Mandela: His legacy for Yemen

Nelson Mandela was buried today at his family home in Qunu, South Africa. Over the last few days I have been reflecting on Mandela’s life, his achievements, and how – through the art of forgiveness, reconciliation and the power of dialogue – Mandela brought about visionary and historic change in South Africa. With the change happening all around us in Yemen, I wondered what we could learn from Mandela.

Last Tuesday, more than a hundred current and former heads of state or government attended Mandela’s memorial service to commemorate his life and times. The US’s President Obama and Cuba’s Raul Castro shook hands, showing that Mandela could help reconciliation from beyond the grave. As those who spoke at the service made clear, Mandela was an inspirational, visionary leader who became a legend in his own lifetime, and never forgot the values that were important to him.

Mandela’s dream was to see black and white South Africans living together as equals. So as part of the African National Congress Party, Mandela organised a resistance movement against the apartheid government. He was jailed for life in 1964 for his activities. The story could have ended there, but it didn’t.

Whilst in prison, Mandela overcame his own feelings of rage and bitterness towards the government for all the abuses and discrimination black South Africans had suffered under apartheid. But perhaps more importantly, Mandela learnt how to forgive, how to reconcile, and recognised the importance of looking forward, not back.

The lessons of forgiveness, reconciliation, looking forward, unity over a common dream, and the power of dialogue ring very true for Yemen today. They are the very issues that Yemen is grappling with in its transition.

As we saw in 2011, the glue that brought together the revolutionary youth, women and other proud Yemenis was their common dream to create a democratic, accountable and free society. One where there is a basic relationship between a government that listens to the needs of its people (water, security, electricity, health, education), and a people that mobilises civil society and the ballot box to put in power a government that will deliver those needs.

South Africa today still faces many challenges. Even with such a unique leader, Mandela could not change the country overnight – indeed, that was not his role. He was clear that each and every person had a responsibility to do their part. In his own words: “A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.”

I sense fear in some Yemenis that whatever good they try and do, it will not make a difference. That the price of trying against entrenched interests will be too high. Mandela had some advice for you: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

And in spite of the difficulty of the task, he advised: “it always seems impossible until it’s done.” Sometimes, a successful transition in Yemen seems impossible, but one day, with the efforts of all Yemenis, it will be done.