100th Anniversary of Nelson Mandela: What Remains of the Revolutionary Dream of Sweetness?



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Halle (Saale) -.

When apartheid fell, brutal discrimination, exclusion and exploitation of color, especially black South Africans by self-proclaimed white men, would sinking the country into the chaos and violence, fearing political savvy in the early 1990s. At that time, South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk began to reform weakened economic strength, domestic and foreign policy is in a big country of pressure.

In 1993, he received at the same time Nelson Mandela, who for 27 years imprisoned icon of the civil rights movement of blacks, the Nobel Peace Prize for this true political vision. A year later took over Mandela as the first black man in the history of President South Africa, which he held until 1999

Encouraging the narrative

That This is when it arrived in South Africa, is one of the most encouraging stories of recent contemporary history. The Inferno forecast was not materializing, the largely peaceful replacement of apartheid is the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, which had occurred a few years earlier, at least equal importance.

The figure of the history of the dominant South African success that does not work, despite the current crisis development in the country in Cape Town loses historical grandeur, Nelson Mandela. This Wednesday would be the charismatic politician who died in Johannesburg on December 5, 2013, 100 years ago.

On this occasion, Mandela's letters, which he wrote from prison, was released worldwide, the German edition was published in the prestigious Munich edition CH Beck . These letters testify to Mandela's unwavering attitude, which was based on two fundamental beliefs: inhuman apartheid will not resist. And building a free and fair society can not be achieved in a spirit of peace and reconciliation

In the yard, says Mandela in 1963. "What ever judgment do you make about me, you can be sure that After the completion of the sentence my disgust will be no less in the face of racial discrimination and I will take the fight against injustices, were removed once and for all. "

Today, looking at South Africa as in Europe, both of whom have experienced an unparalleled awakening and are in great trouble to preserve the identity obtained and to make politics, such as a shrug of shoulders resigned. The reasons are pretty good. In South Africa, social contradictions are so blatant as ever, perhaps even stronger. This is due to the

largely deeply corrupt black elite. political heirs of his Mandela party, the African National Congress (ANC), set serious Misskredtit.

In Europe, especially in Germany, there is however no reason for arrogant pointers. From Bürgermut the peaceful revolution in the autumn of 1989, mainly Bürgerwut remained the political imagination and dreams of the past exhausted today in the turbulent shouts of "Merkel must go.

Difficult transition

Democracy and the peaceful transition involved in a humanist civil society seems to be a difficult undertaking. But at a time when profit motive, envy, xenophobia and populism set the pace, can the memory of Nelson Mandela, the gentle, defenseless and comforting revolutionary. The man who has defended the human being, has at least as much strength as the others to whom that value does not seem to be anymore. "The dark and difficult times at the present time might be

but I am convinced that you will come one day freely back to see the beautiful birds and sweet fields of our house … you" wrote Mandela, November 16, 1969 prison to his wife Winnie also placed in detention: "I miss you terribly! All the best love and a thousand kisses, even when it is hard to believe in you forever Dalibunga "

in the times of Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Kim and Orban to a bright future -. Nelson Mandela has recognized with his life that you can change things for the better. With consistency and love. This knowledge does not also take away social setbacks. Unless you forget it. (Mz)

Nelson Mandela: Letters of Prison, C.H. Beck, Munich, pp. 760, 28 Euro

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