“Black Man in a White Man’s Court”, was the first court statement rendered by a conscientious black man as he stood before a white magistrate in a courtroom in Pretoria, shortly after being arrested on charges of illegal travelling and incitement of black commoners to violence against the white supremacist structure in South Africa. This avowal was a means for the supposed offender to not only allude to the façade of justice and integrity in South Africa but also to hint at the trajectory of the black majority that had been bearing the brunt of racial incongruence in South Africa at the hands of the white minority leadership since decades. This was the disconcerting morning of August 8, 1962. A dissimilar dawn for the South Africans that bore repugnant potentialities for the ruling whites and the suppressed blacks in South Africa.
For the whites in South Africa, it was just another morning, generating another opportunity for the sovereign elite to work upon the political and social plan of suppressing black opposition by segregating the rebellious agents. But for the blacks, the morning beckoned the arrest of one of their cherished activists who had been fearlessly raising his voice against the hegemonic posturing of the whites in South Africa, something that had propelled to alarming heights shortly after the National Party came into power in South Africa following its victory in the 1948 elections that signalled the formal commencement of the ignominious apartheid system.
The man, the supposed offender was none other than the President of African National Congress’s Youth Wing, Nelson Mandela. He was an individual who personified hope and freedom for South Africa’s black population when clouds of racial bigotry shrouded the dream for freedom, qualifying it as an onerous task or more so, an illusion. Despite being subjected to twenty-seven years of life in imprisonment for a cause that few were willing to associate and espouse for fear of dire repercussions it entailed, Mandela was the one who stood tall in the face of all hardships, believing in the creation of an “ideal”, “democratic and free” South Africa where humanity would not be categorised and ghettoised on the basis of caste, colour and creed, and where some lives would not qualify as more precious than the others. It was primarily due to his assiduous efforts that the apartheid system in South Africa came to be abolished in mid-1991 and the quest for racial parity became a tangible reality.
Shortly afterwards in 1994, Mandela had the honour of becoming the first black president of South Africa, a position principally earned by him in the form of his life-long service for the black rights movement in South Africa.
Each year on the eighteenth of July, the United Nations celebrates Mandela Day, to honour the legacy and vision of Nelson Mandela, the person who not only shaped modern day South Africa, extricating it from the clutches of apartheid system of governance, thereby setting before the entire world a rebranded image of South Africa, a country that was learning to redress its wounds and acknowledge its scars but also laid down a model for others to follow. Today, as the world is beset with brimming hatred and growing episodes of flagrant intolerance coupled with apathy, Mandela’s lifelong legacy serves as a blueprint for nations and people to emulate to succeed. Honouring Mandela’s towering legacy in the truest sense of the word requires appreciating and comprehending his ideology of freedom, peace and inclusivity, which more aptly applies to all the developing countries around the globe.
Mandela’s struggle for black sovereignty amplifies the pertinence and power of perseverance in the attainment of goals. From being a lawyer to a political activist engaged in raising voice for the black civil liberties, to a prisoner and later on the president of South Africa, Mandela’s journey presents before us the resilience of a man who refused to be bogged down by the tumultuous realties defining the status quo. Had it not been for his constant and consistent efforts, opposition to white supremacist designs would have been a far cry in South Africa.
It is a truth well acknowledged that for vanquished quarters, freedom is a desired attribute, yet one that mandates a sincere concern from the leaders capable of ushering in the winds of change. This sincerity emblematises itself in the character of the leaders and the efficacy with which they garner the trust of the commoners. The success of Mandela’s odyssey was substantially due to the fact that it was complemented with support from wide factions of the black community, who trusted him, who believed him and were ready to sacrifice their lives at the single call of their leader. This reliance was something that Mandela earned over the years through his integrity, honesty and genuineness.
It is worth appreciation that despite being a socio-political giant in his time, Mandela was the anti-thesis of a dictating leader, since he was humble kind and dignified. His idea of leadership centralised on uplifting those who strove for a better future, irrespective of their racial identity. This is primarily why he was against “white supremacy” and not the “whites” themselves, therefore condemning racism irrespective of its profession by either blacks or whites.
Mandela’s fray was for an inclusive and pluralistic South African society. The essence of the South African Ubuntu philosophy that “an injury to one is an injury to all”, is something that Mandela strongly espoused since he realised that “mutual interdependence” was imperative to generate waves of peace and amity in South Africa. Even after twenty-seven years of incarceration at the infamous Robben Island, when it would have been quite natural for him to resort to animosity and call for revenge, Mandela discoursed the gospel of racial inclusivity, impartiality and clemency since he knew that “if he did not leave his bitterness and hatred behind, he would still be in the prison”.
Few people in history come to be genuinely revered for their services and even fewer manage to carve a place for themselves in the hearts of nation’s years after they depart this world. Mandela has the honour of being an ideologue whose embracive socio-political bearing immortalises him in the halls of world history since his odyssey personifies leadership in all its responsible galore. Serving people when all is well is relatively easy, but serving them when all is haywire is the real test of time, a test that examines ones sincerity and candour, a test that Mandela not only consciously embarked upon for the future of his people, for the peace of his homeland but one that he indisputably was successful at. This is what makes Mandela, the Madiba that people lovingly remember as, an ideologue par excellence who through his struggle to create a “rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world”, imbued hope in the blacks, an attitude of mind that constructs a nation, conversely on the verge of tatters, an overhaul that South Africans would forever be grateful to him for.