is hard to imagine after centuries of oppression. and yet was necessary in order to dismantle apartheid. mandela is also about forgiving your enemies and that act of extraordinary grace reveals a man of super human dignity, whose body came to symbolize moral power beyond that of most who have ever lived. when he was in prison, south africa was in prison. the world ostracized it. and free mandela became a global symbol, but it was abstract. at that point, many people didn t really think he would ever be freed. but it s indom i believe optimism buoyed him. he could have gone home after 13 years, but he refused, and grew larger and more powerful. his sacrifice for his nation speaking volumes, allowing him to cumulate attention and the moral power and financial might from the international divest want movement which provided force that brought apartheid to
strategy. what i hope that people also take out of this is that when you remember a great leader, you remember them as almost a saint as almost a super hero, someone completely unattainable. i hope we take this moment to look inside ourselves and see the parts of ourselves that are brave and that are courageous and recognize the fact that he was only a man. he is an incredible man. he was a man who did things we could never expect anyone to do. and yet he was only a man and he changed the course of history and that ultimate power resides in that possibility resides within each of us. a man who rows to extraordinary circumstances. some of the other news of this friday, calling it the worst ice storm in years. right now it s sliding east and the economic clouds appear to be clearing. lots of cheer in the jobs report. first, the world continues to remember nelson mandela.
africa, the dock workers in south africa and in angola refuse to offload chinese arms going into zimbabwe in solidarity. when nelson mandela came to the united states in 1990, he went to many different communities around this country to thank american people, civil society leaders, academics and others, to say thank you for being supportive of the anti-apartheid movement that helped to liberate that country very much in line with the civil society of uprising the anc leadership taking place internally in south africa. michael, something you ve been writing about, the mantle of great leadership is sort of passed forward from one great leader to the next. do we see a likely successor to the leadership and legacy of nelson mandela? no, you really don t see that. you look around the world and i
in 1995 when you have the rugbb team in south africa, all of the apartheid years, the colors they wore were of white south africa and having their championship match in 1995 and who comes out on the field wearing those colors with the crowd, 77,000 basically all white, nelson mandela. and the scene and power behind that and crowd is chanting his name. not just hollywood. that is a man who genuinely believed this should and could be one nation. and that s the ultimate action to prove it. i mean, one quote i was struck by from him, ari, about the forgiveness was he said hating clouds the mind and leaders cannot afford to hate. which speaks to the fact it was both a personal choice and personal attribute and also a
what i find so special about him is his capability to believe in doing the right thing and then evolving in that direction, showing that people are not born exactly the way they turn out, but the evolutionary process of learning and teaching. nelson mandela really taught us all, much more powerful and useful to forgive. i want to spread a little love this year