Mandela Over Matter: Musings On The Man

Chris Spangenberg, Grade 12

Nelson Mandela is dead. December 5, 2014 saw the end of an era, a time of unlimited idealism, restless romantics, and deafening dreamers. He is the last to leave, in the line-up of visionaries; Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X... And with him, goes the immutable trust in all their rocking the jet turbulence. No lookalike will come close enough to match their calibre. No hope lies in the public reserves, which have been spent on semi-legitimate acts of terror and fiscal cliff-hangers— rabble-rousers round the world make second page, half-assed editorials. No hope— and will there ever be again the same assurance in the wideness of his smile? Will he fade into the dusty recesses of black history month, just another mug to flash every year to the next generation of law abiders? Not when he's passed, surely not...

But pry yourselves loose and listen: Madiba is dead. Yet this warrants neither condemnation nor celebration, outside the public eye, in the safety of your home.

What does it mean 'He died before his time'? Or "Our nation has lost its greatest son"?

The man lived to a ripe age of 95. Few first world frolickers enjoy that privilege, much less the third world bane of equality; the anti-apartheid icon. He is commemorated, and will be remembered by all, especially his enemies. He wasn't shot, lynched, hung, or stabbed. Assassination did not take him from us. Suffering from health issues late in his life, he struggled with a respiratory infection before passing. He died in his bed, surrounded by friends and family. This is a quieter death than other visionaries, a pleasant alternative to the twenty-one bullets in Malcolm X, or the single shot in Martin Luther King Jr. They can contest to that. “I have come and I will go when my time comes." he'd said. He is gone from us now, and it is not a loss suffered easily by this brave new world of political correctness where Caucasians share the sentiments of the coloured creed in a United Nation world circle.

Yet they are the first to forget his roots. Or do the victors write history? Behind that kindly old man there lies the grey mane of a slumbering lion- a slumber twenty seven years long and counting. He made amends in jail, and changed from a SACP communist co-founder to a humanitarian hero. And he was a commie, on the same wavelength as Castro. His acts of sabotage pressured the government, and he can be grateful it wasn't the Son of Bush leading South Africa at the time. But Reagan is dead too, and who thinks of him at this moment?

The reactions of the Republicans were swift and sullen. They had spent an obvious amount of time pondering the greatness of Mandela— something around ten seconds—before tweeting their scathing opinions of the man. Something of his commie terror past drives them to this natural loathing. They are foremost likely relatives of Reagan and Nixon, at last finding common ground— at last, an enemy they can face together. But they will have to stand this one alone, for he is no Bin Laden-Khadafy-Trosky-ite. He is Nelson Mandela, the smiling Father of the Nation, the template for a whole new upstart generation of dissatisfaction. Good luck to them tarring and feathering his reputation.

Denouncing Obama has more appeal in retrospect. His legacy carries on beyond the boundaries of Black History Month, into the mouths of the socially Hip and tragically young. Mandela is an untapped household name. It will not be too long before he will be called out for the same level of glorification as Gandhi.

The real tragedy is not his death. Madiba's loss is a front for the ongoing international failures of our modern crusaders of peace. The revolutionaries today have no spokespersons with charisma and catchy, exotic, pronounceable names. They are a faceless mob confronting a faceless police riot squad. Che Guevara and Malcolm X still ring bells with a majority, but who has heard of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova? Only those who stay informed of Russia's authority and her stance against the Pussy Riot members, but do they have just cause and a titular auto-biography? No, they do not. Julian Assange from Wikileaks has the Fifth Estate made after him, but even that is riddled with inaccuracies, and was pronounced propaganda by Assange himself.

The past few years saw a rash of revolutions across the Middle East, dipping into Africa and Asia and more. Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and more recently, Thailand, have seen uprisings, and shifts in their strict systems. Diplomacy was not allowed to interfere with the transitioning; they were therefore nasty, brutish, but they weren't short.

Egypt still struggles with the switch, and the ousting of the Thai leader Yingluck

Shinawatra is still ongoing. Still, the beggar bowls are clinking, alright. When they beg for some spare change of regime. Those come a dime a dozen a day, along with gentrification and a McDonalds' in every country. Their successes do not go unnoticed, but they are understated and unpublished in the realm of American dominance.

The revolution will not be televised... Not to a mixed audience of middle class underperforming college grads, working mothers with twins, and teenagers with the shadow of a fossil fuel-less future upon them. They have better things to worry about than some congregation of angry foreigners halfway across the globe in this interconnected community. Right? Right.

Even though no revolutionary today has stepped up to fill the shoes of olde, we can always look back at the people whose actions resulted in today's world, of ethics, and morals, and social equality. Mandela was a leader of conviction, and he will remain a symbol of cooperation; a man of the modern age, who retained his tribal Madiba roots.

He is gone now, but he will not be forgotten that easily.