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In Mandela's image

History and Commentary from a Prairie Perspective

Those among us who have no direct knowledge of South Africa and its political history must accept what news services have told us about the man called Nelson Mandela. We are told that he was born into a royal family and he later became a firebrand in the struggle for racial equality. We are told he was imprisoned for 27 years. We are told imprisonment could not diminish his thirst for justice or his feeling of self-worth. We are told he took pride in his appearance, maintaining his dignity throughout even the worst time of his years in prison. We are told he reaffirmed his loyalty to the Methodist church and its social gospel. We are told when his release from prison came and the doctrine of apartheid was put into the dustbin of history, he neither gloated nor sought retribution. He chose reconciliation and love as essential elements in building a new nation.

There is no reason for doubting what we have been told. Like Mohandas Ghandi in India, Mandela became the most important folk hero of his generation. Among his own people the love for him and the grief at his passing are genuine.

World leaders have flocked to his funeral. We cannot know their emotions. We are safe in assuming, however, that each one knows any association with a folk hero of Mandela's greatness is a way of burnishing his own image back home. Mandela is honoured with fleeting words but he deserves to be honoured in continuing actions for the benefit of the populations of the whole world.

What do words of praise mean when leaders of nations still believe in violence as the way of settling disputes, when they condone murders in the name of religion, when they do not strive to bring justice and equality to their own lands?

I am a Canadian who writes for Canadians. I am a man ashamed. Canada is not honouring Mandela and his dream so long as the First Nations need Idle No More as their protector from government. Canada is not honouring Mandela's dream with massive military spending at the same time as cuts are being made in funding to health care, education, the poor, the elderly, environmental protection and essential services to the public. Mandela spent 27 years in prison.

Canada is building new prisons and enacting harsher laws and harsher penalties.

I am ashamed.