Maksoud: Mandela's Legacy Shines On
When the Arab Spring gave a promise to the people and the process stumbled, the cry of many, many Arabs was: Where is the Mandela of the Arabs? It was a question full of yearning, born of agony.
Nelson Mandela was a close friend of the late professor Edward Said and also of Lakhdar Brahimi, today’s UN special envoy to Syria. They both drew from him important lessons, and Said sought to instill his values and liberation narrative into the struggle of the Palestinian people.
Mandela, in prison and in power, remained a source of inspiration. Resistance to the racist apartheid regime helped to liberate not only the people of South Africa, but also those who suppressed national and human rights through the apartheid regime they administered. This explains why Mandela, upon his release from prison and his election to the presidency of South Africa, brought on as his deputy the former president of apartheid regime, Frederik Willem de Klerk. Despite the profound bitterness that Mandela must have felt along with his anger after 27 years of detention, he took a breath and made the decision that South Africa liberation must transcend anger and hatred and make the oppressors equal citizens with the black population that he led, inspired and empowered.
Thus, power for Mandela was a commitment to empower the people, even his adversaries. This was his opportunity to promote the values of human rights and equality into the forefront of human endeavors and good governance.
By this historic gesture of openness to his adversaries, he became a statesman for his country, a paradigm for leaders to emulate and a legacy that will continue to inspire and, hopefully, to guide.
In the earlier years of his struggle, Mandela considered the Algerian national liberation movement a turning point for the entire continent and people of Africa.
When South Africa achieved its own liberation, his firm commitment to Palestinian national and human rights was firm, clear and inspirational, and particularly warm when he visited with Yasser Arafat, then chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. This visit brought Palestinians a blend of pain and hope, and formed for the people of Palestine and future generations a binding kinship with the South African struggle.
Today, the memory of Mandela will be a source of inspiration for governance and resistance movements. His unerring commitment to persuade rather than dictate will provide a path for the Arab Spring countries to accomplish the objectives that up to now have eluded them, in many tragic ways.
For the Arab people as well as for the conscience of the world, he will remain forever relevant.
Clovis Maksoud
Al-Monitor