His greatest legacy was that he managed to avert any revenge attacks from the black South Africans against the ruling whites. Thus Madiba, as he is affectionately known, was a unifying and reassuring presence even to his subdued opponents and other minorities in the country.
This is despite spending a good part of his life in various prisons and suffering vilest campaign from the then apartheid regime and also from Western world. Leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan saw him more of a terrorist or Communist agent than someone fighting for the empowerment of the blacks.
Yet after coming to power, one of his first gesture was to host the rugby world cup in 1995. In South Africa rugby was a sport played only by whites. Mandela exhorted the blacks and others to support the The Springboks (as the South African rugby team is known) in the spirit of nationalism. The Springboks went on to win the trophy and it was immortalised on celluloid by Clint Eastwood in his movie titled Invictus.
One of his quotes currently doing rounds on Facebook says it all: “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.”
Not many countries are that fortunate. The neighbouring Zimbabwe imploded after the apartheid regime ended. A Mandela like leadership is acutely lacking in the pro-democracy movement in Egypt. Though as a caveat it must be noted that South Africa's economy was in a much better shape than Egypt. And Egypt is living in a much more difficult neighbourhood than South Africa, surrounded by countries strongly tethered to dictatorship and religious fanaticism.
Egypt's pro-democracy activists managed to oust Hosni Mubarak the dictator but could not nurture enough numbers at the subsequent hustings and got upstaged by a better organised Muslim brotherhood. Hence Egypt got saddled with a polarising regime which inspired little confidence among minorities and women.
The current overthrow of Morsi, with the army playing midwife, seems to be hurtling Egypt more towards a civil war than a democratic transition. The atmosphere is all the more vitiated by the meddling of oil-rich Gulf states, steeped in Shia-Sunni power struggle, acting as messiahs to bail out Egypt's beleaguered economy. They have a proverbial axe to grind in keeping democracy at bay and preserving patriarchal values.
Thus for women and minorities (especially Coptic Christians) in Egypt there is little they can look forward to. For some men the recent Tahrir square protests were a happy hunting ground to indulge in mob sexual attacks.
According to a report their modus operandi worked something like this: Lines of men would push their way through the packed square, surround women in a circle, and start ripping their clothes and sexually assault them. Often described as 'circle of hell' the women had formed squads to fight the mobsters and save those affected by it. Even otherwise sexual harassment is something grossly under reported in Egypt.
As for Coptic Christians they were at best a marginalised community during the Mubarak regime being denied government jobs and other benefits, but to his credit he ensured that they were insulated from rabid Islamists. This cocoon broke under Morsi regime and Christians began facing attacks from Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. Even after Morsi's fall his supporters continued attacking Christians and their property, as in these uncertain times their safety is not much of a priority for the state.
And unfortunately amidst all this turmoil and chaos there seems little possibility of the emergence of a Mandela-like unifying figure in Egypt.
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
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