts and in our minds.
We wanted him to live forever. And so will he.
Showing posts with label Mandela. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mandela. Show all posts
Friday, December 06, 2013
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
July 18: Mandela Day
The Nelson Mandela Foundation and 46664, Mandela's Aids awareness trust, are launching a global campaign to officially declare July 18 Mandela Day, worldwide. July 18 happens to be Nelson Mandela's birthday.
I enthusisatically support this initiative.
As the campaigners frame it, Mandela Day will be an occasion to celebrate Mandela's life, and "will serve as a global call to action for people to recognise their individual power to make an imprint and help change the world around them for the better." We will all be called upon, on that day, to spend 67 minutes in the kind of civic action that can add significant value to the world around us. The suggested 67 minutes remind us of the fact that Mandela's own human rights campaign started 67 years ago, in 1942.
It goes without saying that actions within South Africa itself will be crucial to really kick-starting the campaign for a global Mandela Day. South Africa, as a country, should quickly declare an official Mandela Day within its borders, and preferably make it a public holiday, if this is not the case already. Then AU countries should follow. Then the UN. Individual countries will of course be at liberty to decide whether or not, and/or when, Mandela Day becomes a public holiday.
I enthusisatically support this initiative.
As the campaigners frame it, Mandela Day will be an occasion to celebrate Mandela's life, and "will serve as a global call to action for people to recognise their individual power to make an imprint and help change the world around them for the better." We will all be called upon, on that day, to spend 67 minutes in the kind of civic action that can add significant value to the world around us. The suggested 67 minutes remind us of the fact that Mandela's own human rights campaign started 67 years ago, in 1942.
It goes without saying that actions within South Africa itself will be crucial to really kick-starting the campaign for a global Mandela Day. South Africa, as a country, should quickly declare an official Mandela Day within its borders, and preferably make it a public holiday, if this is not the case already. Then AU countries should follow. Then the UN. Individual countries will of course be at liberty to decide whether or not, and/or when, Mandela Day becomes a public holiday.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Mbeki's Ouster
The other week, with barely seven months to the constitutional end to his second term, Thabo Mbeki was forced by and from within his own party, ANC, to resign from the high office of President of South Africa, one of Africa's economic and political powerhouses. There is something really rotten and unbecoming about the process that led to his departure, barely a week after Zuma won his corruption case in court, and South Africa is the poorer for it.
This is not to say that Mbeki did not make any, indeed big, mistakes while in office; or that he did not display in just too many instances a weakness of leadership by way of indecisiveness, plain bad judgement and a failure to inspire in consequential ways. It is even plausible that he had slyly sought to encumber and destroy Zuma politically -- and perhaps personally. Still, he was the country's president; and it was important for Zuma to realize that how one handled such factualities could have far-reaching and long-lasting repercussions on a country's political culture. The burden of statesmanship here, after Zuma's court victory (which essentially ensured that he would be South Africa's next president next April), was on Zuma himself -- far less on Mbeki, who was already and clearly a lame duck. To the victor sometimes, as here, go spoils which are not worth the trouble.
Zuma flunked the test, and dragged South Africa down with him into a gutter in which such a country, with so much promise, need not be. Mbeki's ouster displayed a disturbing sense of vengefulness, and myopic disregard for the inclusiveness and "above-the-fray" demeanour of South Africa's recent political (and, in particular, presidential) history -- that is, since 1990.
Mandela succeeded De Klerk (fellow Nobel laureate) in a peaceful and organized transition to become South Africa's president in 1994. He chose not to seek a second term in 1998, to the great admiration of all around the world. With his blessing, Mbeki succeeded him in the elections held that same year, although many would have preferred the trade unionist and (increasingly?)self-made Ramaphosa. However, with the end of Mbeki's term in plain sight, a coup -- a political coup, a palace coup clearly engineered or endorsed by none other than Zuma!
