Madiba

The death of Mandela was a celebrity death, but one where there was a lot of personal feeling.

There have been a lot of eulogies going around, and I don't really have anything to add to them. I was talking to my sister Maria on the way home from church, and we were talking about what people should know. I mentioned three points. They were the exact same three points that I then saw in a piece in the commentary section of the paper, and that was by a writer I have become sort of disillusioned with. It was pretty deflating; nothing original to say here. Move on.

However, the reason we were talking was not because Maria did not have her own love for Mandela, and memories of him, but because her Sunday School class (16 year olds) knew nothing about him. They knew there was a movie, Invictus, but they didn't really know anything about it.

It was not too surprising. One of the sad stories we tell is that when we were showing Invictus to some friends, we did have to explain a lot, and the worst was when one girl asked if that (Apartheid) was why South Africa split from North Africa. I initially didn't answer because I didn't believe it was a serious question, but it was.

Anyway, I was still kind of okay with that, but a friend posted that her kids didn't really know about him either. They were younger, so it was less surprising, but someone else commented that it was better that way, to not put hate in young hearts, and I knew that was absolutely wrong.

I'm not saying that it's impossible that anyone could get ideas on how to be oppressive from history, but I know that it is really possible for people to forget the very real ways in which people were oppressed, and then to minimize them.

Mandela died on December 5th, 2013. On December 5th, 1955, a mass meeting was held in Montgomery, Alabama to see if the bus protests that had started with Rosa Parks' arrest would continue. That boycott was a significant and important thing, and it still matters now. What is happening in United States prisons and with drug policy now is important. What is happening now with GOP-led efforts to disenfranchise large populations is important, and it is still real.

Studying this type of history is valuable because it reminds us of the good and bad of how people can be, and it shows us what works.

For my own memory of Invictus, they briefly mentioned some of the meetings and trips to get investment in South Africa, and it took me back to various efforts here to get countries and corporations to divest from South Africa. I have written before about the Black Student Union at University of Oregon asking the Student Union to not sell Coke products on one day a week. I remember thinking it didn't seem like it could have that much of an impact. Looking back now, I think they felt that if they asked for more, they would not be able to get it. I also realize that the focus on corporate activity may have been a direct result of feeling that there was no way Reagan was going to exert any pressure.

And I remember Artists United Against Apartheid, and "Sun City". When Paul Simon went to South Africa and worked with South African artists, I thought he was flouting it, though possibly in a good way, but I didn't understand what Sun City was, compared to the rest of the country, and why having popular artists boycott it would be important. There was so much that was poorly understood here.

Years later, having read more and seen more, there is still so much more. The story of how the power imbalances and racial divisions grew in South Africa may not be that different from many tales of colonialism and slavery, but we forget those stories. It was while reading Long Walk To Freedom that I began to make the connections between how Communism and Nationalism relate to each other; there are things there that relate to current politics, even if no one is calling themselves Communists or Nazis.

There are lessons in patience, and planning, and why some people might feel like they need to consider violence. And for the handful of people who still call Mandela a terrorist, it might be worth exploring how they spoke about the Contras, for example. And surely there is a lot we can learn from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

I want people to know more about Mandela, because he was a very special man. His ability to see the individual and the mass, going back and forth between small and big pictures, was invaluable, and his ability to find joy in it was inspiring.

But there is more to the story. I said I wanted to see a comic book about not just Mandela, but the ANC and Biko and Mbeki and de Klerk and Esterhuyse. Some of them are still alive, but they won't be forever. This is a good time for it.

So, last night I wrote to Top Shelf Comix, who put out March and The Montgomery Story, to request it, because I need to be the change I wish to see in the world.

Related posts:

First mention of wish for Mandela comic: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/positive-words-and-images.html

Review of other Top Shelf Comix: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/comics-review-march-and-montgomery-story.html

Really old post on college politics that mentions the boycott: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2006/07/lame-ducks.html