RIP, Nelson Mandela

I have had the honor to learn from Nelson Mandela in innumerable ways during the past 28 years. In the mid-80s, I learned about the personal sacrifices he made to fight for the liberation of his people and the country. During this time I first became involved in taking the often awkward steps from considering injustice to doing something about it after being exposed to the brutality of apartheid during the state of emergency. Grappling with guilt at my various levels of privilege in American society, I somehow felt soothed by what I saw as the unalloyed moral clarity of black South Africans fighting against the evil white oppressive government. I hungered to go there and know that land.

In 1990, shortly after his release from Victor Verster prison, I took part of the afternoon off from selling Green Monster and Bleacher Creature t-shirts at Fenway Park to head down to the Esplanade with my best friend Vinnie D’Angelo. Hearing the unbowed Mandela thank, in his firm formal and heavily accented tones, “the peo-ple of Mass-a-shoe-setts” for their role in the anti-apartheid movement helped me understand humanity’s interconnectedness and the ceaseless struggle for justice that he continued to wage until his final breath.

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In 1991, I learned about his fierce determination as he strode up to the front of the hall where negotiations were being held between Mandela’s African National Congress and F.W. deKlerk’s ruling National Party and answered the leader’s attack against the ANC.

“Even the head of an illegitimate, discredited, minority regime as his, has certain moral standards to uphold,” Mandela said in icy tones. “He has no excuse, because he is a representative of a discredited regime, not to uphold moral standards.

“And he has abused his position because he hoped that I would not reply. He was completely mistaken. I am replying now,” Mandela continued.

In 1994, I wept as I watched 89-year-old women being carried into voting booths they had waited a lifetime to enter. Dressed in a blue three-piece suit, Mandela demonstrated the importance of a leder’s words in articulating the hopes and standards of a wounded country emerging from its darkest time when he delivered his often-quoted, if not fully realized, injunction that, "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another."

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In 1995, I realized a decade-long dream by living in Alan Paton’s Beloved Country. I taught and coached at the Uthongathi School, one of the nation’s first private multi-racial educational institutions.

It was one of the most important years of my life, and learning from Madiba was at the core.

My Fulbright exchange partner Vukani Cele got to meet then-President Bill Clinton.

I didn’t have the equivalent experience, but my education from Mandela continued nevertheless.

I had the privilege to witness the nation opening its wounds and delve into seemingly unspeakable public pain during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was a central element of Mandela’s effort to help move the nation forward, and, later, a model for the world.

This would not have been possible had Mandela not been able to master himself and his anger, to study the language of the Afrikaaners who imprisoned him for close to 30 years so that he could understand them, and to reach out not just to their leaders, but to their heart in his embrace of the Springboks, the rugby team who won an improbable victory over New Zealand’s mighty All Blacks just months before I arrived in August 1995.

I saw Mandela in person at a soccer tournament, and could scarcely believe the childlike joy he elicited in the tens of thousands of people who practically burst with joy at the sight of their leader driving around and waving to them.

I watched him dazzle English royalty during a fundraising trip with his dancing while wearing one of his many famous multi-colored shirts, his fists moving from side to side as he swayed to the music.

I also learned about his sense of humor, not the least of which was his ability to laugh at himself.

That quality was on full display in 1998, when he traveled to Harvard to become the first African to receive an honorary degree from the country’s oldest, most prestigious university.

He concluded his remarks by telling the audience who had gathered in the Yard about a cheeky 5-year-old girl who had called him a stupid old man.

If you agree with her, I would ask you to be a bit more diplomatic than this young lady, he said with a smile.

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Mandela continued to teach in how he retired from politics, leaving the presidency after one term when he could have easily won a second term because he wanted to strengthen the nation’s fledgling democracy.

He showed and lived the importance of speaking about even most taboo topics, talking about AIDS after he buried his son Makgatho, who had died of the disease.

He published a book of watercolors, supported dozens of charities and served on the global Council of Elders.

He even taught in his death.

Last December, Dunreith and I were with dear friend Ntuthuko Bhengu, whom I met during the year Vukani was working in Newton, when Madiba was going through yet another death scare.

Each time prepares us for the inevitable, Ntuthuko told me.

Today, mercifully, it came.

And, with it, the beginning of the sleep in the permanent peace he has so richly earned.

Of course, Mandela was not perfect.

No one is.

But, perhaps more than anyone during my close to half-century of life, he lived a near-perfect blend of service, integrity, leadership and humanity.

The world, and we, are better because of him.

Siyabonga kakulu, Madiba.

Usi Letela Uxolo.

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Chilean Chronicles, Part XXII: Memories of South Africa in Chile

Almost exactly 18 years ago I flew to Durban, South Africa as a participant in a Fulbright program.

I had wanted to visit Alan Paton’s beloved country for nearly a decade.

