MADIBA! You stood your ground like no one else did and came out of prison with forgiveness.
And once free you never forgot those that fought for your freedom. You came out when everything had changed to find a New World with different political alliances. But even then, You made sure you thanked all the people who had stood behind you in your time of need. Nelson Mandela visited Fidel Castro in Cuba and thanked Col. Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya. He praised China and also thanked my late father Idi Amin upon his release. People who the world at the time wasn't ready to see him shake hands with. But he did give them due recognition and heartfelt thanks. He did it because of his strong principals. The ones which urge any morally upright human being to recognize those who helped them during their darkest hours. Because Nelson Mandela was someone whose heart and mind were above the politicking he found in the new world. As he sat in jail, he obviously kept himself aware of all those that had joined the fight against Apartheid, the fight for his freedom and for the freedom of the people of South Africa. Today we all mourn a same father of Africa. We mourn because we know that he is gone and there is no one that will ever be able to replace him. And yes he is irreplaceable, but we still hope that Africa emulates him. I call upon our current African leaders to climb down from the tree of obsessive power that Mandela so skillfully avoided. Because you will not find happiness up there alone. Come and join your people, the common man and woman of Africa in their daily efforts to feed and educate their children. Join them and give them a future they can look forward to. We are all standing, waiting for you at the foot of the tree. Ready to chant and dance with you to the tunes of our ancestors. Ready to offer you our lives for protection. If only you could permanently be with us, talk with us and eat with us. Those are the very virtues that Nelson Mandela spent his time healing South Africa with. And it is those lessons of simplicity and determination that raised Nelson Mandela to even greater achievements. He handed over power to a new, younger generation that would have to learn on the job. And in doing so he enshrined for his people the right to freely and peacefully elect a path of their choice. That was a natural parenting principal of any father. Only that this time the whole nation of South Africa was Nelson Mandela's family. And he did it by overcoming the fear of errors by a new generation of leaders in his country. Because he knew that the sooner he achieved that handover, the better it was for generations and generations of his people and the people of this continent. Because any first peaceful hand-over of power is a massively significant breakthrough for those who have a higher and genuine moral commitment for the brighter future of their country. It is an institution in itself whose value only someone like Mandela could properly understand. Because only genuine leaders comparable to Mandela could feel the burden of the grandchildren and great grandchildren into the future and know that this was the right thing to do for their country regardless of the immediate inadequacies. He chose to do the right thing even when he could have defeated any other candidate hands down in any election ring. And therefore his actions are ones that we cannot afford to ignore, but rather we should seek to understand him so that we act with purpose and with conviction of a greater good. Because Nelson Mandela has shown us the path of a true peoples leadership for Africa. And the few on this continent who have started on his path, know for sure how greater Mandela will ever be compared to the rest. Because Mandela's path was the hard road of true selflessness, forgiveness, peace and compromise beyond what the average world leader can bear. A road that even mature democracies of this world look at and see Madiba continuing his journey slowly but steadfastly towards the horizon, way ahead of even the most applauded leaders of the world, past and present. His words and his actions have made him larger than life and his people have grown stronger with the lessons of his experience. And though mistakes are what humans will make, his people are the ones who best understand what kind of man it takes as they step into his shoes and discovered the pains he had to bear as he walked so elegantly, so smilingly. And they are the ones who still have to shed off their own sentiments of resentment as only Mandela was able to do when he put his own anger aside even before his release from prison. On behalf the entire Amin family, and the many Africans who won't be able to bid farewell, I say thank you Madiba for inspiring all of us. Thank you for paving the way for a simple, modern African leadership. And may your soul rest in eternal peace. (this eulogy/condolenceeulogy/condolence message<http://hussein-juruga.blogspot.com/2013/12/long-live-nelson-mandela.html> was sent to the Mandela family on Sunday 8th December and also published in the Daily Monitor of 10th December 2013 in a message to African Leadership)
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