Zuma seems "programmed" to think small, and that spells trouble for South Africa -- and perhaps Africa. His thinking, it seems to me, emanates from the same source(s) as the xenophobic orgy which gripped South Africa less than a couple of months ago. Can he be helped out of this dance with danger?
This is not to say that Mbeki did not make any, indeed big, mistakes while in office; or that he did not display in just too many instances a weakness of leadership by way of indecisiveness, plain bad judgement and a failure to inspire in consequential ways. It is even plausible that he had slyly sought to encumber and destroy Zuma politically -- and perhaps personally. Still, he was the country's president; and it was important for Zuma to realize that how one handled such factualities could have far-reaching and long-lasting repercussions on a country's political culture. The burden of statesmanship here, after Zuma's court victory (which essentially ensured that he would be South Africa's next president next April), was on Zuma himself -- far less on Mbeki, who was already and clearly a lame duck. To the victor sometimes, as here, go spoils which are not worth the trouble.
Zuma flunked the test, and dragged South Africa down with him into a gutter in which such a country, with so much promise, need not be. Mbeki's ouster displayed a disturbing sense of vengefulness, and myopic disregard for the inclusiveness and "above-the-fray" demeanour of South Africa's recent political (and, in particular, presidential) history -- that is, since 1990.
Mandela succeeded De Klerk (fellow Nobel laureate) in a peaceful and organized transition to become South Africa's president in 1994. He chose not to seek a second term in 1998, to the great admiration of all around the world. With his blessing, Mbeki succeeded him in the elections held that same year, although many would have preferred the trade unionist and (increasingly?)self-made Ramaphosa. However, with the end of Mbeki's term in plain sight, a coup -- a political coup, a palace coup clearly engineered or endorsed by none other than Zuma!
Zuma seems "programmed" to think small, and that spells trouble for South Africa -- and perhaps Africa. His thinking, it seems to me, emanates from the same source(s) as the xenophobic orgy which gripped South Africa less than a couple of months ago. Can he be helped out of this dance with danger?
Monday, August 11, 2008
Celebrity, Graffiti and Leadership
On Saturday, August 09, 2008, John Rubery published a piece titled "Celebrity Obama chasing after celebrities", in which he said, inter alia:
"Two recent John McCain ads have mocked Barack Obama's celebrity status. The Obama camp acted like a bunch of cry babies, calling the first commercial a "dishonest attack." Of course if Obama had a legislative record to run on after three years in the US Senate--How many of his bills have been enacted into law?--they wouldn't need to have responded in such a fashion. The ads were effective--Obama is increasingly looking like a lightweight..."
And he added: "The Telegraph of London reveals tonight that the Democrats will place quite a few Hollywood celebrities in prominent roles at their convention later this month.
The decision to let some of them take to the center stage is a calculated gamble by Mr. Obama to stick to his guns in courting the celebrity vote. It comes after his Republican rival John McCain landed a telling blow last week, mocking him as the "Paris Hilton" of the White House race in a so-called "attack ad". Mr Obama's strategists have concluded that the publicity gains from rubbing shoulders with actors like George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will outweigh the risks of appearing lightweight. The list of those approved for credentials to attend the event includes the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who recently filmed a campaign advertisement for Mr. Obama, who is expected to bring her friend Madonna. Hollywood royalty, including Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Warren Beatty, Susan Sarandon, Forrest Whitaker and Scarlett Johansson, will also be in Denver, as well as singers Kanye West and Wyclef Jean. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones may also put in an appearance."
There are, of course, celebrities, and then there are celebrated leaders -- leaders whom the public put on a symbolic pedestal for the vision, and preferably the record, which they personify. To know the difference between the two is to know what politics and leadership are all about. Celebrity may be fleeting, but may also last a long time -- feeding on our less than critical adulation. On the other hand, while autocratic leadership may be perpetuated ad nauseam by force of arms, charismatic or "rational-legal" leadership must always, in the end, come to terms with the test of delivery. Certain leaders have achieved celebrity status, without being "mere celebrities". These include, in our time: Mahatma Gandhi, John Kennedy, Patrice Lumumba, Charles De Gaul, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Che Guevara, Nasser, Pierre Trudeau and Tony Blair (for a while). By popular will, Obama has joined this select group, while McCain never will.
