"There comes a time, sir, when a leader must give as practical a demonstration of his convictions and willingness to live up to the demands of the cause, as he expects of his people." Former ANC President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Luthuli, Let My People Go, Appendix C.

INTRODUCTION

Paying a glowing tribute to the former UK prime minister and War-time hero, Winston Churchill, the former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, once remarked thus:

"The political leaders with whom we are familiar generally aspire to be superstars rather than heroes. The distinction is crucial. Superstars strive for approbation, heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the...future they see it as their risk to bring it about. Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of their inner value."

In a great 20th century almost over-populated with remarkable, genuine heroes, Nelson Mandela was not just a quintessential hero, he stood head and shoulder above most. As we stand at the feet of the new 21st century, our gaze transfixed at the remaining 76 years before us, it is hard to believe that this new century will be able to equal, let alone surpass, the preceding century in terms of the authentic heroes it will produce.

What is clear though is that already the first 13 years of this new 21st century has already produced an unwelcome surfeit of political superstars, here in South Africa and abroad. These 21st century superstars have no shame seeking and bathing in our adulation and approbation; they have no qualms manufacturing fake consensus to suit their self-serving political ends; they are masters of media spin to dupe the public. Above all, our 21st century political superstars lack real inner political convictions and inner guiding values. They see nothing wrong in preaching a political gospel they know well they honor more in breach in their lives.

The whole world, not just South Africa, hankers after 20th century-type real, true and authentic heroes.

It is why we cling so hard and for so long at our ailing Madiba, one of our heroic and courageous of the 20th century's Last Mohicans.

For deep down, we know that a mere mastery of technology and media spin will not substitute for authentic, genuine heroism in the 21st century.

In his exceptional  book , "A Calendar of Wisdom", the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, arguably the world's greatest novelist, wrote:

"Therefore, the question whether thou hast done what thou shoudst have done is of immense importance, for the only meaning of thy life is in doing in this short term allowed thee, that which is desired of thee by He or That which has sent thee into life."

As Nelson Mandela enters the last phase of the twilight of his brilliant, remarkable long life, we know that he gave his life and our lives full meaning, in the short term that was allowed him, by doing that which God and our African ancestors sent him here on Earth to do, which was to give us life's greatest gift of them all - Freedom.

So Nelson Mandela is our Hero. He is also our Freedom Fighter. Most importantly, he is our Liberator. Our own Bolivar. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was correct to say, as quoted in John Allen's biography of him, The Authorised Biography of Desmond Tutu - Rabble-Rouser for Peace, that when Nelson Mandela was elected the first black, democratic president of South Africa on 27 April 1994, that "this is the day for which we have waited for over 300 years." (See Benny Gool's picture of Tutu hosting Mandela's arm in John Allen's biography).

Today South Africa and the world shudder at the prospect of what, in turn, will become South Africa's saddest day in over 350 years - the day Nelson Mandela passes on.

As South Africa grapples collectively with the sad and painful realization that Nelson Mandela's life is so unfortunately finite, we struggle to find adequate words to spell out clearly how we understand the task of ensuring that his life's deeds and his beliefs shall live on in each one of us. Even what initially sounds like our most hyperbolic words to describe the great deeds and ideals of this heroic, precious life, we seem unable to capture our national grief in its totality, in its grandeur.

For nothing we can do or say can ever fully express our great gratitude to Madiba for his outstanding commitment to our country's invaluable and ongoing Freedom Agenda. As a nation, we feel deep sadness that we cannot protect him from the ultimate meaning of mortality. We feel impotent that in his hour of need, we are unable to smother his pain; unable to renew his vitality; and unable to re-imbue him with his legendary strength, energy and beautiful laughter, his people's dance.

We wish our collective, national prayers could make him younger by fifty years.

We constantly search for more praises to heap on him; in vain.

Truth is, greater praises have been heaped on Madiba by non-South Africans for his dedication to the SA Freedom Struggle over the decades.

