One of them has been very ill and in and out of hospital this year. At his great age, that is not surprising and it may well mean that he will not be among us much longer. While we admit that death comes to all of us and cannot be avoided, there are many people around the world who will mourn his passing when his time comes.
He was a great freedom fighter. He trained as a lawyer and defended many people who were put on trial, some of them even charged with treason, for seeking recognition of their basic human rights. When he saw that peaceful protests only made the oppressive government more oppressive, he decided that armed struggle would be necessary to force them to change. After all, if marching peacefully or a non-violent boycott of the city buses can be called treason, for which you can hang, many people would say “You might as well be hanged for stealing a sheep as for a lamb” and start asking where they could get guns. This young lawyer took that step. He travelled abroad to friendly countries, seeking help for the struggle in his homeland. After his return, he was arrested, put on trial and jailed for life.
There was a world-wide campaign to press for his release. This became part of a more general movement to force the oppressive government to listen to the people’s reasonable demands. This campaign eventually succeeded. After 27 years, most of them spent in hard labour and some of them in solitary confinement, the young lawyer, now a grey-haired elder, was released. Within a few years, he was elected president and his government made many of the changes for which he and many others had fought. The group who had been oppressed were now in power; were they going to punish those who had oppressed, jailed and tortured them? Would they give their tormentors a taste of their own medicine?
The new president’s answer to that question was “If I can’t forgive, I am still in prison”. He recognised that those who had imprisoned him were still citizens who had nowhere else to go, and who had rights as citizens – as long as they lived within the law. He gave them the chance to repent for their crimes and ask forgiveness. The world acclaimed his wisdom and mercy. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The other old man, in a different country, also fought for freedom, spent some years in prison and became president, but he then destroyed what wealth his cronies could not plunder, ruined his country and dares to call the first old man a coward. He’ll probably repeat that at his funeral, if he himself doesn’t die first. There are many people in his country who would be pleased if he were the first to depart.
Isn’t that second old man proving the truth of the first one’s statement? By refusing to forgive, by constantly invoking the memory old wrongs, however real they were, is he not building thicker and higher walls within which his heart is imprisoned and his mind narrowed till it is nearly crushed?
It is true that the first old man was not able to correct all the injustices which his people suffered, but he created an atmosphere within which all his countrymen and women can more easily work together to continue the job he started. If the second old man calls that weakness, isn’t it the weakness the apostle Paul rejoiced in because it gave God’s peace and justice a chance to appear?
Rejecting that “weakness” hasn’t helped the second old man to build anything better than the police state that jailed him; you could truly say he never escaped from that prison. I feel sorry for him.
Which would you rather be: Nelson Mandela or Robert Mugabe?
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis