JONATHAN JANSEN: It's time for radical reconciliation building on Mandela's foundation
'There needs to be extraordinary political leadership that brings white and black together in an acknowledgment of the past that leads to considered action for the future'
On July 8 this year Nelson Mandela (born 1918) would have been 100 years old. No South African over the centuries has more inspired his people at home and built the prestige of the nation abroad. A taxi driver in Delhi or a ferry operator in San Francisco or a fisherman in Dakar are together more likely to know Mandela than any other foreign leader on the planet. And yet in recent times the Mandela name has taken a hit. He sold us out, say the more militant youth. His recently deceased wife claimed Mandela’s party “over-negotiated” leading to loss such as on the land issue. Do not mention the word “rainbow” to the growing chorus of the disenchanted; there’s no black in the rainbow, said one. And only a brave soul would raise that other “R” word—Madiba’s brand—in an angry crowd: reconciliation. Was Mandela wrong? It is easy to sit this side of history and make harsh judgments about Mandela’s negotiators in the early 1990s. Those who were there, alive at the time, will remember the st...
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