Category: Sunday

Heroes come too rarely yet pass so quickly

If only the plow fields of human endeavor obeyed the rules governing physical objects. The sun rises and sets. Day turns to night to return to day once more. We literally set our clocks by this constant rhythm. Such is not the case in the affairs of man. The passage of a person of greatness does not guarantee another shall rise in his stead. The only certainty accompanying the passage man is that the man shall be forever gone. Who may fill the vacuum is a matter of hope and conjecture, not of certitude. Sometimes light is replaced by light, sometime by darkness. Sometimes it is replaced by nothing at all.

Nelson Mandela lies in the hospital. He has been in this position many times in recent years. Although eventually discharged, each convalescence weakened him, meaning the next visit would come quicker than the one it followed. Slowly, the decline has brought us to the current point. This time something seems different. Something funereal lingers.

The media pictures the situation as Mandela clinging to life. This is false. It is not Mandela holding to life. It is us desperately clinging to Mandela. We refuse to let him go. We are too frightened to allow him to be mortal even at this frail point in his life. We have turned him into a monument and seek to once more confine him in this edifice we have created of him. He is more legend than human; we subconsciously hope the greatness of his past will somehow redeem our future missteps.

Debate whether the family should allow him to pass quietly or deploy the finest medical practitioners to keep him alive, even in a reduced state, misses the point. You don’t allow this rare individual to pass quietly into history. The family is emotionally and morally obligated to fight like soldiers to keep him with us as long as possible. As painful as this slow walk to the exit may seem, they have no other alternative. They must fight for him as he had fought for all of us. To some, this struggle is futile because no one cheats Death. Yet, for that very reason they must struggle against the impossible. In so doing, they give a fitting tribute to their beloved.

No public figure in the past fifty years has ever personified the best aspirations of a nation and mankind than Mandela. Usually, when the world proclaims a man “the father of his nation,” we sheepishly glance about because we the statement to be hyperbole. When that term is applied to Mandela, it is not an exaggeration. It is an understatement.

History records that Nelson Mandela became president of the South Africa on 1994. This is factually true but inaccurate. In a more profound way, Madiba was destined to become president of non-apartheid, democratic South Africa the moment he was sentenced to Robben Island. On that isolated rock, Mandela found his better self. Thrust into a predicament that would have embittered most personalities and warped many minds, Mandela managed to groom himself for the great task at hand. He is that rare figure who can have a daily encounter with inhumanity yet emerge the better for it.

His foes sent Mandela to prison so that they might be rid of him. Instead, they had enrolled him in a unique school of governance and tolerance. Being that school’s valedictorian, Mandela would be the only plausible choice to lead South Africa from a cruel, rigid night into a hopeful but uncertain dawn. As such, his captives were more complicit in dismantling their racist state than they care to admit. Time and time again, upon the submerged stones of condign irony, human progress traverses the waters and tides of backwardness to reach a safer place on a more placid shore.

Not since President Lincoln steered America through its moment of truth, the Civil War, has a single person carried a nation on his back as had Nelson Mandela when he ferried South Africa from racial cataclysm to a better, if still imperfect, future. For America, an assassin’s bullet took Lincoln from the scene as the nation turned from war to the tasks of reconciliation and reconstruction. Because of Lincoln’s absence, reconstruction did not take place as it should have. After Lincoln’s interment, no hero arose to continue in his footsteps. At a critical juncture, the nation was placed in the custody of leaders of lesser mettle and more selfish interests. Post-war reconstruction and the integration of former slaves into society were impaired. It took another century of pain and struggle for Blacks to attain a status unfettered by legalized racial discrimination.

Mandela’s historic task was as steep as Lincoln’s, in some ways similar, in some ways different. The latter had to prevent a divided nation from splintering apart over the issue of race. He had to begin integrating the newly freed minority into a wounded but healing nation. On the other hand, Mandela had to keep a tense nation from sliding into violent insurrection. Presiding over the transfer of political power from a brutal minority regime, he had to assure this powerful minority that its legitimate interests would be protected. He also had to assure the suppressed majority that a new reality had truly been set forth. Yet he asked this majority to exercise patience in not pressing too hard, too fast for radical socio-economic change.