During my sophomore year at Stanford, while I was studying in Florence, Italy, the anti-apartheid movement swept the campus. Drawn by searing images of black South Africans being openly beaten by the apartheid police during the state of emergency declared by recalcitrant President P.W. Botha, the students on campus established shantytowns and held sit-ins where they chanted and clapped rhythmically. I was riveted by the brutality being visited on the black South Africans , and touched by the righteousness of their cause.

This sense only grew stronger after I returned to campus and joined Stanford Out of South Africa. I joined then-President Donald Kennedy on an early morning run, argued with him about divestment and wrote about it in a column for the campus newspaper.

In 1990, I begged off of selling Green Monster and Bleacher Creature t-shirts and ventured down to the Esplanade with my best friend to hear African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, then fresh out of prison and on a global goodwill and fundraising tour, thank “the people of Massachusetts”. (He made it sound like Mass-a-shoe-sets.)

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In April 1994, like people the world over, I wept at the sight of elderly women being carried into voting booths they had waited three days and a lifetime to enter.

Fed by a diet of books, films, political ideology and news coverage, South Africa became a country whose very soil was imbued with unalloyed moral clarity, a land where a united black majority labored to overthrow an oppressive white minority.

By the end of the year, I had arrived at a more nuanced understanding of the country’s history, its present moment and the seemingly endless permutations of political parties, in-factions, and levels.

It’s not that I ever thought that apartheid was justified.

Far from it.

It’s rather that I emerged with less judgment of members of individual groups and a clearer understanding of the complexity of the country’s history and seemingly endless stripes of political parties, factions, and regional differences.

Interactions with real South Africans helped muddy my previously crystal clear vision of the country.

My exchange partner Vukani Cele’s friends, who took me in and treated me like a brother, were at the top of the list.

During the year Tsepo Mahlaba, Ntuthuko Bhengu and an enormous circle of friends took me to ritual slaughter of cows before weddings and after a year of mourning for a loved one, drove me to Johannesburg to watch South Africa win the Four Nations Cup, and invited me to their weddings. (Three of Vukani’s buddies got married during the course of the year.)

We had barbeques, or braais, on the weekend, played a pair of soccer matches against the school team that I inherited from Vukani, and drank copious amounts of brandy and coke.

They never let me pay.

They also helped me realize some of the many differences within South Africa’s black community.

But if Vukani’s extended circle of brothers were my teachers, so, too, were the students I worked with and coached at the Uthongathi School.

Shortly after I arrived, for instance, I was explaining to the class what we were going to cover in the time that we had left before class at 11:30.

One of the students informed me that classed ended at 11:15 for the annual track and field tournament.

I started to repeat my statement, then realized this was a perfect opportunity to have the students realize that their knowledge and voice mattered.

I mustered my best Socratic thinking and began.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

“Two weeks, Sir.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Four years, Sir.”

So far, so good.

“So who probably knows more about the school?”

“We do, Sir.” Promptly.

I had them right where I wanted them. Logic was about to triumph. Impact was about to be mine.

“So who is probably right about when the Athletics competition?”

“You are, Sir.”

Without hesitation.

Unsure what to do at the complete evaporation of my goal, I kept on teaching until a student from another class came shortly after 11:15 to tell me that we were late for the Athletics competition.

It’s close to two decades later, and I’m again in a country through the Fulbright program that I had dreamed of living in for years.

Like South Africa, Chile endured years of an oppressive and murderous regime that committed acts of unspeakable barbarity before emerging into a comparatively bloodless democratic era.

Like South Africa, the country’s sustained inequality directly contradicts the constitution’s lofty promises.

Both countries’ unhealed wounds color present interactions.

And, as I did before, I brought a similarly straightforward and morally based view of the country that was fed by many of the same type of sources as in South Africa.

Of course, things are different in important ways. Whereas then I was in the outer edges of young adulthood, now I am a husband and father firmly in middle age.

I went to South Africa alone, and am here with Dunreith.

Yet I find myself rapidly having my preconceptions about the country challenged through conversations with Chileans.

I also hear echoes of that earlier time.

In the unstinting generosity of Alejandra Matus, friend of a mutual friend, who hosted Dunreith and me with her family for hours and hours of food and conversation and drink, I think of the loving hospitality Tsepo, Ntuthuko and the guys showered me with throughout my year in South Africa.

And on Thursday, when I started to tell the class about an assignment that was due the following Thursday, a young woman raised her hand and informed me that there was no class, memories of my distant dialogue with my class at Uthongathi roused themselves.

I could look at this to mean that this Fulbright experience here won’t be as fresh or as meaningful as the previous one.

But that’s not how I see it.

Rather, I consider myself extra fortunate to have a chance to again savor joyful memories of expansive time with friends, and, based on understanding how much those relationships and experiences have meant since, embrace the present moment and set of opportunities even more fully.