Ten years after I bought this at the St George’s Mall in Cape Town, I read it again during the last week - Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela.Every time I read an article or a book, or watch a documentary about this living legend, it dwarfs the struggles and challenges that I and the many who I know are facing in our lives within our four walls of being! The life Madiba – as Nelson Mandela is fondly known by his people – lead underground for months and years in a row, the challenges he faced in hiding, the pain of seeing a family break and the children disintegrate, the heat of being under scrutiny and the pressure of winning the race in court rooms in the middle of hawks that are waiting for just a slip let alone a fall, the inhumane conditions that he were to put up between the prison walls and in the hands of the cruel jailors, the fear of losing an identity as tall as his in the absence of something as simple as the measure of time or sense of events around him, the perseverance to stand up in spite of the might of power and length of hopeless nights, the patience to be in the khaki clothes of prisoners and yet to keep focus on building a parliament of democracy, the ability to carry gravels and hammer in one hand and the hope of a nation on his shoulder without letting them slip, and in the end to face the joy of walking into freedom only to sit with his face covered in his weakened hands to avoid the sight of Winnie walking away from his life..
A broken toe-nail, a broken button on the shirt, a disorganized book-shelf, an un-mowed lawn, a squabble with the neighbor or a less appealing dish on the dining table are often good enough a cause of friction in our lives; a dwarf in front of the giant that his struggles were!
It was a coincidence that I picked this book to read again; I just saw the other day that it is twenty years since he walked out of the prison in Roben Island, where he spent 27 years of his life.
A ‘day’ of challenge is at times unbearable; he faced them twenty seven years….and many more before that sentence; his four hours speech before his sentence remains in my heart and mind the most inspiring, after the “I have a dream”of Martin Luther King.
What is survival? Survival is our ability to stand up for what we believe as true, and to stand up when standing up for that belief becomes the most difficult thing to happen.
Madiba not only stood up with his team, with shackles on his ankles he walked in small steps a long long way before he could take that long walk to freedom.
Among the many from around the world who must be standing in queue with a little bouquet of love for you to commemorate the twenty years of ‘freedom’ after your struggle, I stand in line, to salute you…
I am proud that I am living in a generation who has witnessed you live, and transform a country with a message to the world, a world where chaos prevails amidst the call for peace; where the drumming for war and blood are louder than the humming for love and peace.
Shahir
