Born July 18,1918,
Died December 5,2013
In my lifetime I have learned the ways of Jesus, the way of nonviolence from many well know persons, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day. I have also learned the way of nonviolence from many lesser or unknown persons, men in prison, families I have visited, friends like Lorenzo Rosebough. Today the last of the well known world leaders I have read, seen and heard died. Nelson Mandela died at the age of 95. Is he the last of extraordinary leaders of my lifetime to die?
Since his death late this afternoon on the media and on the web there have been countless eulogies and honors give to Nelson Mandela. He has been called a great politician, courageous, a man of forgiveness, great leader, founding president of a free and democratic South Africa and much more. But I have not heard one person mentioned nonviolence in reference to him.
Leaders of our world, like our own President, go on TV talking about what a great person he was, helping South African overcome apartheid. This is true but the Way he did it is not mentioned. Nelson Mandela was a great leader of the nonviolent revolution that took place in South Africa, where love and forgiveness overcame violence and fear.
Like Martin Luther King Jr. Nelson Mandela knew “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” (Long Walk to Freedom, his autobiography)
He deeply admired Mahatma Gandhi: “In a world driven by violence and strife, Gandhi’s message of peace and non-violence holds the key to human survival in the 21st century, said Mandela.” He also said about Gandhi: “He rightly believed in the efficacy of pitting the sole force of the satyagraha against the brute force of the oppressor and in effect converting the oppressor to the right and moral point.”
Like Thomas Merton he knew: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner”. Also like Thomas Merton he understood that people can be discouraged in the struggle for freedom. “There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.”
As Dorothy Day he understood the dichotomies between war and peace. “We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want. We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people” (Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1993.
Nelson Mandela knew the policies of the United States, like war in Iraq, support of Israeli threats to Palestinians and its espousal of nuclear weapons was “a threat to world peace.” (On Iraq, Newsweek, and Sept. 10, 2002)
Like many young African American adults he understood the cruelties of prisons, having spent 27 years in prison himself and emerging without bitterness or fear. “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.” (Long Walk to Freedom)
Jesus died for his revolutionary ways, teaching love of enemy, the poor shall be on top and the rich on the bottom, giving all to follow the Way, risking imprisonment and death in seeking the truth. Jesus died accused of treason. His crime was written on the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jews”.
I feel like we lost the last of our great leaders of nonviolence. There may not be any more Days, Kings or Mertons. Maybe it is time for us ordinary people to step up in great numbers to replace these extraordinary leaders, like Nelson Mandela.
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