Darkness as bottomless as the black hole, descended upon earth on Thursday December 5, 2013, marking the grand entrance of a vacuum in global moral political leadership with the passing of 95 yr old Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Ten thousand years will elapse before another like him walks among us.
By his example of leadership that was rooted in a stubborn conviction in cause; incredible courage; superlative wisdom and magnanimity of spirit; great capacity for forgiveness; love for his fellow humankind and disdain for the practice of carving out the human family into enclaves suited for brutal manipulation, he handed to humanity at large, a fine template for true and noble leadership.
Today, world leaders descend upon beautiful South Africa to pay tribute to a giant. Among them, in an sad paradox, political leaders of free democracies who knowingly leave behind in their countries, thousands of their fellow citizens who continue to endure chronic horrific tortures with advanced electromagnetic weapons systems while they turn a deaf ear, in an act of the most superlative denial of freedoms imaginable, and in what amounts to an ironic and most complete insult to the very ideals that Mandela genuinely cherished.
His example in sacrifice for a noble cause, will continue to be a well from which billions around the globe who thirst for hope and inspiration in their own struggles not just for freedom, democracy and justice, but for so much more, can pause to drink and be refreshed and invigorated on their arduous journey to the top of the mountain.
Being a clan relation conferred none of his amazing gifts on me or anyone else, as well it should not have. Virtue cannot be inherited. It must be earned. All the reason for me to continue to strive to be the better person that he inspires me to be by continuing to adopt the principles that he lived his own life by. All the reason that all chronically tortured individuals today, must continue to persist in their efforts to defeat the evil that has descended upon us, and hope that like Mandela, someday we will be free.
Hamba kakuhle nyana we Africa. Umsebenzi wakho kweli lizwe uqaqambe wakhanyisela zonke izizwe zomhlaba. ( Go well son of Africa. Your work while in this world shone for all nations to benefit from. Pat B. December 8, 2013.
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