I posted a response to Rubery's piece as follows (I have amended the post somewhat):
The celebrity crowd is, as you suggest, mostly lightweight; people who are, as has been said of Paris Hilton (and as can be said of most), "famous for being famous." These are people whose fame make them think they have a mandate to "throw their weight" at every public policy matter, and at other things which don't quite matter.
But there's the paradox: being famous pads upon their shoulders a weight they can throw around, and which we others cannot fail to see, or feel. So, we cannot simply assume their light weight -- if we are not to be, ourselves, small-minded in our snootiness (or snooty in our small-mindedness). Or if we are not in Hilton's eyes to appear, like McCain, "wrinkly" tasteless and out of what should be our own depths.
So we must interrogate what is to be deemed truly light of weight, and what is to be heavy-duty. And let's not forget that it is McCain who provoked Paris Hilton to react to his clumsy association of what she and Spears ordinarily do (plus how they do carry themselves in public) with the serious campaign which Obama is waging (and with the ground-breaking candidacy which he represents). And her sarcastic video response told the world that it was McCain who appeared "hare-brained" (or lightweight), when there is no reason otherwise to believe he is, in comparison to Obama and to her (and the likes of her) and in terms of leadership in general and the energy debate in particular.
Let me add: It seems to me that Obama's joining that select group of celebrated leaders has deeply disturbed Sen McCain; and his recent Grand Tour must have brought McCain's discomfort to a head. So what does Team McCain do? There is no speculation here, it is there for all to see: They rush to spray graffiti and throw other dirt on the most telling images of Obama's Tour. In doing so, they hope, they will have sufficiently polluted them to prevent Obama from even thinking of using them in his Fall campaign -- as widely anticipated.
What McCain's team forgot as they plotted this devious scheme was that Spears and Hilton -- this new kind of political graffiti -- were a kind that can fight back! In fighting back, Paris Hilton has achieved what seemed impossible: she has wiped off all the graffiti and all the dirt.
"Two recent John McCain ads have mocked Barack Obama's celebrity status. The Obama camp acted like a bunch of cry babies, calling the first commercial a "dishonest attack." Of course if Obama had a legislative record to run on after three years in the US Senate--How many of his bills have been enacted into law?--they wouldn't need to have responded in such a fashion. The ads were effective--Obama is increasingly looking like a lightweight..."
And he added: "The Telegraph of London reveals tonight that the Democrats will place quite a few Hollywood celebrities in prominent roles at their convention later this month.
The decision to let some of them take to the center stage is a calculated gamble by Mr. Obama to stick to his guns in courting the celebrity vote. It comes after his Republican rival John McCain landed a telling blow last week, mocking him as the "Paris Hilton" of the White House race in a so-called "attack ad". Mr Obama's strategists have concluded that the publicity gains from rubbing shoulders with actors like George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will outweigh the risks of appearing lightweight. The list of those approved for credentials to attend the event includes the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who recently filmed a campaign advertisement for Mr. Obama, who is expected to bring her friend Madonna. Hollywood royalty, including Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Warren Beatty, Susan Sarandon, Forrest Whitaker and Scarlett Johansson, will also be in Denver, as well as singers Kanye West and Wyclef Jean. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones may also put in an appearance."
There are, of course, celebrities, and then there are celebrated leaders -- leaders whom the public put on a symbolic pedestal for the vision, and preferably the record, which they personify. To know the difference between the two is to know what politics and leadership are all about. Celebrity may be fleeting, but may also last a long time -- feeding on our less than critical adulation. On the other hand, while autocratic leadership may be perpetuated ad nauseam by force of arms, charismatic or "rational-legal" leadership must always, in the end, come to terms with the test of delivery. Certain leaders have achieved celebrity status, without being "mere celebrities". These include, in our time: Mahatma Gandhi, John Kennedy, Patrice Lumumba, Charles De Gaul, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Che Guevara, Nasser, Pierre Trudeau and Tony Blair (for a while). By popular will, Obama has joined this select group, while McCain never will.
