Mandela; Now Part of the Ages

By Ma. Issabela J. Villalino

South Africans have gathered in Johannesburg and Soweto to mourn their former leader, Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday, Dec 5, 2013, aged 95 due to lung infection.

It is very disappointing to know that we lacked attention in the loss of the world’s modern day Moses, a person who led his people from a dreadful and oppression suffering land to the Promised Land. Some of us have been more drawn by the death of Paul Walker, star of the “Fast & Furious” movie series. Of course, we have our own impart of things to mourn. Like the tragic circumstance in the Visayan region. But at the very slightest, why should one exclude the other? Why couldn’t we simply light our candles and pray and do the same just like the way we commemorate the dead crowd in the tragedy that happened in our country. The one doesn’t diminish the other, it adds to it. The one does not deprive the other, it deepens it.

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 in Mveso, Transkei, South Africa. Back in 1964, Mandela was one of eight men who are accused of conspiracy and sabotage in the so called Rivonia Trial, named after a community of Johannesburg where African National Congress leaders had concealed out in a farmhouse. The man who went into prison was hot headed and easily wounded. On Feb. 11, 1990 Nelson Mandela walked out of prison to a roaring applause, his right fist clenched raised in the air. “I walked out mature” said by N. Mandela. He then won the first democratic election on the year 1994, he served his country and people until the year 1999. But then Mandela did not obtain a second term as president. He knew that every step that he made would be a model to be followed. He possibly had been the President of South Africa for the rest of his life but he understood that democracy will do its work. He was a substantial man in any way. His inheritance in this world is that he extended human freedom.

Mainly, it’s time we show our ability to be part of the human community. If our lack of concern of Mandela’s death shows something, it is how remote, isolated and insensitive we are from that community. Yet that’s the reason why we are at the bottom. We are isolated, by the barriers we build around us. We see just beyond the known. That makes us narrow minded and we never let something new surpass us. Indeed, our apathy about Mandela’s death shows how little we know about the truth and the spirit of Christianity. How odd to say in a largely Christian country in main Asia and a country who practice and devotes in celebrating Christmas.

I, myself, if given the only chance to see, to be able to talk to Nelson Mandela, the greatest leader, model, man. It would be the most extraordinary and exquisite moment of my life. Countless have said to him that he is a saint but he just simply says, “I’m not a saint” and he wasn’t. He originally wanted to eliminate the Indians and communists from the freedom struggle. He was the founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and was considered South Africa’s No.1 terrorist in the 1950’s. He admired Gandhi, who was the reason for his own freedom struggle in South Africa in the 1890’s. And he explained that he regarded nonviolence as a tactic, not a principle. If it would be the best for his people, he would embrace it. If it was not, he would discard it. And he did. He was persistently, adamantly right about one dominating thing, and he never lost prospect.

When he “retired from his retirement” as he said it on 2004, He wanted people to see Nelson Mandela, and he was no longer the Nelson Mandela they wanted to see. Yes, we lost a great leader. But because of him, his works, we knew what life was really is about.

What really is Christmas? It is about one who was born to underprivileged and powerless folk. The mother needed to find a place to give birth to her child, and a stable was the only they can find. The child that will be born will overcome and change the world in the ways of his own will.

What is the true story of Mandela? The man would have worn his flashing smile with a halo above him. As said earlier, he never claimed himself to be a saint. He was a just a man who has flaws just like any other man. He willed to do what he things was right, did the best of his abilities to conquer the world. But a man he is from a powerless and oppressed race stood and fought. A man he is who was jailed, discriminated and despised chose to overcome the circumstances, in the ways he can.

It is not his birth that guided the world like a sole star to the heart of Africa but his death. There were the three
 kings in the form of the three presidents, current and ex all came from an outlying land, which is America. Also, the other leaders who served as the shepherds and the people who commemorated Nelson Mandela was the diverse sheep. From all around the world, the most powerful and influential people united to give honour and bow before to a simple and lowly man.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” 
― Nelson Mandela