Our four promises to Madiba

By Suntosh R Pillay

Trying to sleep on the night we heard the news was impossible. The anxiety, the uncertainty, the awkward mix of feelings, the sense of needing to let go, but wanting just one more day, one more week, one more year. It is overwhelmingly difficult and extraordinarily emotional to write about a man who, on the one hand, resonates so deeply inside us all, almost intimately and personally, like a great-grandfather we see or speak with every day. And yet, on the other hand, was a largely impersonal figure, first imprisoned and absent for almost three decades, far removed from our everyday lives, and in recent years out of the public sphere, mostly unavailable or unable to engage in conversation with ordinary citizens. Despite this paradox, Nelson Mandela looms so large over our collective psyche, that to imagine a world without him is almost unfeasible. And there we were, on that forlorn hour of sadness, December 5, faced with this impossibility.

All sorts of people from all sorts of camps and corners will be vying for a tiny piece of the public space to lay claim to their own special bond with our former president. Family and comrades, I am sure, will get the mike first. A kaleidoscope of tributes will be paid; countless reams of paper will be printed bearing testimony to a gigantic, mammoth legacy that no amount of words could ever properly encapsulate. The media frenzy will take months to calm.

Meanwhile, committed organisations continue his legacy. Ten years ago, the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation was formed to nurture a cadre of young people that could move Africa forward. By controversially linking his name to Cecil John Rhodes, Mandela called this a “symbolic moment in the closing of the historic circle”, by appreciating Rhodes’s 19th century legacy of education and entrepreneurship, and Mandela’s own legacy of leadership and reconciliation.

He urged citizens to “help in every way you can, knowing that you have my personal appreciation”. Indeed, help arrived, with generous financial donations securing scholarships for African post-graduate students. People like me have been blessed to be part of this programme that cares just as much about your emotional development, as it does about your intellect. So far, 200 students have become “Mandela-Rhodes Scholars” and have had their studies financed, our leadership skills groomed, and our lives enhanced through our interaction with gifted mentors and carefully designed workshops to help us get that balance of head and heart just right.

Since its first batch of Scholars in 2005, from an informal alumni body, to a registered non-profit organisation, to a non-profit company, The Community of Mandela-Rhodes Scholars (CMRS), born organically out of the spaces and opportunities provided by the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, has come to symbolise the youthful vibrancy of African leadership.

It is tricky writing with both pride and humility. But I’m reminded of three truisms Mandela is often quoted for.
The first, that “there is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living”.
The second, that “as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”.
And the third, “It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”

From this ethos, the Community of Mandela Rhodes Scholars, though a relatively small body of committed people, pledges to be a responsive and engaged network, committed to creating effective partnerships, carrying out strategic projects, and supporting each other in our attempts to make a positive and meaningful impact in our interconnected global village by living the values by which its members were selected as scholars.

Our values are simple, poetic, and tangible. They are four promises.
We aspire to be ethical leaders.
We aspire to pursue educational excellence.
We aspire to be reconciliatory with generosity of spirit.
We aspire to be social entrepreneurs.

If you and I, and your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aspire to these values, we’ll be okay. These values assume a servant-leadership, advancing not only ourselves, but all around us, in whatever small way we can.

We concur with our patron when he challenged world leaders to deal with ever-increasing poverty and inequality: “Recognise that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

We intend to be that generation.

Hamba kahle Tata Madiba, your dreams are safe in our hands.

Suntosh R Pillay is a clinical psychologist in Durban, independent writer, and member of the Community of Mandela-Rhodes Scholars since 2008. This article was originally published in The Witness.