I posted a response to Rubery's piece as follows (I have amended the post somewhat):
The celebrity crowd is, as you suggest, mostly lightweight; people who are, as has been said of Paris Hilton (and as can be said of most), "famous for being famous." These are people whose fame make them think they have a mandate to "throw their weight" at every public policy matter, and at other things which don't quite matter.
But there's the paradox: being famous pads upon their shoulders a weight they can throw around, and which we others cannot fail to see, or feel. So, we cannot simply assume their light weight -- if we are not to be, ourselves, small-minded in our snootiness (or snooty in our small-mindedness). Or if we are not in Hilton's eyes to appear, like McCain, "wrinkly" tasteless and out of what should be our own depths.
So we must interrogate what is to be deemed truly light of weight, and what is to be heavy-duty. And let's not forget that it is McCain who provoked Paris Hilton to react to his clumsy association of what she and Spears ordinarily do (plus how they do carry themselves in public) with the serious campaign which Obama is waging (and with the ground-breaking candidacy which he represents). And her sarcastic video response told the world that it was McCain who appeared "hare-brained" (or lightweight), when there is no reason otherwise to believe he is, in comparison to Obama and to her (and the likes of her) and in terms of leadership in general and the energy debate in particular.
Let me add: It seems to me that Obama's joining that select group of celebrated leaders has deeply disturbed Sen McCain; and his recent Grand Tour must have brought McCain's discomfort to a head. So what does Team McCain do? There is no speculation here, it is there for all to see: They rush to spray graffiti and throw other dirt on the most telling images of Obama's Tour. In doing so, they hope, they will have sufficiently polluted them to prevent Obama from even thinking of using them in his Fall campaign -- as widely anticipated.
What McCain's team forgot as they plotted this devious scheme was that Spears and Hilton -- this new kind of political graffiti -- were a kind that can fight back! In fighting back, Paris Hilton has achieved what seemed impossible: she has wiped off all the graffiti and all the dirt.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Mandela at 90
This past weekend, Nelson Mandela was in London to attend a music concert organized to celebrate his 90th birthday and raise funds for his South African aids charity. For many around he world, Mandela at 90 is certainly an occasion for pause and reflection.
Watching him on TV as he walked haltingly and with much help across the concert stage and across the screen – there to be seen rather than to see, and to give a dutiful speech – one thing stood out among all else: Madiba has become just too frail for this kind of thing – and for the visual and psychic comfort of those whose inner wish is to remember him as a father-figure who was forever strong and all-enduring and in full command of the only resource they could not take away during all those terrible and terribly long years he stood alone – his spirit.
It is no wonder that he himself saw it fit to use the occasion to declare, with touching finality and mindful of the struggle that must surely continue and yet of which he would no longer have the strength to be a real part: “It is your hands now.” Seeing Will Smith behind him there on stage as he spoke, looking at once attentive and happy to be there and yet perplexed in the presence – the very presence – of the great man, whom he had introduced as the “Birthday Boy” but who probably didn’t, couldn’t, return the attention; seeing Will Smith there like that,
his own youthful energy just below the surface, I wondered what he was thinking – and thought that he wondered how he would, in his turn, carry himself at Six Score and Six.
Seeing Mandela thus, one couldn’t help but remember how it had been one afternoon in ’90, when, at 72, he had walked at last out of prison and out of a 27-year banishment from, to all intents and purposes, the world as we knew it – and even as had known him. He who walked out of that prison that day into our waiting, suspenseful, and in the end quizzical gaze was another man – a man from another world – whom we, utterly surprised, felt we had never seen. And if he was the man, as surely he was – all the people and institutions that mattered told us so – we had not been sufficiently conditioned to see him as he had become. He was, then, an alien who did not match our mental image of the man in prison whose release we had long clamoured for, in our different ways, and had awaited with bated breath when it at last became clear that he would be free.
