Reflections in celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela’s Life
by Professor N’Dri Assié-Lumumba
A short version of an invited presentation delivered in part at the event of
“Celebrating the Life of Nelson “Madiba” Mandela”
Organized by
BLACK STUDENTS UNITED (BSU)
With the support and contributions of other Cornell students individually and/or as representatives of
other student organizations
Cornell University
Anabel Taylor Chapel
Saturday December 14, 2013 at 6:30pm
President Skorton, Vice President Murphy, Reverend Clarke, colleagues,
members of the Cornell and Ithaca Community: I am very much honored to say a few
words on this solemn occasion.
I want to express my profound gratitude to you, the students, especially BSU,
for the leadership in this call: “In light of Nelson Mandela's passing, come to celebrate
the life of Nelson “Madiba” Mandela.” I thank you for your individual roles and your
collective presence.
I would like to start by recalling the roles that many members of the Cornell
Community, in different capacities, played in the movement to dismantle the apartheid
system. Of particular significance was the role of the Africana Studies and Research
Center at Cornell, its faculty and students for their leadership in campus activism for
divestment. Many of these people are still on campus. I would like to mention the roles
of the founding director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, Professor James
Turner as well as Professor Locksley Edmondson and his role in TransAfrica. It is
worth noting that a South African, the late Congress Mbata (co-founder of the Youth
League of the African National Congress), who became a target of the brutal regime
and was forced into exile in the United States became a founding member of the faculty
of the Africana Studies and Research Center.
Using scholarship, facts and analyses the members of the Cornell community
who were involved in various actions and organizations wanted to explain to the
Administration and to the US government and the world the reasons why it was morally
reprehensible to do business with the those endorsing apartheid regime. I would like to
mention in passing that on the African continent, the struggle against the apartheid
system was one of the most remarkable and unanimous grounds of unity.
There is no unanimity among scholars and the overwhelming majority of South
Africans who suffered discrimination, injustice, dispossession and abject poverty under
the apartheid about the achievements of post-apartheid period.
Thus, we should
remember that the factors that forced Madiba to spend decades in prison have not yet
been fully eradicated. There is no unanimity about the actual achievements since he
was released from prison. However, given the circumstances, for this event today, I
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would like to focus my remarks on the celebration of his life.
First, I would like to share with you a sample of my messages sent to brothers
and sisters and colleagues on different networks, as I express different dimensions of
the reactions to the announcement of the passing of Madiba:
Message # 1: “Dear Brother and Sister: Although it was a bit late in Tshwane
(African name for Pretoria) when we heard the News, I tried to reach you to talk briefly
and set up time to talk more with you. Madiba has made his contributions to this world,
no matter how differently they are appreciated. We need the connection to be part of the
Celebration of the life of an African with a special human experience and reflect on the
significance and values of his journey on Earth. We share the feeling of sorrow. He was
once a nurtured baby who came from the world of the Ancestors. May the same
Ancestors welcome him back with love and in full Glory and May the Almighty grant
him Perfect Peace.”
Message # 2: “In this situation, I prefer to use the encompassing word Yako, a
term in my language, Akan/Twi, to express to you and to all of us the human family in
connection with our environment my feelings of sorrow, pain, emptiness in mourning
our beloved Madiba and yet the strong sense of connectedness, inspiration, pride and
hope in celebration of his life and his legacy.”
Message # 3: “I feel the same pain and the sense of emptiness. On Wednesday,
commenting on the project of one of my students on the Bantu Education Act, I talked
about Nelson Mandela's commitment and vision for education. Perhaps we have
nurtured the impossible dream that he would be spared of the inevitability of the human
life cycle and be with us longer or forever. Amidst the sorrow, however, I am also
referring to an Akan proverb that when a “good person” passes on, His/Her Name
becomes a common heritage that is shared by all. That is to say that we can all find not
only the obvious values in his life but specific dimensions that make us feel in special
ways that we have been enriched from global to our own little spaces. Each person can
find ways, and also collectively people can even feel compelled, to manage the precious
heritage. This is the case with the physical departure of Madiba. Thus, I would submit,
in French, that Nelson Mandela nous interpelelle (Madiba challenges us), to move
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quickly beyond the pain and celebrate this exceptional life and feel empowered to
pursue in our respective capacities his work for building a better world.”
Message # 4: “It is just amazing how your specific account of the chain of
reaction is emblematic of how so many other people, including brothers and sisters,
friends and colleagues in South Africa, have reacted. Even his departure brings this
extraordinary unity in our emotions, an expression of the essence of our common
humanity to which he dedicated his life.”
Now I would like to say a few words about aspects of the life of Nelson
Mandela, a human being with human needs who was for so long denied the right to live
as an individual with human aspiration such as exercising his profession as lawyer after
completing his education, as husband, as a father, as a son.
Nelson Mandela Stated: “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner
who keeps on trying.” This is an expression of his humility. There are also other
dimensions of his normal human needs that are imbedded in his assertion that he is a
regular human being. Nelson Mandela spent much of his prime adult life without the
ability to live a “normal” life on his own terms. While we tend to refer to the 27 years in
prison, we must remember that many years before the prison sentence, he did not have a
normal life, especially after he went underground.
The real life without freedom
spanned over three full decades and denied him the right to live:
-As a person: He deeply valued education and was proud of his educational
attainment. Indeed, he had an education that was the basis for his aspirations to exercise
his profession and to live a normal life, which was denied to him and his people.