His primary task was to keep intact the new architecture of power. He had to prove Black leadership was sufficiently disciplined and sane to effectively govern the nation without grounding its relatively sophisticated, if grossly unequal, political economy. Keeping the nation intact and creating a political culture of tolerance and compromise are the obelisks marking the accomplishments of this man.

It would have been too much to ask even this remarkable man to have overseen the needed reconfiguration of South Africa’s political economy. The black majority still wallows in depravation and cut itself on poverty. Many townships are nothing but aliases for ghettoes; they teem with the young, wretched and disenfranchised. If the current situation persists, the previous racial apartheid will transform into a socio-economic apartheid, pitting white and black elites against the pedestrian bulk. On the surface, things have changed because racial discrimination has been restrained. However, it will still be apartheid. As such, it will blight the nation and the people will eventually reject its imposition. Whether this is done with reason and in peace or with the rush and sweep of a violent, desperate hand depends on the political leadership. Thus far, those who have come after Mandela look much smaller than the work fate has given them.

To his credit, Mandel laid the foundation for this difficult work. The impending tragedy of South Africa is that it was not Mandela’s historic mission to do this work yet he might be the only one at present who could. This is one reason the people cling to his life as if it is their own. While the reformative task is rarely discussed in public because it disturbs the myth of racial harmony, most South Africans realize they must soon confront this truth lest it confront them at a moment and in conditions less benign than what now exist.

However, they are unsure they can do the difficult job in a way that will not undo the good work already achieved. They hold to Mandela in the futile hope that as long as he lives, things can remain peacefully as they are. As long as he is here, they feel the nation will not have to confront this historic imperative or that somehow he will guide them pass the rough thicket as he has done before. One cannot blame them for this belief. Any people in their position would reason the same way even if it amounts to reasoning against reason itself.

Against this backdrop, President Obama begins his visit to three African nations. That President Obama, America’s first Black president, now visits South Africa as its first Black president begins to fade is a poignant moment. Some hope it is more than coincidence. Like the physical world’s abhorrence of a vacuum, somehow Mandela may pass the mantle of greatness to Obama. This would be nice for it has the ingredients of epic legend. Even though their precise histories and cultures differ greatly, the two nations are kindred in that both grappled with long-standing white-against-black legalized discrimination.

In becoming the first Black American president, Obama’s rise was more meteoric and much less taxing than what Mandela endured. Compared to Mandela harsh odyssey, Obama waltzed into the White House. Yet, in some ways, Obama’s task was tougher. He was a minority candidate in a nation where the majority still gazes in suspicion at dark skin. In the end, Mandela had numbers supporting him. Obama had good fortune and the political dexterity of a masterful campaigner. Yet, campaigning is different than governance. Excellent campaigning elevates a man to a position of responsibility. Ability, character and statesmanship will determine whether he becomes a hero or a cipher.

As Africa prepares itself for the departure of a genuine hero, it welcomes a Black leader who must decide whether he works for posterity or for the interests of the powerful. At the beginning of his presidency, I predicted President Obama would change American policy toward Africa, giving it a more enlightened hue. I was half right. He changed American policy. It got smaller, except for the one aspect that did not need to expand. America’s military presence in Africa has grown under this President while its humanitarian and diplomatic engagement has atrophied.

His approach to Africa does not suffer an intellectual deficient. His problem remains psychological. Toward all things Black, he maintains a public indifference. That he is Black is no secret. It is part of his calling card and appeal. Yet, because he recoils from the thought of being accused of racial favoritism by conservative political elements in America, he purposely shortchanges those who support him the most. It is a strange phenomenon. In his defense, some will say he copies Mandela by assuring American Whites a Black man can manage the nation efficiently. Superficially, there is similarity but the vast differences of both nations make the comparison a thin one. In South Africa, the bulk of the political system was given in one fell swoop to a Black majority. The question then became would the majority push their once brutal overlords into the sea in an eruption of harsh justice and retribution. Mandela answered “no.” The masses endorsed him.