In his magisterial, beautiful book, The Measure of A Man - A Memoir", Sidney Poitier, the legendary and celebrated African American actor, whose own acting in films like To Sir, With Love and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, helped inspire our youthful imagination to dream of a non-racial South Africa at the height of apartheid's cruel  racial discrimination, wrote:

"Anguish and pain and resentment and rage are very human forces. They can be found in the breasts of most human beings at one time or another. On very rare occasions there comes a Gandhi, and occasionally there comes a Martin Luther King, Jr., and occasionally there comes a guy like Paul Robeson or a guy like Nelson Mandela. When these people come along, their anger, their rage, their resentment, their frustration - these feelings ultimately mature by will of their own discipline into a positive energy that can be used to fuel their positive, healthy excursions in life." (2000, page 124).

There is no doubt Nelson Mandela is one of history's greatest and most influential heroic figures. He certainly belongs to the 20th century's pantheon of the greatest liberators.

As US President Barack Obama said recently in Johannesburg during his recent official visit to South Africa, that the ideals and legacy of SA's most beloved historical figure "will live through the ages." But it is at this important juncture that we need to remind ourselves that Mandela was always a part of the ANC and its leadership collective.

Mandela was never an island unto himself. Not even during his long imprisonment. Nor did he seek to project himself as being bigger than his people or his organization, the ANC.

ANC and SA President Jacob Zuma was therefore  correct and on-point when he recently cautioned South Africans against the wholly unfortunate tendency to de-contextualize Madiba's legacy, thus seeking to portray and present him only as post-1994 SA's Reconciliation Phenomenon. Nelson Mandela's ANC activism for freedom struggle covered decades and stretched way back before he became SA's first black, democratically elected president on 10 May 1994.

To attempt to present Madiba's legacy in any other light becomes an effort to promote self-serving historical revisionism.

It cannot be right, nor acceptable.

Nelson Mandela was active as an ANC politician for 53 years of his life before 1994. He has served South Africa and the ANC for only 19 years since 1994.

In my Politicsweb article of 04 March this year entitled "Where for the ANC Youth League post-Mangaung", I described Nelson Mandela's 1944-1955 generation of ANC Youth League revolutionary leaders, who included, besides Madiba, such Titans of our SA Freedom Struggle as Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Moses Kotane, Anton Lembede, Peter Mda, Albertina Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe, Joe Matthews, Zeph Mothopeng, Dr Conco, Duma Nokwe, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Henry Makgothi, Alfred Nzo and Nthato Motlane, as SA's "Greatest Generation".

There is no doubt that Mandela was "The First Amongst Equals" within this galaxy of South Africa's glorious revolutionaries.

As early as the early 1960s, during the State of Emergency and the banning of the ANC and the PAC by the apartheid, racist regime of Hendrick Verwoerd, the legendary former ANC president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, a man of great nobility and enormous integrity, Chief Albert Luthuli, decades before it became fashionable around the world to laud Nelson Mandela's outstanding leadership qualities, wrote in his seminal autobiography, Let My People Go, the following about Nelson Mandela and the ANC's former secretary general, Duma Nokwe:

"These two men, though not old in years, were among the foremost leaders of the ANC."

This glowing testimonial about Madiba was written by Chief Luthuli a solid two years before the former set foot on Robben Island and became known worldwide.

The powerful Chinese Communist Party, drawing from eight immortal ancient Chinese dieties, has "christened" eight of its pre-1949 revolutionary titans, who struggled for the establishment of the People's Republic of China and  struggled right through to the launching of China's great Economic Modernisation Campaign in 1978, at the head of whom is Deng Xiaoping, as China's ‘Immortals'.

South Africans would be forgiven if they too christened all members of our Greatest Generation, (or the Golden Generation, if you insist), of freedom fighters, as our own ‘Immortals'. Nelson Mandela stands on the shoulders of these men and women, and all our beloved freedom-loving people.

To emphasize the point that he was never SA Freedom Struggle's Lone Ranger, Nelson Mandela wrote the following in his book, Conversation with Myself:

"Walter [Sisulu] and Kathy [Kathrada] share one common feature which forms an essential part of our friendship and which I value very much - they never hesitate to criticise me for my mistakes and throughout my political career have served as a mirror through which I can see myself. I wish I could tell you more about the courageous band of colleagues with whom I suffer humiliation daily and who nevertheless deport themselves with dignity and determination. I wish I could relate their conversations and banter, their readiness to help in any personal problem suffered by their fellow prisoners so that you could judge for yourself the calibre of men whose lives are being sacrificed on the fiendish altar of colour hatred. FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MANUSCRIPT WRITTEN IN PRISON", page 210).

