I got a call on Friday saying I was to give a speech about Nelson Mandela. At first I thought to myself, easy peezy because I’m a writer, then I really thought about it and realized, how does one go in front of many or a few and honor a towering Giant in a way that doesn’t depict the man, the leader and the legacy that He is.
So in my attempt to honor this role model, you’ll have to pardon if in the middle of it all, I get a bit teary, a bit comrade like and have the edge to say Viva Rolihlahla Mandela.
Tata Madiba was sent to prison for fighting for the freedom of His people, not only that but a life of harmony for all south Africans regardless gender , nationality and race.
He said “I have fought against white domination, and fought against black domination, I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”
How true those words have now become, He lived his words. His mission as an anti apartheid revolutionary was equality and freedom for all woman, man and child. He stood for what was right for any human being regardless of the color of their skin.
This is the ideal he was jailed for. Yet he didn’t let the harshness, isolation of jail and the motives of his jailers kill the dream he was determined to live for.
In that reaction that he had in being jailed for 27 years - I would say it is an ideal not only did he live for but he achieved. He achieved it because in these very moments, many across the globe are inspired to live a life instigated by the actions of Nelson Mandela
Since his release from 27 years of imprisonment, he has become a symbol of reconciliation and in a world divided by insatiable amounts of hate, a symbol of love.
He stated in his speeches that anger is a temporary feeling, you soon forget it , especially when you...