- As a husband: He started his first marriage as a model husband, a partner in
caring for the first children. The failure of this first marriage was the direct result of his
intensified commitment to the struggle, when out of frustration Evelyn left with the
children. The experience in the second marriage with Winnie was even more difficult as
they never enjoyed normal life of a couple. They were never given a chance even after
they managed to have two children born in 1958 and 1960, respectively. Thus, Winnie
appropriately stated: “ I am the most unmarried of married women.”
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-As a father: From a model father in the beginning of his first marriage, his
dedication to the collective cause became incompatible with a normal life. His children
were denied the joy of seeing, and growing up with, their father. He was denied the
responsibility and right of contributing directly to raising his children and enjoying their
presence in his life. Even when in his first son died of a car accident while he was
already in prison, he was not allowed to attend the funerals.
-As a son: His mother, holding hand with Winnie, attended the Rivonia trial.
She could come only so often to seen him in prison. She passed away while he was still
in prison. He recalled the sorrow when he saw her the last time, leaving after she visited
him in the prison, and had the feeling that he might not see her again.
When Mandela was freed from prison in 1990, I was a visiting assistant
professor at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York). In an event to celebrate the
“Liberation of Nelson Mandela” I was asked to give the keynote address, which I titled:
“Education: an Instrument for Social Control or an Agent for Liberation?”
In relation to education, I would like to mention the roles of students (many of
your age) but many others who were even younger. One of the most infamous events in
the apartheid system involved the indiscriminate crushing of secondary and even
elementary school children: The Soweto Uprising, which was part of a series of protests
held by young students. On 16 June 1976 high school students throughout SOWETO
rose against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in the schools. For
them it was a strategy of control and subjugation, aiming to make them have a parochial
experience that would provide inferior education and cut them off from the rest of the
world. It is estimated that 20,000 students took part in this specific protest of June 16,
1976. The brutal apartheid regime opened fired and killed many of the young people.
The estimated number of youth massacred varies between 176 and 700. This was one
of the turning points in the global outrage and the intensification of the struggle to
dismantle this brutal system. This event was a turning point in the intensification of the
struggle in South Africa, across the African continent, and many parts of the globe. In
South Africa, the Youth Day on June 16 is now held annually in commemoration of the
death these young students.
In spite, or even because, of this demonstration of
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unlimited cruelty of the system, the movement among the students and the youth in
general continued until Nelson Mandela came out of prison. One of his first messages
in 1990 was to urge the youth to return to school and be educated. Education is not
only a process through which technical competence can be acquired to actualize
professional plans. More important, education, which was used by the apartheid system
as a tool for control, is also an instrument of liberation that was used by many including
Nelson Mandela and the students to strategize and organize for the struggle.
Regarding the role of the youth, on this occasion Madiba would appreciate that
we also remember so many others, such as Steve Biko, a student leader and founder of
the Black Consciousness Movement aimed at empowering and mobilizing African
people and very popular among the urban youth. A year after the Soweto massacre, in
1977 he died in police custody.
I would like to say a few words about Winnie Madikizela Mandela. Whatever
the controversies about aspects of Winnie’s actions, historical facts are clear on one
matter: you can’t talk about Nelson without talking about Winnie: Read her book Part
of my Soul Went with Him. When Nelson received the prison sentence, Winnie was only
a 24-year-old young woman, mother of two young children, having to manage the dayto-day life in a brutal regime. In spite of the support of the community, these were
trying long years. Furthermore, she became quickly a very articulate young woman
fighting on many grounds (for her beloved husband, father of the young children).
Beyond the personal aspects, she was fighting for the broader cause for which Nelson
was in prison. She was contributing to the battle, ensuring that those who were in
prison would not be forgotten. She was fearless with a powerful voice that they wanted
to silence but were unsuccessful in achieving. She became a direct target of the brutal
system. She suffered indignities, isolation and torture as she was sentenced to internal
exile and was deliberately sent to the isolated rural hamlet of Brandfort. The long
separation led to an unsustainable marriage after three decades of separation. But the
unfailing commitment of Winnie contributed significantly to keeping the message and
struggle alive during the long years of the prison experience of Nelson and the other
prisoners.
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Concluding remarks:
In our celebration, we must remember that although he lived a life of hardship for a
cause he also enjoyed good life:
We must remember the smile, the laughter, and the expression of joy. Let us
remember Madiba, without apology and with dignity and elegance, expressing a human
emotion and reaffirming an important dimension of the African culture: dance. He has
been referred to as the dancing President.
Often, when dancing with a smile, he had the Black Power sign, a reminder of
the continuing struggle, not only for Blacks/Africans, but also for the global world.
We are here today to express our sorrow and at the same time salute the actions
of a great man. Also, like the Akan proverb states, we are here because we have
inherited at least something about his thoughts and actions. He represents a world
vision of equality that, if appropriately actualized in transformative policies, would
make everyone in every community in South Africa, the African continent and the
world enjoy human dignity and rights.
Let us take seriously what we have inherited. As we celebrate Maida’s life, we
must also remember that his work must continue through our daily lives, through our
grand ideas and actions in every social space on the global scale and in our immediate
surroundings toward creating and sustaining a world of peace, justice and equality.
Thank you for your attention.
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