I chose the above image for my post on #MandelaDay because it is “Vintage Madiba”, before his face was sloganized onto a clock or a t-shirt or a mug or whatever. When he was just a guy. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against branding. It is the prime way of getting an idea across from person to person in our sexy futureworld, and I think Nelson Mandela represents an idea worth sharing.
He stood up for what was right, told it like it was, and fought for the freedom of the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Largely because he recognized that, if bigotry won, everyone lost. We say “fought” for freedom, and it’s this hugely ironic statement. I think what’s so great about Madiba is that he didn’t fight. He talked. A lot. He negotiated and discussed and had meetings with “the enemy” and sorted shit out.
He made speeches. And not the sorts of speeches that Mbeki or Zuma or even Zille or any of our nation’s modern leaders ten toward. He wasn’t self righteous. Just righteous.
He didn’t ever let his actions reflect the opposite of what he’d said and meant. He toiled away (not alone) on an island prison and yet when he came back to the mainland he didn’t come back angry. He came back at peace.
I’ve heard people say it’s all an act, or that he got the easy end of the struggle, being stuck on Robben Island when so many others were here, on the streets, fighting. And I understand that sort of anger and frustration, but it’s all about the ego. Nelson Mandela wasn’t about the ego. It wasn’t about what’s owed the Titans and Gods of The Struggle.
I chose the image up top because it’s of a man and not a God. That’s the most powerful thing to me about Madiba. He isn’t any more or less special than you or I. He believed in something better and bigger and more important than himself. He didn’t do what was right because he wanted people to know his name, but once they knew his name he wasn’t averse to using what power it gave him to get the right thing done; to get the right idea out there. Never forget that.
Happy Birthday, Madiba.