National, international and intimate respects have now been paid to
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. As his body now lays to rest in his childhood
village of Qunu in the rural Eastern Cape, South Africa, I turn inward.
Back
home for a few short hours before I depart again for a new UNESCO
mission in Haiti, I am pondering Mr. Mandela’s true legacy, especially
what it means for me and for Canadians, for all of us who care about
justice, a better country, a saner world.
What can we learn from his life? How can we embody the values, just
some of the greatness shown and lived by the man who spearheaded the
struggle against the ominous crimes of apartheid? What legacy will we
keep here in Canada?
It is striking that so many leaders of the
world decided to join with political opponents, with people from vastly
different horizons, as they journeyed to pay their last homage to Mr.
Mandela.
U.S. President Barack Obama chose to travel with George
W. Bush, before he shook hands with Cuba’s Raul Castro. Prime Minister
Stephen Harper brought an unusual delegation on board the Royal Canadian
Air Force Airbus – former prime ministers Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien
and Kim Campbell, Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair, Liberal MP Irwin
Cotler, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo, along with
provincial and territorial premiers and two former governors-general,
Adrienne Clarkson and myself.
I can tell you that the
conversations aboard the plane were unique. I see it as highly symbolic
that the gathering encapsulated the open, human values of the man we
came to mourn, and whose life and achievements we came to celebrate.
This truly was a global wake, with widely relevant lessons.
The
sentiments and the people brought together by Mr. Mandela’s passing
speak perhaps most eloquently about the man’s most fundamental
humanistic and ethical values.
A world of justice can be built
only if we act justly with our opponents. A true community can come
about only if we learn to work together, even when confronted by
adversarial attitudes.
Just as Mr. Mandela’s singular personal
power was able to transcend divisions, to unite people across barriers,
this African leader taught us all that greatness of soul and unshakable
personal ethics pave the way to true and lasting change.
While I
prepared to board the plane back to Canada, I could not hold back the
tears. Everywhere I laid my eyes, I saw the heavy hearts, the pensive
glances, the resigned smiles. In stark contrast to the first flight, the
return trip to Canada remained eerily silent for a few hours. As if we
all needed to absorb what we had just experienced. As if all of this
needed to land back home somehow.
As a student, with millions of
others, I put my shoulder to the wheel of moving South Africa beyond the
ugly confines of apartheid. Leafleting supermarkets, asking customers
and store managers to support the boycott of South African goods.
And
one day, the clamour from the streets joined the voices from our
government, as Mr. Mulroney stood in defiance of partners in the United
States and Britain who were resisting the call to abolish apartheid.
In
his eulogy and praise for Mr. Mandela in Johannesburg, Mr. Obama said:
“We, too, must act on behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of
peace. There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of
racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that
would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.”
Now is
the the time for Canadians to look across this land, where chronic
poverty, derelict housing, suffering children and avoidable deaths and
diseases still prevail – perhaps only a street, a neighbourhood or a
reserve away.
Mr. Mandela showed keen interest in the plight of
Canada’s aboriginal and first peoples. He established the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, a model that Canada has since followed to
help Canadians find the strength and the courage to bring truth and
justice to our relations, and decide how to live together.
Our
aboriginal brothers and sisters await a vast movement of all toward
justice. Now is the time to land Mr. Mandela’s legacy back home, to move
boldly and push with all our might toward justice.
article link http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/landing-madibas-legacy-in-canada/article15962456/
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