If he were PPV, he?d offer it for your freedom with the proceeds going to your family.
I felt Nelson Mandela?s greatness by hearing about it while never really seeing it. And since ?seeing is believing?, all you had to do was open your eyes and look into his.
Prisoner.
President.
A giant of history.
I don?t understand how he did it, yet I feel compelled to explain it. Undeterred by a prison sentence that would span the lives of many, he refused to be an obsequious pawn on a political chessboard, while challenging any would be King or Queen for fairness and for truth.
How do you spend 27 years in prison because of principle?
How do you patiently plead for world peace- for 5 of those years ? while putting your own peace aside and confined to what had to be a mental war?
For perspective on just how great his enduring legacy will be, he silences the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King in global impact, is louder than Malcolm X due to a non-confrontational ability to unite, and his rise to the Presidency in South Africa eclipses the historic achievement of Barack Obama?s ascendance to President of the United States.
He threw punches in silence and in darkness that bruised and bloodied the minds of tyrannical men across the globe over apartheid.
He didn’t even have to say a word.
For many of the near 100 or so world leaders and foreign dignitaries who descended upon South Africa to pay respects to ?the champ?, he?s still speaking to them in silence. He was as alive in jail when he was left for dead, as he is now that he has left us.
If they aren’t made better by the benevolent specter of Nelson Mandela?s creed, then perhaps his shadow will stand behind any evil they are capable of.
In boxing, a 10 count moment of silence is given to honor the fallen brave of the sport. In the ring of life, a 10 count is rendered to signify defeat of an opponent who will rise again. Not so much in body- but in spirit.
Nelson Mandela lives.
