Dear Barbara and Peter,
On the 6th of December even before the Indian TV and the News Papers announced the death of Nelson Mandela, a friend of mine called me from Australia early in the morning to share the news. Though anticipated, the news badly upset us. More than me, my wife Tresa was upset as she always called herself as an ardent fan of Mandela.
My thought immediately went to you and Peter as I felt that this is probably the time you must have been in South Africa to share the feelings of millions of fellow South Africans celebrating the life of the giant of a leader and an extraordinary human being. For us, the consolation was to continuously watch BBC and occasionally break down witnessing the scenes of police brutality and the killing of the ordinary and the mighty alike, during the apartheid years.
Adulation of great leaders like Mandela, is an inevitable and natural human reaction. But to look back and reflect on our memories and meaningfully link it to our present and future, is the most difficult and painful thing. The leaders who inspire us are not either our blood kin or our personal friends. But when they die, we feel a strange sense of loss because consciously and unconsciously, we have borrowed their dreams if not shared them as their equals; we have sought indulgences in their sufferings and sacrifices to lead a life in comfort; even when they are old and out of action, we have searched for their long shadows of twilight for soothing ourselves under it.
Any one in India, who is a little mindful of history, would admit that the pre history of our anti colonial struggle started only in South Africa. Our people from Tamil Nadu by virtue of providing their slave labour, gave the early apartheid vocabulary of ‘coolie’ and ‘samy,’ to South Africa. When I first read Gandhi’s autobiography as a young boy, the most fascinating but annoying part I found, was his narrative on South Africa. It was such an interesting coincidence, in 1990, when Tresa started a serious study of Gandhi’s political activism in South Africa, we watched in awe, Mandela walking out of the apartheid prison. The same year he visited India. We were really excited. South Africa became psychologically closer. Whenever Tresa got excited, she used to repeat “Mandela is one man whom I want to meet one day and give a hug.” I used to heartily laugh.
Interestingly, she wrote in her thesis that Gandhi was more radical as an anti apartheid political activist in South Africa, than as he led the Indian National Movement. This angered many Gandhians here. Whenever Mandela acknowledged Gandhi, we used to feel mighty proud of Gandhi’s early radicalism and our understanding of it.
1993. Aparthied had come to an end. I came to US. When I came to PLU, I least thought I would be able to freely speak all that I thought as to be Third World radicalism. I feared I would be branded. The very first news that awaited me in the international programme office of PLU was,“A South African woman professor is interested in co teaching with you.” The first question I asked, “White or Black?” I was unnerved when I heard “White.” I was put off. But by noon, you almost nabbed me in the buffet lunch and talked me out on your proposal of co teaching, Nelson Mandela, some celebration over his release from prison earlier in Tacoma or Seattle if my memory serves right, your anti apartheid activism in student days, final suffocation and leaving of South Africa to escape oppression.
Looking back 20 years, I would frankly admit that I did not understand anything during that overwhelming conversation but two things- the empathy you had for the suffering and the oppressed and the exaggerated respect you had for my Third World consciousness and scholarship which I least expected from a “White South African.”
Discussing and teaching of Acheby’s “Things Fall Apart” became a great turning point in my teaching style later and more specifically in addressing the sense of ‘loss and recovery’ one needed to address in postcolonial conditions. Tacoma year, really brought SA still closer and I must really thank you for that. You became my (South African) home away from home in America.
Mahathma and Madiba - Tresa and I think, it is difficult to compare; and one need not compare. Both are great in their own ways. Then what makes Madiba different? It was Madiba’s earthiness. This, we can understand from his own utterance. Once he said,“ I could never reach the standard of morality, simplicity and love for poor set by the Mahatma…While Gandhi was a human without any weakness, I am a man of many weaknesses.”Endearing indeed!
Then come, his resoluteness and courage. Twenty seven years of apartheid prison did not break him. Ironically, it recovered in him, a great urge for forgiveness and reconciliation.
What if the apartheid regime had killed Mandela? I don’t raise this as a perverted academic argument. This question suddenly came to my mind when I chanced to see in the TV, the 137 nooses hung in the apartheid museum to signify the savage hanging of 137 anti-apartheid activists and Mandela’s ANC colleagues. Mandela was perhaps lucky. In our adulation for Mandela, we should not forget one thing; in that 137, there could have been a few Mandelas in the making. Maybe, this is a matter of our hope and despair. As we mourn the death of Madiba, it is important to remember with equal respect these noble men and women who laid down their life for the sake of securing freedom and dignity for all of us.
They say in the press and elsewhere, after Mandela, the scam ridden ANC would lose much of its ground. No! His ghost will be there to tell us that it is important to fight for freedom and pay a price. When Mahatma died, did any one anticipate the arrival of Madiba? Certainly no! But Madiba said, “The ghost of Mahatnma inspired me.” So let us not despair that Madiba is gone. In the true Indian and African sense, his ghost will be there with us. We will have Mahatmas and Madibas arriving on this earth as long as we deny our fellow beings freedom and dignity. Let us not despair… let us not despair! Let us thank him for his life.
But for you and I, there remains one big challenge - to tell this truth to the present generation!
Lots of love to you and Peter,
Tresa & Chinna
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