12/15/2013

Green salute to Madiba ! -Tribute to nelson mandela




Green salute to Madiba !
The great human to be remembered
Tribute to Nelson Mendela
by Prof.Gopalakrishna Panicker                      krishgindia@gmail.com
Desmond Tutu said, "Like a most precious diamond honed deep beneath the surface of the earth, the Madiba who emerged from prison in January 1990 was virtually flawless."
It was August 1993. After three and a half years passed after spending 27 years in prison under apartheid. The first free and fair elections set for the following April .Against the backdrop of violence from the white Afrikaner right and daily bloodshed in the townships. Thousands of “comrades” assembled to listen to the leader .Thousands had died in the previous few days in street battles . Yet the practical politician of high morals and ethical standard declared “If you have no discipline, you are not freedom fighters and we do not want you in our organisation,” he said in his distinctive tones. “I am your leader. If you don’t want me, tell me to go and rest. As long as I am your leader I will tell you where you are wrong.” He stared, and backed down.
For long years Mandela had been a symbol of hope, known only from his fiery record in the 1950s and 1960s, his inspirational speech from the dock when on trial for his life(It was my previous blog).
     His background as a freedom fighter and political prisoner was merely the warm-up act to his greatest role of all: the apostle of reconciliation who would seduce the Afrikaners into relinquishing power and lead South Africa back into the world.
      His unwavering style of leadership has led many to regard him as a modern Gandhi. He was the first to say he was not a saint. He after all championed the ANC’s adoption of the “armed struggle” – even if this was initially symbolic move.
     Desmond Tutu, his friend and fellow Nobel Peace laureate, was one of the first to question the world’s sanctification of “Madiba” – his clan name, and how he liked to be known.
      Reconciliation was not a spontaneous miracle, as some imagined, emanating from the magnificence of his soul. Rather, the seduction of the Afrikaners was plotted in his cell as a way to win power. He pondered many times that his long imprisonment gave him the time to reflect on how he should lead. It was there that he urged fellow prisoners to learn Afrikaans, on the theory you could better defeat your enemy if you spoke their language.
    “I knew that people expected me to Habour anger towards whites,” Mandela later wrote when recalling the morning after his release. “But I had none. In prison my anger towards whites decreased but my hatred for the system grew.”
    Twenty-three years later, the “rainbow nation”, as Archbishop Tutu labelled the post-apartheid society, is still a dream . I
    The passing and legacy of South Africa’s first black president
Mandela knew how important it was to keep Afrikaners loyal. He also knew South Africa could ill-afford what had happened at independence in neighboring Mozambique: a mass exodus of whites with their skills and capital. So he masked his anger over the past. His campaign reached its zenith in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a project of astonishing ambition aimed at exorcising the troubled past. Then there was the 1995 Rugby World Cup when he won the hearts of so many Afrikaners with his adoption of “their” game, rugby, inspiring the Springboks to victory , all but by his exuberant passion alone.
So what was the secret to the “Madiba magic” and his seduction routine?
Rather, they were rooted in his extraordinary life. In his lectures to angry “comrades”, his genes as the scion of chiefs were to the fore. It was as if he were upbraiding a rowdy village assembly, as his forefathers must have done in the past.. Who else could telephone the Queen and address her as “Elizabeth”?
                            So Mandela’s unflinching support for the independence of the courts, the media and state institutions set a vital precedent. He respected their rulings even when white judges from the old era ruled in favour of apartheid leaders. He himself appeared in court when subpoenaed in a dispute over the national rugby squad – and more agonizingly when petitioning for divorce from his second wife, Winnie. For such a private man it was patently painful to have to testify about the intimacies of their relationship. Yet there he stood, stiffly upright in the simple courtroom, testifying in a quavering voice, as the law required.
                           He was indeed the father of the nation. As he clearly mentioned “Don’t put me on a pedestal, I am human, he liked to say. I may fall in that case?.
As US President Barack Obama in his own words “ Madiba was right that he inherited, "a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness" from his father. And we know he shared with millions of black and colored South Africans the anger born of, "a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments...a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people,....who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions around the world.” he continued
                           “ There is a word in South Africa -- Ubuntu – (Yes I am proudly using that open source operating system with that great name! to type this tribute as well) .A word that captures Mandela's greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.” It is from a person who admits with out any doubt “Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle. But in America, and in South Africa, and in countries all around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not yet done. “Yes with out him and great leaders like Abraham Linkan and Martin Luther king history of U.S and world would have been different .
                           What are the historical lessons we Indians can draw from his life -Was able to unify different antagonistic tribes , the church with Desmond Tutu as the leader ,the communists even African whites . Was able o liberates the jailed ones and jailers .
                            The corruption and apartheid has much in common both are at the wrong sides of growth of civilization .Just like the old S.A , India has also got expelled from different International Olympic associations and in the shadow of shame for her corrupted echelons of power and dynastic rulers .We are now in the thresh hold of proud uprising waiting for the right leadership to evolve with necessary vision ! Commitment ,and action plan .
Long live Madiba ! Will continue to inspire thousands to appear in this globe !
                       Jai Hind!                          krishgindia@gmail.com


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