Even then his walk, in Winnie’s arm, had not been quite steady, as I recall. Now, eighteen years later, it had, unmistakably, a foreboding aura about it – which, it seemed, enveloped everyone whom he left on that stage with Will.
Yet the Mandela we first encountered that afternoon in ’90 was the physical Mandela, while the one we had been waiting for was in fact a transcendent Mandela – a man whose true value ran deeper and wider and farther, and was in the end borderless and timeless; whose entire life was the story of all that is good in good men – good in the few men who are truly good. It is that latter Mandela who, a colossus, has strode the globe these past two decades or so with so much ease and charm (easy charm) and class – such infectious human warmth and kindness. It is that same Mandela who so quickly became the father-figure to so many, mighty and “low”, around the world who had no fathers, or no fathers to talk of (or to talk to) – and even those who (themselves fathers or mothers, sons or daughters) had fathers but wanted something intangibly, reachably more.
To flip the imagery: what we didn’t realize, what we forgot, in that instant of shock and disabuse in ‘90, was that Time idealizes – Time and absence. Time and absence may prepare us for the watts, but not the warts, attendant upon the hero – upon his return. What we didn’t realize, too, was that the picture into which we wanted to re-frame him – as a one-sided act of reacquaintance – as he walked out was itself another kind of prison, another kind of confinement, out of which he must also walk if we were to know him as he had become, out of view, and as we were subsequently to know him.
As we worry that we will see less and less of Madiba in the coming months and years, there are those who worry that the artist’s unfettered hand may with the passage of time leave us with a lasting image (akin to Guevara’s or Mona Lisa’s) over which they will not have had the last word. All I can say to that lesser worry is: if it happens, so be it!
Watching him on TV as he walked haltingly and with much help across the concert stage and across the screen – there to be seen rather than to see, and to give a dutiful speech – one thing stood out among all else: Madiba has become just too frail for this kind of thing – and for the visual and psychic comfort of those whose inner wish is to remember him as a father-figure who was forever strong and all-enduring and in full command of the only resource they could not take away during all those terrible and terribly long years he stood alone – his spirit.
It is no wonder that he himself saw it fit to use the occasion to declare, with touching finality and mindful of the struggle that must surely continue and yet of which he would no longer have the strength to be a real part: “It is your hands now.” Seeing Will Smith behind him there on stage as he spoke, looking at once attentive and happy to be there and yet perplexed in the presence – the very presence – of the great man, whom he had introduced as the “Birthday Boy” but who probably didn’t, couldn’t, return the attention; seeing Will Smith there like that,
his own youthful energy just below the surface, I wondered what he was thinking – and thought that he wondered how he would, in his turn, carry himself at Six Score and Six.
Seeing Mandela thus, one couldn’t help but remember how it had been one afternoon in ’90, when, at 72, he had walked at last out of prison and out of a 27-year banishment from, to all intents and purposes, the world as we knew it – and even as had known him. He who walked out of that prison that day into our waiting, suspenseful, and in the end quizzical gaze was another man – a man from another world – whom we, utterly surprised, felt we had never seen. And if he was the man, as surely he was – all the people and institutions that mattered told us so – we had not been sufficiently conditioned to see him as he had become. He was, then, an alien who did not match our mental image of the man in prison whose release we had long clamoured for, in our different ways, and had awaited with bated breath when it at last became clear that he would be free.
Even then his walk, in Winnie’s arm, had not been quite steady, as I recall. Now, eighteen years later, it had, unmistakably, a foreboding aura about it – which, it seemed, enveloped everyone whom he left on that stage with Will.
