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YOUR STORY
The king of humility
16/07/2008 09:27 - (SA)
Jasper van der Westhuizen, News24 User
When the Great Change shook South Africa in the early nineties, I was still but a child. My naïve and ignorant young mind was hopelessly indoctrinated by hereditary politics, my perceptions were based on a life lived in sterile isolation: the life of a privileged white Afrikaner. I was born into racism. I was comfortable with it and the words accompanying such an orientation had flown from my lips without my ever pausing to consider its merit.
Later, in 1994, when the first democratic elections sealed the deal and power had effectively changed hands, I was convinced that all had gone to hell. I was a teenager, apathetic and rebellious by nature. When confronted by political debate, I randomly swung from one side of the fence to the other. I argued along just to be heard, listening only to find fault. I did not understand, for I did not know of the socio-economic undercurrents that were driving our unbalanced society.
I cannot recall how and when I had first heard the name Mandela. I guess I had just always known it. I knew he was a threat, some dark enigma coming to destroy the world as it was. In my mind he was something akin to the apocalypse bearer, the antichrist. I remember lying in my room listening to the dark, brooding words of Nick Caves? Tupelo, imagining that our new president was in fact the beast that has cometh.
However, I soon realised that South Africa would not grind to a halt after the transition. Life would go on. In fact, for a schoolboy nothing changed at all. The only change of real note was a few new faces of varying shades of brown in my classes. That did not turn out to bad either, for I soon found some of them were particularly agreeable to be around with. Some even became my friends.
As I grew as a person I grew in understanding. I became more sympathetic to the plight of the masses. I realised the truth in the need for change. I gradually started to condemn those that clung to the ways of the past, wincing when some moron waves the old South African flag at a rugby international. Time has brought me around. Time has changed something deep within my mind and within my heart; time and Nelson Mandela.
I could not help but feel in awe of the man. He was old, yet utterly dignified. Celebrities wanted to meet him, kids wanted to be him. He was revered by all, a celebrity in own right. But if Elvis was the King of Rock and Roll, Nelson Mandela was the King of Humility.
Mr Mandela played no small part in nurturing my metamorphosis. Growing out of the normal "confused teenager phase", I needed a role model, a hero. For me, as for many young South Africans, Nelson Mandela turned out to be that man. Although I can never claim to resemble anything of his likeness, I truly wish that I could convey just a faction of his warm sincerity, his friendly nature, his quiet tenacity, or any of a thousand other adjectives, which could be used to describe the man.
I have never seen Mr Mandela in public without him wearing his warmest of smiles. When he speaks he speaks with compassion and wisdom. He has never proclaimed hatred; he has only pleaded love. He has never spoken of vengeance, but instead has shown us the meaning of forgiveness. He leads from the front, teaching us all to be better people.
I salute you Mr Mandela. Some day your legacy will be the cornerstone of a South Africa, which will prosper. But your legacy will not be one of mortar and stone, it will not be idealistic appeals found within the covers of a dusty book, it will not be the glittering of coin or a little Nobel prize tucked away somewhere in a display cabinet. No. It will be one of love. It will be the legacy of a single humanity.
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