In those clouds of darkness, into the labyrinth of inequalities and injustices, enters the one who is willing to give an aahuti of himself into the veneration for peace and justice analogous to the diya which burns itself to spread light in the room of darkness. One, that dares to defy the odds is whom we all look up to, one that pulls the world out of its shadows, one that lightens up the souls of the disheartened: A true leader.
In the world that we find ourselves today, our sight wakes to find an abundance of fights and frights all around us. Back then when we had lost our minds by raising the discrimination system, the Vision of a man found the abundance of humanity shattered in bits and pieces, but still alive in the warmth of the hearts of those who ascend on the path of virtues, unlike the rest who have made their vices the center of their lives? The man, who turned all the tables and yet, wasn’t trapped in the web of iniquity, the man who himself knitted the wool of humanity, the man whose optimism couldn’t be suppressed under the pessimism of injustice, the true leader and a legend, the Black pimpernel Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Mr. Mandela, the true leader of the masses and the hope of billions, was the one bestowed with a clear perspective, bold enough to overthrow the true hell on our lands that the apartheid system once held erect had created. Proposing to be living in the shackles of darkness shattered by injustice is what no one desired, for he was the one to light that extinguished the diya of humanity to liberate every human, not just the blacks from the citizenship of hell.
In an attempt to free every mind from enslavement, he gifted the Africans their peace of soul and the rest of the world the inspiration to achieve its peace. The rungs of distinction of the adder that we’ve constructed in these centuries have inevitably ended up injuring the very desideratum of peace of our soul and the world: equality. Even the holy Bible proposes,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
‘An eye for an eye’ isn’t it what most of us unconsciously demand in our lives? Even as children, we fall into the trap of bullying the kid who had once bullied us or in offices, deliberately deleting a file for returning the favor of a perfect rebuke. ‘As you sow, so shall you reap.’, is the most profound response to these situations, justifying ourselves and our actions. However, Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta stands resolute in its opposition to the labyrinth of vices in which we’ve trapped ourselves.
‘sarva-bhūta-stham ātmānaṁ sarva-bhūtāni chātmani
īkṣhate yoga-yuktātmā sarvatra sama-darśhanaḥ’
(The blind eye that is possessed by the millions, lacks its presence in the true yogi, a leader with a united conscience which visualizes the immortal, as well as himself, in every mortal around him.)
Our solidarity in its opposition stands fragile in comparison with his every decision after this rainbow nation, South Africa was a true rainbow in the sky with the dazzling sunlight as its ray of hope for everlasting equality and the drizzle as the downfall of the once-unyielding apartheid system. The spectator of all the vile and repulsive karmas of the whites against the men of his color had a response in the contradiction to every human’s perspective. The thread of unity, love, and brotherhood between the oppressed and the oppressor was the perfect consequence of his ideal of ‘the domination of brain over blood’. The rivers of blood were held under the bridge of inexistence by this very idea of the South African president, for even the domination of blacks over whites after the independence would have been ammunitions wrecking the peace of the nation.
هَل ُو ْسعاهاا ْف ًسا إف هَّللاُ نااَل يُ اكِل
(Allah does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear)
This verse of the Holy Quran holds its concurrence in Mr. Mandela’s life. Being an eyewitness to all the injustices enforced on the people of his color at that time, his twenty-seven-year-long prison voyage is an awe-inspiring journey. The sentence that was set forth to break him, made his emotions grow not in the favor of loathing or chastising the whites but on the contrary, they grew in the favor of the vitality of liberating the blacks from the fetters of oppression as well as the necessity of liberating the whites from the manacles of hatred. Was it not his pure soul that forbid the stars from dispelling darkness into the reign and instead let the rising sun scatter its light of humanity?
‘Madiba’ as he was called by his friend, Her majesty fostered in laying the foundations of a new world whose concrete and bricks, without a doubt, were peace and equality. The two-decade-long friendship of the two eminent world leaders: her majesty and the South African president had the apartheid system stand its animosity, for their amity was a ripened fruit of their beliefs of racial equality and opposition to the horrendous human disaster: the apartheid system. The Commonwealth nations with Her majesty as the head kept the flag of human rights and humanity aloft in the sky by sticking up for the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
In my opinion, the blood that flows in our veins is an open testimony to the cause that this leader stood for: equality. What difference does color make when only our inner soul is of the essence? What we speak and what we do is not dependent on what color we are but on how our inner selves are. This Bharat Ratna award had his life devoted to humanity and its service. This world leader marched ahead in his life with fortitude till his very last breath. A real father of poor children, he became a shining star in the sky when he showered hope and courage on the disadvantaged through his foundations.
When millions clung to him for hope, it was he who clung to that aim of freeing every mind from enslavement. On the way up the hill of attaining freedom, tons of storms awaited his presence, but it was his determination that reinforced him to not only face those storms of life but also emerge triumphant in them. The course he took for his life, though rendered him a saint and a lawless person in the start but in the end liberated every mind from the fetters of hatred and oppression, be it the oppressor or the oppressed.
‘Life isn’t the bed of roses’ is heard by our ears in every step we take but in my opinion, ‘life is true, a bed of roses, for even the roses have the prickiest of thorns.’ The atrocious hurdles in Mr. Mandela’s life were well accorded with Tao Te Ching’s verse:
“Yánzhe nǐ de lù zǒu dào jìntóu
jiēshòu kùnnán wéi qìjī
zhè shì háo wú kùnnán de jiéshù de bì jīng zhī lù”
(The path is to be followed till the very end, difficulties must be accepted as an opportunity, and the only way to end up without any difficulties at all is surely this.)
Ascending on the ladder of success is what everyone in this world desires. Resolute he stood during climbing this ladder which passed through hell but eventually reached the summit of heaven when he found his country its rightful place in the dazzling sun. In his journey, he wasn’t the mud that could easily be trodden by the whites, instead the rock that itself stood still and shattered the injustice apartheid system into bits and pieces. This true leader was a true reflection of the ideals of humanity. Even after being tormented, the lack of bitterness in his life set him on the path of becoming a true human and a real leader of the masses.
I believe that leaders lead the world but great leaders like Mr. Nelson Mandela pave the path for the world to reach the steps of the doors dispensing light, the world where ‘we’ overtakes ‘I’ and the world where righteousness prevails. He assisted not only South Africa but also the rest of the world to reach the summit of dignity and equality and visualize the world without the vision being clouded by any vice. The true human and leader: Mr. Nelson Mandela was indeed the lifeguard of the entire world and will always be an inspiration for us.
When our vices become our identity and the identity of humanity is lost in the unraveling clouds, then legendary leaders like Mr. Nelson Mandela are sent by the lord to lead his children and to restore the tainted personalities.