Yet the Mandela we first encountered that afternoon in ’90 was the physical Mandela, while the one we had been waiting for was in fact a transcendent Mandela – a man whose true value ran deeper and wider and farther, and was in the end borderless and timeless; whose entire life was the story of all that is good in good men – good in the few men who are truly good. It is that latter Mandela who, a colossus, has strode the globe these past two decades or so with so much ease and charm (easy charm) and class – such infectious human warmth and kindness. It is that same Mandela who so quickly became the father-figure to so many, mighty and “low”, around the world who had no fathers, or no fathers to talk of (or to talk to) – and even those who (themselves fathers or mothers, sons or daughters) had fathers but wanted something intangibly, reachably more.
To flip the imagery: what we didn’t realize, what we forgot, in that instant of shock and disabuse in ‘90, was that Time idealizes – Time and absence. Time and absence may prepare us for the watts, but not the warts, attendant upon the hero – upon his return. What we didn’t realize, too, was that the picture into which we wanted to re-frame him – as a one-sided act of reacquaintance – as he walked out was itself another kind of prison, another kind of confinement, out of which he must also walk if we were to know him as he had become, out of view, and as we were subsequently to know him.
As we worry that we will see less and less of Madiba in the coming months and years, there are those who worry that the artist’s unfettered hand may with the passage of time leave us with a lasting image (akin to Guevara’s or Mona Lisa’s) over which they will not have had the last word. All I can say to that lesser worry is: if it happens, so be it!
Thursday, June 05, 2008
What Obama's Presidency Would Portend For Africa
In a post dated 4th June 2008, the Blog Admin at politics.nationmedia.com asked: Barack Obama, by clinching the US Democratic ticket, has moved closer to the White House. What would his presidency portend for Africa, given his Kenyan roots?
I thought it was a good question, so I posted the following comment:
Obama, like Mandela and Kofi Annan -- but, sadly, no other leader here (in Kenya or Africa as a whole) right now -- will be a catalytic role model for a new generation of Africans thoroughly disillusioned by the current crop of self-seeking and mean-spirited leaders in Africa.
I hope that, by sheer example emanating from the genuineness and strength of his character, Obama will also jolt at least some of our leaders out of their cocoons of mischief, Machiavellian self-centeredness and sheer bad behaviour -- so that they can at last begin genuinely to serve in the public interest.
In Obama's victory is the essential message that really good guys can finish first. You don't have to break the rules to win -- which is what Hillary (a true "Kenyan politician")tried to do!
Let me add to this post, as I conclude, that Obama represents a new kind of Kenyan -- and American -- politician. The fact that his veins flow with Kenyan blood means that the quality of character he has displayed (may he never lose it!) is not unattainable here. It should not be something that is possible only in America. What has derailed us here is greed and double-speak. We have crooks for heroes -- who have turned our politics into private business. And yet, as Obama says, "Yes we can!" We can have "change we can believe in" -- real, people-focused change.
I thought it was a good question, so I posted the following comment:
Obama, like Mandela and Kofi Annan -- but, sadly, no other leader here (in Kenya or Africa as a whole) right now -- will be a catalytic role model for a new generation of Africans thoroughly disillusioned by the current crop of self-seeking and mean-spirited leaders in Africa.
I hope that, by sheer example emanating from the genuineness and strength of his character, Obama will also jolt at least some of our leaders out of their cocoons of mischief, Machiavellian self-centeredness and sheer bad behaviour -- so that they can at last begin genuinely to serve in the public interest.
In Obama's victory is the essential message that really good guys can finish first. You don't have to break the rules to win -- which is what Hillary (a true "Kenyan politician")tried to do!
Let me add to this post, as I conclude, that Obama represents a new kind of Kenyan -- and American -- politician. The fact that his veins flow with Kenyan blood means that the quality of character he has displayed (may he never lose it!) is not unattainable here. It should not be something that is possible only in America. What has derailed us here is greed and double-speak. We have crooks for heroes -- who have turned our politics into private business. And yet, as Obama says, "Yes we can!" We can have "change we can believe in" -- real, people-focused change.
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