Nelson Mandela has left our tiny planet lingering in turmoil. He will live forever. Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, in his address to the world said he had entered eternal peace. China's President Xi and Indian Prime Minister Monmohan Singh were among the first to condole his death. These two countries gave nearly century-long support to South Africa's anti colonial resistance.
Nelson Mandela, the first Black President of South Africa which the Africans called Azania, the Call, was the symbol of that anti colonialist struggle. Mahatma Gandhi, the icon of our freedom struggle in the sub continent, started his non-violent movement back in South Africa. His follower and Congress leader in Bombay Mohammad Ali Jinnah had invited him back to India to throw the British out. Gandhi never took any formal post in the Congress. If he stayed over in South Africa what shape the world history would take. It was China which gave military support to the South African nations inspiring the guerrilla resistance.
Russia and France were also at the forefront in anti apartheid struggle. It was the emergence of Soviet Union that had helped the liberation of China and India that played the deadliest blow to colonialism.
In the condolence for Nelson Mandela our planet is united. The countries which sustained and supported the apartheid South Africa - Britain, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, apostles of white supremacy condoled his death.
Barack Obama, the first black president of USA, ordered American flag fly half mast. In history Nelson Mandela stands by Martin Luther King, the hero of black America. Without their legacy Barack Obama could never be the US President. But we must thank Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher whom the left globally think as racist conservatives for turning back the Anglo Saxon policy of brazen racism. They played an important role in pushing back the apartheid. It was their unflinching support against apartheid that brought the liberation of Mandela from apartheid prison. In politics there is no defined objective reality. If we follow Hegelian dialectics everything changes except change itself.
Many consider British Empire itself was the greatest revolution on earth. It broke down the national frontiers, spread technologies and unleashed creative energy of man. But it imprisoned everything in the prison of racism. The racism was part of the animal instinct of man. It led to not only enslavement but to the class formation of society that Manabendra Nath Roy, the controversial radical humanist defined. Ronald Reagan, son of an Irish shoemaker in USA, and Margaret Thatcher, daughter of a grocer, went out of established views. They brought the fall of Soviet Union and unleashed new forces by counter action that brought the first black president of South Africa and the first black President of USA. In this space Verwoerd and Botha became irrelevant and Nelson Mandela emerged.
Post colonial world has not turned an ideal one to live in. The old colonial countries have left the colonies. But they are in an organic crisis. Instead of old slaves they are alluring the coloured people as illegal immigrants. There are 12 millions in USA alone. Nelson Mandela spoke for them shared their agony. He was against an unjust international economic order.
In the emergent countries democracy has often been trampled. History has been distorted. Basic human rights have been violated. Opponents have been hanged. New wave of global terrorism has been fabricated and judiciary has been used to terrorise people as in South Africa.
Well, the old colonial countries which imposed us five centuries of slavery and darkness have turned guardians of human rights. But it is they who even did not consider the blacks as human beings. In Australia only in 1967, the aborigines were counted in census. In many post colonial countries like ours the poor are generally considered vote banks. Power is grabbed in hereditary claims and false claims and pretension. We must set a post-colonial world free of that. That would be the real salute to the freedom fighter—the terrorist Mandela.
Mandela died seeing a new millennium of hope. The hope always lives. Hope lives in the rainbow country of South Africa, the Azania.
Nelson Mandela: hero of anti-colonialism
Nehal Adil | Published: December 14, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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