Please find below the press release from the Africa Alliance of YMCAs celebrating
Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday. The content from this press release
is free for distribution but must include the rider and attribution to the Africa
Alliance of YMCAs. Please contact Christine Davis on
news@africaymca.org for more information.
Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday. The content from this press release
is free for distribution but must include the rider and attribution to the Africa
Alliance of YMCAs. Please contact Christine Davis on
news@africaymca.org for more information.
TEXT BEGINS
South Africa, 95 years of "critical but stable"
By Christine Davis, Africa Alliance of YMCAs
Over the past month our collective focus in South Africa has turned to the health of
Nelson Mandela with much speculation turning to what the future
of the country will look like without him. Each morning we look to the news to see
whether or not he has lost his mortal struggle and find the same
words greeting us: “Critical but stable”. On his birthday, we will celebrate the
man, but still watch with sadness and concern as we realise this
may very well be the last year we celebrate the contribution he played to our
history and are able to think of him, and ourselves, with pride.
Critical but stable. The simple words seem to have defined Mandela’s life just as
much as they have come to describe the long wait for his recovery.
Born 95 years ago, today, Mandela has become an internationally lauded symbol of
transformation. A catalyst to the vital, long overdue, racial
revolution the country needed. But for South Africans, those of us who lived during
this time, he has become both more and less than his reputation
has created. For us, Mandela represents the cornerstone of our faith that the future
will get better, but the placement of that cornerstone doesn’t
always feel stable enough. We are surrounded by nations who have had similar
revolutions and are now crippled by corruption and greed. We look to
other African nations and see their strides towards peace marred by never-ending
cycles of violence and suppression. Africa is always teetering on the
edge of stability, her youth manipulated by politics that prizes ego and vice. We
remember how close we were and there is little doubt that without
Mandela and visionaries such as him, we would have slipped beyond the critical.
During his childhood, his youth and his incarceration, South Africa twisted and
turned within itself, undermined by a broiling seething rage that
seemed moments away from toppling not only the government of the day, but the heart
and soul of the country.
By the time I was a 10, a precocious white girl attending wealthy schools and living
sheltered behind high walls, I was too young to understand why
discrimination occurred, and what it meant, but I was not too young to perpetuate
it. I had already spent 10 years learning that black and white were
different, but that black meant “less”. That white meant wealth and education and
black meant servitude and simplicity. I had already learned to
trust only a certain kind of person, and to look on the majority of my country’s
citizens with a mixture of pity and condescension, if not
dominance.
I had already learned, through the seemingly unending bomb drills which punctuated
my whites-only school days, to fear the people around me and to see
my world as a fragile struggle against a vague, undefined, threat.
Today, on his 95th birthday, I do not think of Mandela as an icon. I seem him
instead as a frail and tired man who has spent his life fighting against
the very thinking I was being taught to believe. What many white South Africans will
not say is that while Mandela saved the black population from
oppression, he saved too the white population from themselves, he saved me from
being oppressive. Discrimination is insidious in its subtlety. It
becomes a naturally ingrained system of thinking that can be impossible to dismantle
without a significant catalyst. Arrogance and superiority are as
addictive as they are self-righteous and thankfully, watching Mandela with fist
raised in the air as he walked out of prison was enough of a catalyst
in undoing what a lifetime had tried to teach me.
I celebrate Mandela’s birthday, and his life, with gratitude. We often thank him,
and those within the struggle, for the sacrifices they made to
bring democracy to the country, but we should also thank him for bringing democracy
to our own hearts and minds; for teaching that revolution can come
without violence and retribution and that power isn’t stable when it is expressed
through oppression and suppression. Within the last 95 years,
South Africa has grown and matured alongside its greatest leader and while we will
not always have him to anchor our collective spirit, we have
learned from him how to ensure we improve and learn from ourselves. South Africa
has, during my lifetime, always remained frighteningly critical, but
remained unshakably stable. We have been on the brink of tearing ourselves apart for
so long that it is natural for us to fear a future without our
greatest reminder of peace. But, if we learn anything from seeing what Mandela has
achieved in the last 95 years, it is that we have also achieved
greatness in that time. Mandela is just a man. He has sacrificed a lifetime of
captivity to bring others freedom and he has reminded us, over and over
again, that peace must create the revolution if you want peace to be the consequence
of revolution.
We have learned enough from Mandela’s life to know that we are capable of carrying
the legacy he expects us to carry, that he sees us as being
capable to follow. It is perhaps the best present we could ever give him, the surety
of knowing that what he created will not be torn apart when he is
no longer with us to shoulder it.
Christine Davis works as the webeditor for the Africa Alliance of YMCAs. The Africa
Alliance of YMCAs (AAYMCA) is a leading pan African youth
development network on the continent, representing national movements in 20
countries, 16 of which are very active. The first YMCA in Africa was
established in Liberia in 1881, and the AAYMCA was founded in 1977 as the umbrella
body for all national movements on the continent.
