Fate! Fate! Fate! Close bond A letter that the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory sent to Mr Obama after he won re-election in 2012 encouraged him to come to South Africa. Other correspondence reveals mutual respect and admiration, but little evidence of a close bond. After all, the two men are bound by history as the first black presidents of two countries with very troubling racial histories. Both went beyond expectations to lead their nations that had long struggled under the weight of slavery, racial discrimination and apartheid to greater equality and amity across races. In 2008, months before Mr Obama was elected, he sent a video birthday message to Mr Mandela in which he paid glowing tribute to the old man. He ended with: Happy birthday Mandela and I hope to see you soon.” It would appear now that it is too late for the kind of meeting Obama envisaged in that video greeting five years ago. But it might well be on his mind when he returns for a second visit to Robben Island where Mr Mandela remained imprisoned for nearly three decades. American media has reported that the two have had telephone conversations during the Obama presidency but no doubt, President Obama would have liked a warm handshake and a rich face-to-face conversation with a man who sacrificed 27 years of his life to the cause of a better South Africa and a more just society. Richard Stengel, who co-wrote Mr Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, spoke with MNSBC TV journalist and anchor Andrea Mitchell last Thursday. Ms Mitchell offered: “You can imagine the role that Mandela played just in the imagination of a young Barack Obama and all of his generation.” To which Mr Stengel responded: “And I think, you know, there are similarities between President Obama and Nelson Mandela, I think, in terms of their temperament, in terms of their approach to problems as pragmatists.” A global icon, Nobel peace prize laureate, moral beacon, first post-apartheid South African president, a man of great forbearing and fortitude, an orator, a lawyer, a man of the people, fondly called Madiba by South Africans or just tata (father) by his children and those who see him as a towering father, Mr Mandela is no ordinary mortal. His aura affected the young Barack Obama as it did millions, perhaps billions, around the world; the place of pride he occupies in Mr Obama’s heart is captured in his memoir Dreams from My Father. Father’s shadow
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 05:26:50 +0000
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