In her book, Hunger for Freedom - The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela, Anna Trapido reveals how Mandela involved the ANC leadership collective in his talks about talks with the apartheid rulers in the mid-1980s, whilst he was still imprisoned. Trapido wrote:

"Madiba was aware that he was entering a very delicate phase of opening talks about talks and his intentions could be misrepresented by both sides. The government might try to lever him away from his comrades while his contacts with the National Party could give rise to rumours of his selling out the ANC. These anxieties were partly allayed by Madiba's dispatching George Bizos to Lusaka to reassure ANC President Oliver Tambo that he would not enter into any agreement without ANC approval and by his holding a series of report-back sessions at the Victor Verster house." (2008, page 160).

If there emerges an unfortunate tendency in our country to underplay the sheer brutality and inhumanity of the apartheid prison system, and if some of the books and memoirs of Mandela's jailors and prison guards may unwittingly romantacise the harsh realities of Robben Island and Victor Venter prisons, the French thinker, Michel Foucault's writings and thoughts on the brutal, naked power the ruling elites, including apartheid rulers, exercise through prisons, stand as a stark reminder what prisons truly are for.  Foucault once remarked that:

"Prison is the only place where power is manifested in its naked state, in its most excessive form, and where it is justified as a moral force."

Ditto apartheid's racist prisons like Robben Island and Victor Verster, where Mandela spent 27 years of his life.

As he makes clear in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, even within the prison walls, it was his fellow ANC leaders and colleagues, like Walter Sisulu, who helped Madiba to pull through.

In fact the very first step in Mandela's long political involvement owes everything to the ANC's greatest talent-scout, strategist, impeccable organisational man, Mandela's long-term mentor and political confidante, Walter Sisulu.

Walter Sisulu, according to Elinor Sisulu's book, Walter & Albertina Sisulu - In Our Lifetime, remembered Nelson Mandela's first, green-behind-the-ears, baby step into national politics in 1941 thus:

"In one of their many discussions, Xuma spoke to Walter about the spirit of the 1940 conference at which he had been elected president. He spoke of a demand at the conference by a group of left-inclined youth for a new spirit and a new order. (This group had included Moses Kotane, a prominent Communist Party member.) Xuma expressed his concern about the gulf between the older and younger generations. Walter shared these concerns and took it upon himself to look out for new talent to recruit to the ANC. When a young man called Nelson Mandela walked into his office one day in 1941, Walter immediately recognised his potential. 'I knew that he was someone who would go far and should be encouraged. He was the kind of young man we needed to develop our organisation'." (2003, page 93).

So began one of history's greatest political marriage - the marriage between Nelson Mandela and the ANC, the organization he loves so much. And that way back in 1941, in Walter Sisulu's humble office, was born the ANC, SA and the world's legend and beloved icon. More than seven decades ago also began South Africa's greatest political partnership between Nelson Mandela and his political mentor, Walter Sisulu, a partnership that carried both of them through all the trials and tribulations of the struggle against apartheid and racism in South Africa, including spending over 18 years together as political prisoners on Robben Island.

Mandela undoubtedly occupies a place in SA history similar to the one Jawaharlal Nehru occupies in India's history. Both were leaders of freedom and anti-colonial movements in their respective countries - SA and India -, as well as being founding fathers of their respective nations. And both of them moved from prisons to become their respective countries' first post-colonial and post-oppression leaders. But if you read respective biographies about the two great world leaders, the similarities between them are striking. Here, for an example, is how India's author and international diplomat, Shashi Tharoor, describes Nerhu in his excellent book, Nehru - The Invention of India:

"...Nerhu's India enjoyed an international stature out of proportion to either its military strength or its material means." (Page 188). Under Mandela's presidency, South Africans liked to boast that their country's diplomacy "punches way above its weight", thanks to the "Madiba magic."

Shashi Tharoor further wrote the following about Nehru:

"Jawaharlal bestrode global diplomacy like a colossus, quoted, admired and feted; he embodied an emerging world that was just finding its voice, and he did so with grace and style." (Ibid).

Is this not how many of us commonly describe how Mandela interacted on the global stage after he became SA's first democratic, black President? Even in terms of personality characteristics, the similarities between the two Indian and South African colossi are unmistakable.

