Nelson Mandela will be laid to rest today. What would he have made of the minitempest that erupted when US President Barack Obama was photographed doing a “selfie” with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt during the memorial service held in his honor?
Social media immediately erupted into a tsk-tsk flurry, chiding Obama for supposedly behaving inappropriately and lamenting what seemed like a slide into incivility that technology has brought about. It didn’t help that the photograph also showed a stern-looking US First Lady Michelle Obama on one side, which was interpreted to mean she disapproved of the behavior of her husband and the two other world leaders.
But it turned out the story was much more interesting than a textbook case of bad manners. The photographer who captured the “selfie seen ’round the world” subsequently explained that what happened was not at all how the moral scolds had made it out to be: “Suddenly this woman (the Danish PM) pulled out her mobile phone and took a photo of herself smiling with Cameron and the US president. I captured the scene reflexively. All around me in the stadium, South Africans were dancing, singing and laughing to honour their departed leader. It was more like a carnival atmosphere, not at all morbid. The ceremony had already gone on for two hours and would last another two. The atmosphere was totally relaxed—I didn’t see anything shocking in my viewfinder, president of the US or not.”
Context is important, especially in light of who was at the center of the occasion. We can never be certain, of course, how Mandela would have reacted to this kerfuffle, but those who had observed him closely knew that, especially in his later years, the stern, aristocratic firebrand of his youth had given way to a wise man of remarkable forbearance and equanimity. Laughter came easily to him, along with the ability to be patient, pragmatic and considerate of the other side of the divide.
That was how, despite his suspicion and distrust of the intentions of the last white president of South Africa, F.W. de Klerk, he chose to persevere in the partnership, despite the vocal misgivings of many of his allies. The man’s iron will—and iron patience—resulted not only in the dismantling of apartheid but also in the transition to black-majority rule that miraculously avoided the bloodshed and civil war that conventional wisdom said was unavoidable in post-apartheid South Africa. Mandela publicly forgave his white oppressors and preached tolerance, in the name of his “rainbow-nation ideal.”
It’s easy, then, to imagine him laughing at the fuss generated by the so-called faux pas of Obama and company. The man who had endured unspeakable privations as the world’s longest-held political prisoner emerged well-tempered against cant and empty niceties—in his inimitably twinkly-eyed way. “How often photos showed him roaring with laughter next to fawning leaders or dignitaries or whoever wanted a piece of him that day,” wrote Marina Hyde in The Guardian.
This is not to forget that, once upon a time, Mandela was a revolutionary who responded to the violence of white-man rule in full measure. “Mandela’s life covered both narratives. He was both the man at the top—and the outlaw who defied those who were on top,” Benjamin Pimentel wrote in INQUIRER.net. In fact, “one of the books Mandela was known to have studied as he was helping build the armed underground movement against the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1960s was ‘Born of the People,’ the memoir of Luis Taruc, leader of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas and a leading figure in the Huk rebellion in the 1950s.”
Even as Mandela became a towering world figure, that dark and defiant part of his life should not be forgotten, especially in a world where people continue to be imprisoned for their political beliefs—not least in our own country—and injustice and oppression remain ugly realities. He was tender when needed—and tough where it mattered most.
South Africa still faces a “long walk” toward social justice and equality, but the greatness of Madiba, as he was fondly called by his people, was how he beat overwhelming odds with the contradictory elements of his nature all at play, the apt one deployed at the right place and time—tough and tender, principled and pragmatic, resolute and forgiving.
In this, Nelson Mandela was unique—sui generis. We may not see the likes of him again.