MANDELA: 'Master of forgiveness'

A Tribute to Nelson Mandela (1918-2013):

In his autobiography, “Long Road to Freedom,” Mandela maintains that there was far more good than bad in the education he received from the Christian schools and colleges he attended.

As he wrote: “The missionaries built and ran schools when the government was unwilling or unable to do so. The learning environment of the missionary schools, while often morally rigid, was far more open than the racist principles underlying the government.” He adds that “virtually all of the achievements of Africans have come about through the missionary work of the Church.”

In his book Mandela relates that he “was a member of the Student’s Christian Association and taught Bible classes on Sundays in neighboring villages.” He has remained a devout Methodist all his life, and he claims that his religious views prevented him from joining the South African Communist Party. He explains that “the party’s antipathy to religion put me off.”

Many South African black activists were initially suspicious of Communist support for their cause, but the Communists proved to be sincere and courageous allies. American Communists, such as Bayard Rustin — the man who organized the 1963 March on Washington and recently was given a posthumous Medal of Freedom — played a similar role in the civil rights movement.

The African National Congress (ANC), the current majority party in South Africa, was established by Christian Africans in 1912. The founders were both educated in mission schools, and the ANC’s religious orientation prevented it from allying itself with the South African Communist Party until the 1940s.

South African Communists were key in persuading Indians, mixed race Coloreds, and Blacks to overcome their differences, on which the racist government had capitalized, and form a unified front against apartheid.

Apartheid is the Afrikaans word “separateness,” which the white South African government used to divide their people. This was a brutal policy that dictated that blacks could not vote and they were citizens only in their “homelands;” 13 percent of the country’s worst land was set aside for them.

Most of the work was in the cities, and the integrity of black families was undermined as alienated single males stayed in hostels at their places of employment. Blacks not carrying an official “pass” were arrested and thrown in jail.

On Sept. 13, 1989, Bishop Desmond Tutu and colored Dutch Reformed theologian Allan Boesak organized a protest march that drew 30,000 people to Cape Town. The protest inspired thousands of others to rally across the nation, and it eventually led to the release of Mandela from prison on Feb. 11, 1990.

One week earlier President F.W. de Klerk had stunned the nation and the world by unbanning the ANC, freeing all political prisoners, and ending the state of emergency.

In 1996 President Mandela appointed Bishop Tutu to chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, one of the most successful experiments in overcoming national wounds ever attempted.

In his book “No Future Without Forgiveness,” Tutu explains how his fellow commissioners rejected the Nuremberg trial model. Tutu reasoned that “while the Allies could pack up and go home after Nuremberg, we in South Africa had to live with one another.” Long, costly trials would have built up resentment and would most likely have led to violent reaction by heavily armed whites.

As a student of Christian theology, I can say with confidence that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — led by black and white religious leaders, attorneys and civil rights leaders — embodied Jesus’ ethics compassion and forgiveness more than any other religious institution in human history. I agree with Marcus Eliason of the Associated Press that Mandela, and I would add Tutu, were “masters of forgiveness.”

NICK GIER

Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho

Moscow