Freedom and the personal Mandela in each one of us

The life of Nelson Mandela and what he stood for – for his nation, Africa and the world – has, since his demise last Thursday, dominated headlines. His stature while he lived was such that it may not be presumptive to say that many us – that is including the vast majority of us who never had the honour to meet the man in person – have had a “personal Mandela”, whether as a moral compass for his personal sacrifices in reconciliation with his former jailors, or his personal tragedies and triumphs that were only too human. At the personal level he was a father and husband, with all the joys and disappointments these bring, while at the national and global level, as eulogised by US President Barack Obama, he “earned his place in posterity through struggle, shrewdness and by showing the power of political action.” Mandela was about freedom, “he showed us the power of action, of taking risks on behalf of our ideals,” Obama said in his characteristic eloquence. Another way of looking at it would be that during his 27-year captivity in the jails of apartheid, he demonstrated how humans are capable of nurturing dreams even under the harshest of conditions. Humans strive to live full lives whatever their situation. This requires freedom. Though incarcerated for 27 years, I would be hard pressed to believe his mind was ever shackled in the circumstance, if it was not that the very thought of freedom in a free mind were not the man we came to idolise. His struggle for freedom and his humanity, despite his well documented personal failures, is probably the major reason he should be ranked among revolutionaries for stirring up popular passions among the hungry and dispossessed, as much as among the elite and well fed. It is, therefore, apt that he already is been ranked a historical monument in the global psyche alongside the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, even Mother Theresa. Like these luminaries, he knew the symbolic significance of refusing to be cowed even under the most extreme of conditions. Throughout humanity, whether in theology, philosophical rhetoric and self-actualisation narratives, it has been shown the difference between quality of life as something to be provisioned against quality of life as a freedom to be protected. When my Mau Mau forebears not too long ago took to their struggle against colonial oppression, incidentally inspiring Mandela to his, it was for the preservation of their quality of life and the freedom to do whatever they willed with whatever they owned for themselves and posterity. Rwanda, too, had its moment of struggle against oppression that turned awfully calamitous, but saw the nation triumph. It was for their peoples’ honour and dignity the struggles sought to fight for and protect the freedoms. And thus, we should always be reminded that freedom responsibly discharged be the personal kinship among us with Mandela as he lived it. Therefore, even though the vast majority of us never met him in person, the man as espoused in the idea of freedom shall live long after our own mortality is consummated. For this reason he will remain my personal Mandela. The writer is a commentator on local and regional affairsTwitter: @ gituram