What made Nelson Mandela great

"But in jail -- especially for those who stayed in single cells -- you had enough opportunity to sit down and think," he said.

What made Nelson Mandela great
By John Battersby
CNN
December 5, 2013

Nelson Mandela, the prisoner-turned-president who reconciled South Africa after the end of apartheid, died on Thursday, December 5, according to the country's president, Jacob Zuma. Mandela was 95.

Editor's note: John Battersby served as a correspondent for The New York Times (1987-89) and the Christian Science Monitor (1989-96) before, during and after South Africa's transition to democracy. He was editor of The Sunday Independent in Johannesburg from 1996 to 2001. He interviewed Mandela on numerous occasions and is coauthor of "Nelson Mandela: A Life in Photographs" (Sterling, 2009) and author of the afterword in the updated version of "Mandela: the Authorized Biography" (Harper Collins, 2011).

(CNN) -- Nelson Mandela was always mindful that his leadership role in the liberation of South Africa from apartheid might not have been possible if he had not been imprisoned.

"It is possible that if I had not gone to jail and been able to read and listen to the stories of many people. ... I might not have learned these things," Mandela said of the insights that he gained during his 27 years in jail.

In an interview less than a year after he had stepped down as the country's first black president, Mandela shared with me reflections of how prison changed him.

He said that reading the biographies of great leaders who had been able to overcome their shortcomings and rise to do great things had inspired him. He said it also helped him to realize that behind every seemingly ordinary person lay the potential of greatness.

"I have been surprised a great deal sometimes when I see somebody who looks less than ordinary, but when you talk to the person and they open their mouths, they are something completely different," he said.

Mandela said that prison gave him time to think about the times when he had failed to acknowledge people who had been kind to him.

Mandela said that at the height of the struggle against apartheid, he and other leaders were understandably angry at the humiliation and loss of dignity of those who suffered under the unjust policy. It meant their actions were driven by anger and emotion rather than by reflection and consultation.

"But in jail -- especially for those who stayed in single cells -- you had enough opportunity to sit down and think," he said.

There was time to listen to the stories of people who were highly educated and who were widely traveled and experienced. "When they told of their experiences, you felt humbled," he said.

Mandela said that he had learned that when you had the moral high ground, it was better to sit down and talk to people and persuade them of the correctness of your cause.

"If you have an objective in life, then you want to concentrate on that and not engage in infighting with your enemies," he said. "You want to create an atmosphere where you can move everybody toward the goal you have set for yourself," Mandela said.

In his twilight, Mandela was at pains to publish and acknowledge his weaknesses and shortcomings in his family life, in his relationships with women and his first wife, Evelyn. He was keen to dispel any notion of sainthood that might be bestowed on him.

He also spoke increasingly about the importance of changing oneself.

"One of the most difficult things is not to change society -- but to change yourself," Mandela said in 1999 at a tribute to billionaire businessman Douw Steyn who had made his Johannesburg residence available to Mandela as a retreat after his prison release in 1990.

Mandela had given similar advice to wife Winnie in a letter written to her in 1981 after she had been jailed by the apartheid regime. Mandela noted that there were qualities "in each one of us" that form the basis of our spiritual life and that we can change ourselves by observing our reactions to the unfolding of life.

Ten years later, Mandela said that it gave him a feeling of fulfillment to see that Douw Steyn had changed and had learned to share his resources with the poor.

"It enables me to go to bed with an enriching feeling in my soul and the belief that I am changing myself" by reconciling with former adversaries, Mandela said.

I believe that the essence of Mandela's greatness was to change himself fundamentally during his period in jail and emerge as a potent leader and example for all humanity.

Opinion: Nelson Mandela saved my life

The reflections took me back to the extraordinary day of Mandela's release. The day the legend became a man. Even now, the moment seems frozen in time.

It was February 11, 1990, and the African sun shone from a clear blue sky on a windless summer's day in Cape Town. About an hour's drive from the city, the international media thronged around the entrance of a neat prison warder's house to await the emergence of one of the century's most iconic figures...

Pistorius: people around him were NOT grounding him and pulling him back to earth

Oscar Pistorius

We all need feedback. It's a terrible mistake when we get rid of the people we need most: the ones who tell us the truth.

