Madiba Magic

Conciliatory gestures like the jersey were one of the hallmarks of Mandela's leadership. He made a point of exonerating some of his bitterest enemies from the segregation years by visiting the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, the Afrikaner prime minister who devised apartheid, and by paying a courtesy call to P. W. Botha, the finger-wagging former president who lacked the courage to release Mandela unconditionally before a stroke forced the Afrikaner president out of office. On a less symbolic level, Mandela also publicly forgave Percy Yutar, the prosecutor who secured Mandela's lifetime jail sentence for sabotage. His approach didn't meet with universal approval, especially among left-wing blacks who felt he was too generous to whites. But in a country where whites still dominated the economy and where right-wing groups had the power to destabilize the new government, the example set by his forgiveness was both necessary and farsighted.

Mandela stepped down from the presidency in 1999, underscoring his commitment to democracy by refusing to follow the president-for-life example of many other leaders on the continent. Behind the scenes, he skillfully helped to avert a potentially damaging succession battle when Thabo Mbeki was chosen as his heir. When Mbeki took over the presidency, Mandela was careful to observe the protocol of maintaining public silence on domestic political issues. Nonetheless, he remained a voice of conscience and did take the unusual step of publicly disagreeing with Mbeki over his refusal to acknowledge the gravity of South Africa's AIDS crisis. (Mandela's only surviving son, Makgatho, died of AIDS in 2005.)

Mandela surely cannot be pleased with Mbeki's failure to use his influence to pressure Robert Mugabe to prevent the tragedy unfolding in neighboring Zimbabwe and the fact that his administration is mired in scandal. Nor can Mandela be pleased by last year's election of Jacob Zuma as the new African National Congress leader. Zuma will become the country's next president if he can beat looming fraud and corruption charges over an arms deal, but the scandal surrounding his appointment has resurrected some of the disturbing social and political fault lines Mandela worked so hard to overcome. Although race relations in today's South Africa are probably less fraught than its history would suggest, rising crime, higher costs and uncertainty about Zuma are fueling tensions among white and black alike. While it's not clear how much influence Mandela may be exercising behind the scenes to influence his fractious party, his increasing frailty makes it unlikely that his massive moral authority will be enough to reshape South African politics yet again. None of that, however, will detract from the legacy and leadership he has shown both his country and the world. On the day of his release, I remember asking a black resident of Paarl, the beautiful wine-growing town near the Victor Verster prison, why he had come to watch Mandela leave jail. "Well, it's like during the time of Jesus Christ," Jeffrey Plam told me. "People went to him when they wanted to heal the sick." Mandela may not be that kind of miracle worker, but his contribution to healing a sick society is immeasurable.

© 2008