Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela meant, and means, different things to different individuals. We know not of you, but to us in CAN, Mandela is a perfect metaphor for true power.

Power can be a symbol of anything we choose it to be; it can be a symbol of oppression and vanity – a symbol of personal exaggeration and inordinate quest for material accumulation – a symbol of vindictiveness and vengeance. Madiba, in wielding power, rejected all of the above.

Power is in its finest form when it is employed not as a symbol of social status and vanity, but as one of humbleness, forgiveness, uprightness, compassion, self-sacrifice and service. This is true power – Mandela’s power, Mandela’s magic – upon which Madiba had clarity; and that explains why he wielded and exercised so much power over the world. Humility, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and integrity were the four legs of Mandela’s throne; and compassion and service the binoculars through which he viewed the essence of life on earth. Standing tall in the dock of an unjust system at the infamous Rivonia Trial, Mandela hurled at the decadent conscience of the world the finest piece of his spirit. He summed up the spirit and life of Madiba thus,

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realized, but, My Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

As we celebrate the gift of his life – his was one of the rarest of rare lives, and mourn the loss of it, let us be mindful of Mandela’s riches – riches that are immeasurable in gold and silver – riches that breathe in his solemn wishes and walks for a world of freedom and compassion; a world where all are seen to be created equal; a just world where the minority will not live in profusion while the majority live in destitution; a fair world whose sole soul is happiness for all. This is the summary of the gift of Madiba’s life to humankind.

Madiba’s flesh is done and gone, but ‘the Mandela Spirit’ has resurrected in full force and is alive!

This conscious spirit – the Mandela Spirit – will chastise us, and will not abide by us, no matter the slogan we praise: if we forget or fail to serve when there is no expectation of reward; if we forget or fail to love when we are unloved or hated; if we forget or fail to forgive even in the absence of contrition; if we forget or fail to give when there is no expectation that we will receive – if we ever forget or fail to endure and forgive the sorrows of our long walks undertaken through thorns and furnaces for the common good.  

Every death we witness is an interrogation of our own lives.  Each new death offers the living an opportunity for self-introspection and self-examination. If we assent to our consciousness and open the doors of our conscience, we will find in the death of Madiba a mirror of our own lives – a stern source of extraordinary energy generating for us mental, spiritual and temporal renewal.

Let it never cease to fill our thoughts that the sweetest words of eulogy will not be enough to demonstrate our love for Madiba. The ink required of us to write in indelible letters our love and respect for Nelson Mandela are not words of praises – not songs of tears, but deeds of emulation and acts of honour. We will be truly celebrating his life, and mourning the loss of it, only when we replicate the Madiba character – the Mandela Spirit – in our private and public lives.

We can, and, because we can, let us unite in the solemn faith to carry on the clamber to the mountain-top – a tug of the spirit, for which our dear Mandela – the greatest moral giant of this epoch, the finest keeper of our collective conscience – gave willingly and wholly his body, soul and spirit.

Long live the Mandela Spirit!

Long live Madiba’s dream of one common community of humankind!