Tharoor writes this about Nehru:

"Jawaharlal's personality was mercurial. He could be utterly charming to total strangers, witty, engaging, and even (in the right mood) frivolous:...Many foreigners who met him in the 1930s and well into the 1950s speak of a captivating figure, with great intellectual breadth, blessed with intelligence and curiosity as well as impeccable manners, who disarmed his interlocutors with his warmth, wit, courtesy and grace." (Ibid, pages 198-199).

And,

"...Jawaharlal was often described by his critics as the last Englishman left in India..." (Ibid, page 223).

If there is still  any lingering doubt that this thumb-nail description of Nehru's personal characteristic bears very close resemblance to Mandela's personal characteristics, then a reading of Richard Stengel's wonderful The Spectator article of April 1996, exactly two years after Mandela became SA first post-apartheid president, entitled "Behind Mandela's Mask - Courage is not the absence of fear but the concealing of it", should put such a lingering doubt to bed.

Here are some noteworthy observations from Stengel's article:

"I discovered that the proud and graceful persona that Mandela has crafted for himself is virtually without cracks: the man and the mask are one."

And,

"Someone once said that Mandela is a mixture of African aristocracy and British nobility."

[It is an interesting aside that in her biography of former long-serving, exiled president Oliver Tambo, entitled Oliver Tambo - Beyond the Engeli Mountains, Luli Callinicos notes that Tony Heard, the former editor of The Cape Times, once described Tambo as "more like a British banker than a leader of a guerrilla movement." (2004, page 585)

And,

"Mandela's beatific smile conveys a genuine warmth but also hides a man who knows the power of his image as the father of a new South Africa."

And,

"South Africa's leader can appear naïve on certain subjects, such as media - areas that changed fundamentally while he was behind bars."

And lastly:

"But when it comes to political strategy, his mind works with a subtlety and power that can be dazzling. To hear him discuss nonviolent protest as a tactic versus a moral principle is like listening to a great violinist improvising a cadenza."

Tharoor writes about how Nerhu could be so congenially warm that he could entertain his guests by donning foreign gowns, as if he was engaging in an improvised political theater. Richard Stengel writes that "at a banquet Mandela makes a point of shaking hands with the kitchen staff, showing them the same courtesy as he would a diplomat."

[It is worth noting here that Richard Stengel had collaborated with Nelson Mandela on his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom, 1994. (See Mandela's book, Nelson Mandela - Conversation with Myself, 2010, page 440)].

To paraphrase Sidney Poitier, what is it about the Indian Congress that permitted the emergence of Gandhi and Nehru; what is about the US civil rights movement that permitted the emergence of Robeson, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.; and what is it about the ANC that permitted the emergence of Chief Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Moses Kotane, Elias Motsoaledi, Ruth First, Robert Sobukwe, and Ahmed Kathrada?

Walter Sisulu has said that "he considered the period immediately after joining the ANC as the most important of his life: 'I was struggling before, you know, directionless. When I got to the ANC I began to change, even though the ANC at the time did not properly formulate its policies."

When the ANC changed Walter Sisulu, he was able to change Nelson Mandela; when Nelson Mandela was changed, he and his ANC Youth League leaders changed the ANC; a changed Nelson Mandela was able to change Winnie Madikizela; when the ANC was changed, it finally changed South Africa. The rest is history, the course of which the ANC changed.

And today few things show the generosity of Mandela's spirit than his preparedness to forgive the US administration of President John F Kennedy for the role it played, through the Central Intelligence Agency, in the arrest of and subsequent imprisonment of Mandela in 1962. This vile and sordid stain on the US Democratic administration of America's popular president, John F Kennedy, in collaborating, through the CIA, with the brutal security apparatus of then SA prime minister and apartheid architect, Hendrik Verwoerd, is revealed in William Blum's fascinating book, Rogue State - A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, in a chapter entitled "How the CIA Sent Nelson Mandela to Prison for 28 years."  

Blum reveals how "a CIA officer, Donald C. Rickard by name, under cover as a consular official in Durban, had tipped off the Special Branch that Mandela would be disguised as a chauffeur in a car headed for Durban. This was information Rickard had obtained through an informant in the ANC...Rickard himself, his tongue perhaps loosened by spirits, stated in the hearing of those present that he had been due to meet Mandela on the fateful night, but tipped off the police instead." (2006, page 289).

