When Nelson Mandela Addressed the UN…

By Aditha Dissanayake Reprint | | Print |

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, Dec 16 2013 (IPS) - Former Deputy Director-General of the UN Office in Vienna, Dr. Nandasiri Jasenthuliyana recalls listening to Nelson Mandela on his first visit to the UN shortly after his release from prison when a Special Session of the Committee on Apartheid was convened for him to address a UN gathering.

“I had the good fortune of listening to him at the UN in New York, on two occasions; both prior to his being the President of South Africa. First, at the Special Session of the Committee on Apartheid in 1990, and two years later, when he addressed the Security Council” says Dr. Jasenthuliyana, a former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General and author of a recently-released book titled “Same Sky, Different Nights.”
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On both these occasions the atmosphere had been electric, with the council chamber filled to capacity. In his address Mandela had recounted the history of Apartheid and the importance of peace with justice. He described apartheid as an indelible blight on human history, and that future generations will ask how the crime of apartheid came to pass in the wake of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U N.”

Dr. Jasenthuliyana adds that when it comes to the broader issue of peace, what remains in his memory is Mandela’s frequent calls for unity within diversity; as expressed in his statement that, “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, colour, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.” Dr. Jasenthuliyana, concludes: “With Mandela one has the sense of being in the presence of a very wise man, with charisma of extraordinary humanity.”

According to President Barack Obama who wrote the foreword to Mandela’s book titled “Conversations With Myself”, Mandela has done so much to change his country, and the world, that it is hard to imagine the history of the last several decades without him. Hailed as an African leader from another age, at once regal, conservative and chivalrous and at the same time emotionally reticent,

Graham Boynton writing in The Telegraph says Mandela is “seemingly unable to express spontaneous warmth about those closest to him. As revealed in “Conversations,” when his friend Ahmed Kathrada raises the subject of how the young Winnie reacted to his marriage proposal, he says: “I am simply not answering that question.”

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule.

Revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Yet, as Dr. Jasenthuliyana explains “while he was an agitator for change and espoused great causes he was a man of great patience and calm demeanor.” Indeed, as seen in his latest autobiography Mandela is a person devoid of self-pity and the temptations of self-aggrandizement. To quote Boynton, “extraordinarily self-disciplined and with a capacity to forgive his persecutors. In other words, the very qualities that enabled him to lead his country out of the apartheid era.”

His discipline is such that while in prison when the prison authorities gave him a South Africa tourist desk calendar each year he recorded facts in it – his blood pressure, or whom he met that day – but occasionally he also noted a dream, like the one in which his daughter Zindzi, whom he was not allowed to see from when she was three years old until she was 15, “asks me to kiss her and remarks that I am not warm enough.”

As he celebrated his ninety fifth birthday on July 18, Time’s chariot wheels seem inevitably drawing closer. His hair is white, his body frail. Visitors who have seen him says he leans heavily on a cane when he walks into his study. He slips off his shoes, lowers himself into a stiff-backed chair and lifts each leg onto a cushioned stool. His wife, Graça, adjusts his feet because they are reluctant to obey him these days.

Having made his last public appearance at the final match of the World Cup, held in South Africa in 2010 he has largely stepped out of the spotlight, choosing to spend much of his time in his childhood community of Qunu, south of Johannesburg.

Mandela continues to be a source of inspiration for other civil rights activists. For four years now his birthday has been considered an international day of good works. The organizers of the event states in their website “Mr. Mandela gave 67 years of his life fighting for the rights of humanity.

All we are asking is that everyone gives 67 minutes of their time, whether it is supporting your chosen charity or serving your local community.” Sixty seven minutes to make the world a better place. Impossible? Not if you listen to Nelson Mandela. For, he said,”It always seems impossible until its done.”