With decent future leadership, he knew demographics favored the people over the long term. He did not need to push things. Time and prudence would do what political rashness could not.

Obama is still a minority political figure. Although President, he does not control the political system. It controls him. Black Americans are as peripheral as ever; their plight worsens by the year. Time works against them. There is no real possibility of them supplanting the preferred position of the White population. Black America does not need time. It needs emergency help of the fist order. Those Whites who warn of a Black uprising know their warning to be counterfeit. Their reward is notoriety, and access to that ready and large constituency of racists. These antics fit into the tradition of America’s racial politics. They are also intended to frighten Obama. Thus far, they have been more successful at scaring the man than progressives, black and white, have been in emboldening him.

As America’s first Black president, Obama has to be concerned with the dynamics of stupid racism; however, he errors in elevating those dynamics to the position of high policy. These are base sentiments that he must treat as real but also as the base things they are. In effect, he must seek a better balance between assuaging the unfounded but deep fears of racism with meeting the legitimate, suppressed aspirations of minority America and with Africa.

He did not strike this balance in this current Africa trip. The visit has a travelogue quality about it. He is not visiting Africa as a policy imperative as much as he is going to popular tourist destinations.

Had he wanted a truly landmark Africa visit ushering in a breakthrough American policy, there are other nations he could have visited. Libya was not on the itinerary. America warred to oust the strongman, claiming the fight was to liberate the people. Now, the place is a maelstrom. Democracy and prosperity are not readily had. It seems western concern stopped at removing Qaddafi and has not continued toward the welfare of the people. Day by day, more Libyans reminisce about Qaddafi. If things continue as they are, some people will disinter the man’s bones, figuring his ghost will be a better leader than the current group hoisted upon them.

The President could have focused on the Congo. This nation is vital to the true development of the continent. But many interests converge to keep it the prostrate, sick man of Africa. UN military deployments in the country are too small to end the anomie. Congo’s smaller neighbors are close American allies. These nations fear becoming Congo’s satellites should the nation rise from the pit. Thus, they keep it submerged. To control this large nation, they must keep it poor and fractured. In exchange for maintaining this negative political power, these American allies forfeit the economic well-being of the entire region.

Without the Congo as the driving force, the regional economy cannot grow beyond its smaller self. However, this does not stop these nations from conniving with western corporations to confiscate the Congo’s immense mineral wealth for a pittance, again leaving the nation poor and supine. Thus, the peace arrangement sponsored by America which effectively leaves these neighbors in control of the eastern Congo’s fate is artifice. They will continue to bleed the nation. Still, what is good for these smaller states is inimical for Africa as a whole.

Due to the lack of courage and statesmanship, the smaller game takes precedent over the large objective. President Obama also could have visited the continent’s most populous nation, Nigeria, with its myriad potential and challenges. But the nation is too complex for the superficiality that describes this tour.

In the end, it is good President Obama came to Africa at this time when all eyes are focused South Africa and its father, Nelson Mandela. Somewhere deep in his soul there must part of this son of Africa that would like to learn the deeper lessons of Mandela’s greatness and not just finish his presidency as an establishment, mainstream American politician in chocolate face. The great gift of Mandela was to convince the majority not to exert itself against a minority that had wronged it. Will Obama attempt to convince the American majority to treat more equitably the minority it has aggrieved? Will he actually lead the western world to give a better economic deal to the African continent the West has brusquely exploited? If he can muster the courage, he may still be the hero all hoped for. If not, then we must hang on to Mandela as long as possible because we will surely miss him when his time to depart eventually falls due.

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