Over the past month our collective focus in South Africa has turned to the health of
Nelson Mandela with much speculation turning to what the future
of the country will look like without him. Each morning we look to the news to see
whether or not he has lost his mortal struggle and find the same
words greeting us: “Critical but stable”. On his birthday, we will celebrate the
man, but still watch with sadness and concern as we realise this
may very well be the last year we celebrate the contribution he played to our
history and are able to think of him, and ourselves, with pride.
Critical but stable. The simple words seem to have defined Mandela’s life just as
much as they have come to describe the long wait for his recovery.
Born 95 years ago, today, Mandela has become an internationally lauded symbol of
transformation. A catalyst to the vital, long overdue, racial
revolution the country needed. But for South Africans, those of us who lived during
this time, he has become both more and less than his reputation
has created. For us, Mandela represents the cornerstone of our faith that the future
will get better, but the placement of that cornerstone doesn’t
always feel stable enough. We are surrounded by nations who have had similar
revolutions and are now crippled by corruption and greed. We look to
other African nations and see their strides towards peace marred by never-ending
cycles of violence and suppression. Africa is always teetering on the
edge of stability, her youth manipulated by politics that prizes ego and vice. We
remember how close we were and there is little doubt that without
Mandela and visionaries such as him, we would have slipped beyond the critical.
During his childhood, his youth and his incarceration, South Africa twisted and
turned within itself, undermined by a broiling seething rage that
seemed moments away from toppling not only the government of the day, but the heart
and soul of the country.
By the time I was a 10, a precocious white girl attending wealthy schools and living
sheltered behind high walls, I was too young to understand why
discrimination occurred, and what it meant, but I was not too young to perpetuate
it. I had already spent 10 years learning that black and white were
different, but that black meant “less”. That white meant wealth and education and
black meant servitude and simplicity. I had already learned to
trust only a certain kind of person, and to look on the majority of my country’s
citizens with a mixture of pity and condescension, if not
dominance.
I had already learned, through the seemingly unending bomb drills which punctuated
my whites-only school days, to fear the people around me and to see
my world as a fragile struggle against a vague, undefined, threat.
Today, on his 95th birthday, I do not think of Mandela as an icon. I seem him
instead as a frail and tired man who has spent his life fighting against
the very thinking I was being taught to believe. What many white South Africans will
not say is that while Mandela saved the black population from
oppression, he saved too the white population from themselves, he saved me from
being oppressive. Discrimination is insidious in its subtlety. It
becomes a naturally ingrained system of thinking that can be impossible to dismantle
without a significant catalyst. Arrogance and superiority are as
addictive as they are self-righteous and thankfully, watching Mandela with fist
raised in the air as he walked out of prison was enough of a catalyst
in undoing what a lifetime had tried to teach me.
I celebrate Mandela’s birthday, and his life, with gratitude. We often thank him,
and those within the struggle, for the sacrifices they made to
bring democracy to the country, but we should also thank him for bringing democracy
to our own hearts and minds; for teaching that revolution can come
without violence and retribution and that power isn’t stable when it is expressed
through oppression and suppression. Within the last 95 years,
South Africa has grown and matured alongside its greatest leader and while we will
not always have him to anchor our collective spirit, we have
learned from him how to ensure we improve and learn from ourselves. South Africa
has, during my lifetime, always remained frighteningly critical, but
remained unshakably stable. We have been on the brink of tearing ourselves apart for
so long that it is natural for us to fear a future without our
greatest reminder of peace. But, if we learn anything from seeing what Mandela has
achieved in the last 95 years, it is that we have also achieved
greatness in that time. Mandela is just a man. He has sacrificed a lifetime of
captivity to bring others freedom and he has reminded us, over and over
again, that peace must create the revolution if you want peace to be the consequence
of revolution.
We have learned enough from Mandela’s life to know that we are capable of carrying
the legacy he expects us to carry, that he sees us as being
capable to follow. It is perhaps the best present we could ever give him, the surety
of knowing that what he created will not be torn apart when he is
no longer with us to shoulder it.
Christine Davis works as the webeditor for the Africa Alliance of YMCAs. The Africa
Alliance of YMCAs (AAYMCA) is a leading pan African youth
development network on the continent, representing national movements in 20
countries, 16 of which are very active. The first YMCA in Africa was
established in Liberia in 1881, and the AAYMCA was founded in 1977 as the umbrella
body for all national movements on the continent.
www.africaymca.org or https://www.facebook.com/AfricaYMCA (
https://www.facebook.com/AfricaYMCA )
TEXT ENDS
https://www.facebook.com/AfricaYMCA )
TEXT ENDS
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