Aside from the obvious (well who’d have guessed he was about to die?) here are a few thoughts on the passing of Nelson Mandela.
Let us remember that, in today’s values, Nelson Mandela was first a terrorist leader, and (whether rightly or not) he was convicted of such.
Had he lived almost anywhere but South Africa he would have been locked up for life without any prospect of a get out of jail free card. As, in fact, he was!
That he did get out of jail is largely down to the dysfunctionality and instability of South Africa at that time.
Mandela made the most of the opportunity and turned it to good, which was no mean achievement!
Consequently I suspect that until now South Africa has held together as well as it has because of his very presence. He may no longer have had any formal power, but his influence would, I’m sure, have been very real. And who knows what mafia-esque machinery turned behind the scenes?
I sincerely hope South Africa continues to hold together, return to stability and becomes a respected African nation again. However I fear that it won’t.
There seems to be a big danger that the factional infighting and feuds, which are still there, will surface in what is an inevitable power vacuum. And that this will lead to a descent into anarchy and civil war, if not an outright tribal bloodbath — black vs white, Xhosa vs Zulu etc. Which is much the route trodden by their neighbour Zimbabwe, amongst others.
I hope I’m wrong. The South Africans have invested too much in getting this far to even contemplate such horrors.