The Respected Legacy of Nelson Mandela

History has a habit of smoothing the rough edges and bringing out the positives when it comes to looking back on favorably viewed leaders. The passing of time tends to wipe away some of the negatives and bring out the best decisions and aspects of a leader’s character. They say time heals all wounds.

With Nelson Mandela, however, it seems every accolade he has acquired over the years has been earned through steadfast dedication to his beliefs, even in the face of the greatest opposition. For Mandela, the time has healed his wounds.

Mandela passed away last week at the age of 95, bringing an end to the storied life of one the world’s true great liberators. Once a militant anti-apartheid activist, he rose up as a unifying voice for freedom for a democratic South Africa.

Mandela was born in 1918 in Mvezo, South Africa, and as his education increased, so did his passion for justice for his countrymen. In his autobiography, Mandela wrote that his struggle for civil rights involved, “a steady accumulation of one thousand slights, one thousand indignities, one thousand unremembered moments, [that] produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that impoverished my people.”

In 1943 he joined the African National Congress to resist apartheid, the South African system of racial segregation, and began protesting social injustice.

As his protests grew into charges of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government through guerrilla warfare, Mandela was eventually imprisoned for life in 1964. Instead of defending himself at numerous trials, Mandela used the platform as an opportunity to give resounding speeches for his vision of a new South Africa, establishing founding texts for a post apartheid nation.

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities,” he said during a trial. “It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Rather than fight to save himself from going to prison, Mandela used the opportunity to forge a path to equality in the country he loved. This example of complete dedication to a cause bigger than himself set him apart in the quest for justice.

Mandela then spent the next 27 years in prison, constantly working towards his goal. He began negotiating with the apartheid state while still in detention, and with the help of President F. W. de Klerk, brought about the end to a ban on opposition parties and a beginning to government reform.

Mandela was released from prison in 1990, and once again set a precedent during South Africa’s transitional period. While many expected a violence-ridden revolt as the only way to defeat the entrenched system of apartheid, Mandela helped achieve the goal peacefully, through compromises and conflict resolution and without vengeance.

He preached that the only way to achieve equality was to forgive and move forward, not attack and look back.

Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected president in 1994 in South Africa’s first open elections. Mandela remained steadfast in his peaceful approach to ending the white minority rule, and did not complain about his time in detention – even though years of prison labor in a limestone quarry without protective eyewear had destroyed his tear ducts and robbed him of the ability to cry for many years.

We often use an expression that to reach a desired goal, we must fight with blood, sweat and tears. There is incredible symbolism in that Mandela fought for equality often literally without tears. As he once said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” He was a man with a vision of how his country should be run – free from oppression, violence and hatred – and he would not be denied in attaining it.

Mandela chose to step down after one term as president in 1999 and lived his final years mostly removed from public life.

In his passing we are now left to gauge a leader after the dust has settled. It seems there will be no need to preserve certain memories, or highlight aspects of his life while diminishing others in order to create the best memory of him. Mandela is one of the rare leaders that history can look back on positively for his merits, and not aided by the passing of time.

He embodied so many principles that most can only strive for – full dedication to a just cause, personal sacrifice and forgiveness in the face of revenge – and his legacy has been purely earned and forever respected.