Nelson Mandela - a giant of history

Nelson Mandela – a giant of history

Dec 14, 2013 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
United States President Barack Obama described the late Nelson Mandela as “a giant of history”. He was one of over a hundred world leaders who attended the funeral of Mandela who passed away peacefully at his Johannesburg home on December 5, 2013.
His funeral brings back memories of the funeral of our own Dr. Cheddi Jagan, where tens of thousands of people attended his funeral at Babu John.
Both Mandela and Jagan had one thing in common, and that is their ability to put the interests of their people above their own self-interests, even if it meant being harassed and sent to jail. Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison, but he lived to see the fruits of his struggle becoming a reality in a free and democratic South Africa of which he had the honour of becoming the first democratically-elected President. The same could be said of Dr. Cheddi Jagan who, after spending twenty-eight years in the political wilderness, emerged in the end to become the first democratically-elected President of Guyana.
Both Nelson Mandela and Cheddi Jagan shared the same philosophical outlook, which in essence was that freedom, liberation and dignity were worth far more than the accumulation of personal wealth. For both men, life without dignity was not worth living.
Both men were professionals in their own right – Dr. Jagan was a dentist by training and Mandela a lawyer. They could have earned a decent life by practicing their trade, but they opted instead for the rough and tough of political life, which today places them in the category of great men of history.
In this regard, mention should also be made of Mrs. Janet Jagan, wife of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and former President of Guyana who was named by TIME Magazine as one of sixteen of the most rebellious women of world history. They were all “rebels” but rebels with a cause, namely, changing the conditions of life of the poor and oppressed.
I thought of drawing these comparisons if only to make the point, which is that there can be no greater service than service to humanity and to one’s country. In the final analysis people are judged and remembered not by the material wealth that they accumulated or by the size of their purse, but by the extent to which they have subordinated their own self-interest for the good of society as a whole.
As I watched the mass outpouring of sympathy and grief over the passing of Mandela, I could not help but wonder what might be passing through the minds of those who at one time or the other were responsible for the injustices that were meted out to Mandela during the dark days of apartheid rule.
Both the United States and Britain and for that matter the entire western word turned a blind eye to the atrocities that prevailed at that time. The ANC at one time was placed on the list of “terrorist” organizations and Mandela himself, even though he was President, had to be put on a special dispensation in order to gain entry into the United States.
Times have changed, and with it the thinking and perception of the western powers on how they dealt with some of the freedom fighters of the past. Mandela, Jagan, Arafat, Mahatma Gandhi and others are today respected and considered great men and international statesman because they have all risen above the narrow confines of petty political thinking and sought to change society in positive ways.
But as I said before, history has a way of judging people and the verdicts of the masses are always right. Former US Secretary of State Arthur Schlesinger, during the Kennedy administration, openly apologized to Dr. Jagan for the injustice done to him. And President Obama was full of praise for Mandela when he said that Mandela ‘not only freed the prisoner but the jailer as well.”
There is a saying that great minds think alike. Nelson Mandela, Cheddi Jagan, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Arafat were all cut from the same cloth. They shared the same world view and perspectives on life. For them, people and their well-being and dignity was the driving force; the tonic that energized them and got them going in life, despite the great odds. Today they have all gone to the great beyond, but in their own ways and under different conditions and circumstances, they left a legacy of hope that a better day is on the horizon for the oppressed peoples of the world.
These men were indeed giants of history. They are men of honour and integrity who gave of themselves so that others could be free.
Hydar Ally

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Nelson Mandela – a giant of history

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