This was how Nelson Mandela, then called The Black Pimpernel, was arrested in Howick, Natal, in 1962.

It may thus very be that the CIA of US Democratic President John F Kennedy, if one believes William Blum's account, is directly responsible for the current ill-health of Nelson Mandela, as it led to his five-year imprisonment on Robben Island. And if so,the least one would have expected of US President Barack Obana during his presidential visit two weeks ago to Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his imprisonment by apartheid rulers, would have been to issue a public apology for this vile and sordid stain on the US Democratic administration of President John F Kennedy for the 1962 arrest of Mandela and his subsequent incarceration on Robben Island for five years.

After all, President Obama, in his Speech to the University of Cape Town (UCT),  profusely praised the correct moral bravery and political clarity of President John F Kennedy's brother, Bobby Kennedy, for his anti-racism and anti-apartheid Speech, at the height of apartheid, delivered at the same University of Cape Town in 1966, where President Obama too spoke.

But to visit South Africa as President Obama just did, and only praise Bobby Kennedy's 1966 UCT Speech, but not issue an apology for the complicity of President John F Kennedy's administration in the 1962 Howick, Natal arrest of Nelson Mandela is plain wrong, and may in fact be deliberately calculated to mislead and misinform the SA youth and public about the extent of US administrations' collaboration with the oppressive, racist and brutal apartheid regime of the apartheid architect, Hendrick Verwoerd in the 1960s.

This cannot be right.

William Blum further wrote that "after Mandela's release, the White House was asked if Bush (Snr.) would apologize to the South African for the reported US involvement in his arrest at an upcoming meeting between the two men...Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater replied: "This happened during the Kennedy administration...don't beat me up for what the Kennedy people did." (Ibid).

Clearly, Marlin Fitzwater knows what "the Kennedy people did" regarding the CIA's involvement of Mandela's arrest in 1962 in Howick, Natal.

CONCLUSION

As if foreseeing the current difficult and painful juncture South Africa and the rest of the world are anguished about regarding his poor health, Nelson Mandela penned a remarkable opinion piece to the SA Sunday Times of 25 February 1996. Mandela's piece was entitled "Don't praise me to damn the rest." The sub-heading was "Wild rumours about his imminent death date back to his days on Robben Island, writes Nelson Mandela."

Madiba's article was in response to the Sunday Times editorial of 18 February 1996.

Amongst many important points former president Mandela stated in his piece, he wrote:

"A ridiculous notion is sometimes advanced that Mandela has been exclusively responsible for these real achievements of the South African people, particularly our smooth transition."

Nelson Mandela further wrote:

"Those who forecast doom for South Africa suggest that I, alone among presidents of the ANC over the last 84 years, have created such a situation that, once I retire, the ANC will not be able to constitute a leadership collective which will remain loyal to the policies of the movement - policies I was directed to pursue while I was President, including nation-building and reconciliation."

Nelson Mandela is not in a position to verbally communicate with us now. But clearly, his opinion piece to the SA Sunday Times of 25 February 1996  foresaw the difficult moment we are going through as a nation at the moment and how he would want us to conduct ourselves during the current difficult phase of our nation's life, when we hurt deeply to see Madiba where he is currently.

Most importantly, by his SA Sunday Times opinion piece, Nelson Mandela sought to remind us that he was indeed not immortal, and that the end of his life on earth would one day be upon us.

This we need to remember.

And, quite bluntly, Madiba bravely wrote in February 1996:

"Let me restate the obvious: I have long passed my teens; and the distance to my final destination is shorter than the road I have trudged over the years. What nature has decreed should not generate undue insecurity."

Even today, South Africa and the rest of the world s"should not generate undue insecurity" over Madiba's mortality, as he himself "decreed" in February 1996.

To do otherwise is to go against the clearly expressed wish of Madiba.

Feodor Dostoyevsky, the great Russian novelist, once wrote, very aptly, that without love, there cannot be immortality.

Our and the rest of the world's love for Madiba will ensure that his ideals and legacy, and the ideals and legacy of the historic, pre-2000 ANC live until the end of time.

Mr Isaac Mpho Mogotsi Executive Director Center 0f Economic Diplomacy In Africa (CEDIA). He was a member of the ANC in exile between 1980-1989. H e can be reached at www.cedia.co.za

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