Pistorius' prior police run-ins
February 20, 2013
By Samuel Burke
CNN

During the bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius in Pretoria on Wednesday, a South African police investigator testified about previous run-ins that the double amputee Olympian has had with police.

Detective Hilton Botha said in his testimony that Pistorius had accidentally fired a weapon at a restaurant in January, and alleged that Pistorius persuaded a friend to take responsibility - Pistorius denied those charges.

The investigator also said Pistorius had previously threatened violence in another incident in an altercation over a woman.

In 2009, Botha said he also investigated another incident, in which an unidentified woman had accused Pistorius of assault, but her claim could not be proved and the case was dropped without any charges being filed...

Patta believes these previous incidents were clearly seeds of some trouble.

"There were daemons that were driving this young man, Oscar Pistorius, who we know as a hero in South Africa. And yet there were signs of aggression." Patta said.

"The gun [incident] took place just a couple of weeks ago and that is incontrovertible. The gun was fired in an open public area. Oscar Pistorius disputes that he fired the gun." Patta said. "He says that it was a friend, but people who were with him said he did fired it. It was fired by accident, make no mistake, but the fact that a gun was being played around with in place public in it of itself is horrifying"

That fact that "song and dance" wasn't made about the incident is also indicative of South Africa's attitude toward these incidents, according to Patta. She believes an episode like this, where a gun is fired where an athlete was present, in another country would have provoked a public debate on gun proliferation.

The allegation in 2009 was not tested in a court of law - Oscar Pistorius was not as well known, not even in South Africa, at that time. Pistorius did speak openly about the incident according to Patta, claiming the incident was a misunderstanding, and even eventually no charges were filed.

"That too seems to have been dropped and just pushed under the carpet," Patta said. "And now when one looks back with, of course, the exact science of hindsight, it does seem that there were warning signs that at the very least that Oscar Pistorius displayed a significant amount of aggression and that were not people around him who were grounding him and pulling him back to earth."

Murder charges stun and enrage South African miners

UPDATE:

Murder Charges Dropped Against South African Miners
By LYDIA POLGREEN
September 2, 2012

JOHANNESBURG – Prosecutors provisionally dropped murder charges against the 270 jailed miners who had been accused under an obscure legal doctrine of killing 34 of their own colleagues when the police opened fire on them while engaged in a wildcat strike.

The police fired live ammunition into a crowd of about 3,000 platinum miners armed with clubs and machetes while trying to disperse the illegal strike on Aug. 16. When the firing stopped, 34 miners were dead and South Africa was outraged by the bloodiest confrontation between police and civilians since the end of apartheid. The police have claimed they acted in self-defense.

The outrage grew when prosecutors announced last week that under a legal doctrine known as “common purpose,” the miners themselves would be charged with murdering their colleagues. Under the doctrine, which was frequently used in the waning days of apartheid to charge members of protesting crowds with serious crimes committed by a few individuals, people in a mob can be charged as accomplices.

In a hastily arranged news conference Sunday, officials from the National Prosecuting Authority said that they would await the outcome of further investigations into the shootings, but did not rule out bringing murder charges again...



ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Murder charges stun and enrage South African miners
LYDIA POLGREEN
LUANDA — The New York Times News Service
Aug. 30 2012

Two weeks after the police opened fire on a crowd of 3,000 workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine near Johannesburg, killing 34 people in the bloodiest labour unrest since the end of apartheid, prosecutors are bringing murder charges against a surprising set of suspects: the miners themselves.

Using an obscure legal doctrine frequently relied upon by the apartheid government in its dying days, prosecutors did not accuse the police officers who shot and killed the strikers as they surged forward, machetes in hand. Instead, officials said Thursday that they were pursuing murder charges against the 270 miners who were arrested after the dust settled and the shooting stopped.

It was the latest astonishing turn in a saga that has gripped South Africa, unleashing a torrent of rage over deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment.

The shootings have fed a growing sense of betrayal at the country’s governing party, the venerable African National Congress, many of whose senior members have joined a wealthy elite a world away from the downtrodden masses whose votes brought them to office at the end of apartheid in 1994. Now the prosecutors’ decision to charge the miners in the killings threatened to intensify that rift.