Since the dawn of mankind, the documentation of atrocities
perpetrated by one culture on another shall echo throughout the labyrinth halls
of Time. Yearly, there is a call to remember the Holocaust without forgiveness,
while the victims of mankind’s most horrendous, brutal and barbaric behaviours
are the People of Africa. Indentured servitude, enslavement, kidnapping and
imprisonment are cherished subjects noted among the pages in History Textbooks,
but there are no details of Apartheid. The forgiving and peaceful People
of Colour, victims of barbarism in the name of Civilization.
In her article, “He fought, then forgave,” Stephanie
Nolen scratches the surface of a barbaric period in History that, to this day,
remains a psychological scar to the bodies, hearts and minds of South Africans
anywhere. Erringly, he is called Madiba, which is clan to which he was
born, Rohilahla Mandela was given the name Nelson by a Teacher, because
she didn’t want to learn his African name.
His arrival on Robben Island in 1964; interred there for 18
years, the respect he commanded saw him attract the attention of the Afrikaans
Prison officials. Nolen is quotes, “Other prisoners later described how, a
few years into his incarceration, guards ordered him to dig and then climb into
a grave-shaped trench. He must have wondered whether this was the end. Then, as
he lay in the dirt, they unzipped their trousers and urinated on him.”
Mandela’s spoke often of his ideals. Ideals echoing those spoken
by other men of Forgiveness, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma
Gandhi, who, like Mandela was a Lawyer. Orators, whose words stir hearts and
minds on both sides of a conflict. “Mr. Mandela seemed possessed of an
uncanny understanding of what it would take to maintain peace. In the first
days of his presidency, he took pains to stress that the power of the massive
majority he suddenly controlled would be used rarely, if at all. He promised
that non-black South Africans would retain their jobs in government, that
apartheid-era agents would be pardoned, and F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid
leader, would have an active role in the cabinet” (Nolen, 2013).
In closing, Nolen misuses Madiba often, here she
states, “Madiba went into jail an angry, militant young man, quite rightly
upset at the travesty of justice that he had experienced with his comrades, and
the 27 years were quite crucial in helping him to mellow.” It was Mandela,
who went to jail; Madiba is a clan of Kings, the Thembu People of Central
Africa, immigrants to South Africa. “To err is human, to forgive is divine,”
Alexander Pope.
February
12th. 2020, by R. Anthony H. Rock.
© copyright R Anthony H. Rock
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