A teacher once told this story to a set of junior secondary school students. the story went thus: once in a great kingdom far way in a distance land, invaders attacked the land, killing the king and other institutions that hitherto exist, the small boy saw his father the king killed, he saw his mother the queen killed and many of his relatives on that dark day, it was as though this will mark the end of life and living for the young prince. But courage means to live, the invaders took him as slave, he eats from the crumbs of their plates in his fathers’ land for 35 years, he was brutalized for a crime of being born into such a family. Freedom comes the way of the young prince when his comrades defeated the invaders but instead of annihilating all the invaders the young prince decide build a nation for both the oppressed and the oppressor … the students got angry at the story saying it has a bad end… the teacher continued, the oppressor contributed alongside the oppressed. The community became known all over the world but the prince was long dead to enjoy from the fruits of such a decision.
Like the prince in our story, Nelson Mandela suffered same fate, but his firm desire to build a rainbow nation and to forgive all that punished him in the past, set him on a global scale as an advocate of peace.
Today Mandela remains the only leader in Africa who stayed for just a term without clinging to power for life, he was a democrat per excellence, this particular act till date is not seen on the black continent of Africa where leaders see themselves as gods
We celebrate the son of Africa and the first black president of South Africa because of his tenacity, love and forgiveness. As a world in transition, many will agree with me that those virtues are scarce in the African continent. Today we celebrate many years of advocating for peace, today we celebrate Mandela for the sacrificial leadership that Africa yearns for badly as we celebrate this worthy son of Africa.
To this end, the teacher in our story wanted his students to understand what one can do in the face of injustice conflict and disease a situation which one can cite many instances in the life of Mandela: today one can cite Mandela’s long life struggle against apartheid in South Africa, one can cite his steadfast refusal to compromise his believe during long years of incarceration, one can also cite his inspired leadership upon his release in the peaceful transition to a genuine multi-racial and multi-party democracy fully founded on the constitution protecting fundamental human rights and ready willingness to embrace and reconcile to those who persecuted him the most and the grace to which he stock to his promise to serve only one tenure.
The question is what if you will live like Mandela, what will you be remembered for? The only way for we can show our gratitude for this most admired figure is to own up to what he stands for, because, if we owned up to just one fraction of what Mandela stood for the world will be a better place.
Madiba lives on… birthdays is not for the dead, Mandela never dies.

Dakwom M Longgul
Public affairs commentator and social critic
[email protected]

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Mandela’s Remembrance Day: Flowers of Love – By Dakwom M Longgul