Thursday, December 5, 2013 4:25 PM
Mandela was just a man, and that made what he did extraordinary
I interviewed Nelson Mandela a month after he became president of South Africa at Pretoria’s Union Buildings, the seat of white power for generations. He said a lot of interesting things— among them, that he meant to retire after one five-year presidential term, explaining that, diabolical as apartheid had been, he wished to be sensitive in his dealings with the white population, not to offend them by abolishing national symbols close to their hearts.
But what stayed with me most from the interview was a brief encounter we both had with a white woman that revealed, more eloquently than words could, precisely how respectful he intended to remain towards the white population that colluded in the state’s oppression of him and his black compatriots for so long.
If he were to see what SA has become; he should know that apartheid was necessary.
It's because he is black that he fails to recognize it.
Legalizing firearms like the US was the worst thing for SA.