Africa can honor Mandela by changing corrupt ways

As the services honoring Nelson Mandela begin today in South Africa, the words great, humble, honest, generous, forgiving will be heard over and over from those paying tribute to the man revered around the world.

Mandela, who died Thursday at age 95, was the embodiment of goodness.

In death, as in life, the freedom fighter who spent almost three decades in prison because of his refusal to remain silent about white minority rule in South Africa is an inspiration.

To people living in the free world, Mandela’s admonition about the growing gap between the haves and have-nots has become a rallying cry for economic justice.

For people living under the iron fist of tyranny, Mandela’s lifelong battle for equality, social justice and economic opportunities for all in his country and around the world conveys hope.

Indeed, many of the leaders who will join in this week’s services of remembrance govern their countries in a way that Mandela found abhorrent.

It is ironic that while the system of apartheid in South Africa, in which the majority blacks were treated as lesser human beings by the minority whites, became a cause c l ®bre worldwide, there is no uproar about the way many African nations are being governed.

Mandela used his reputation as a freedom fighter to rail against African leaders who have caused widespread death and destruction in their countries.

After he was released from prison in 1990, he took up the cause of reconciliation, rather than retaliation against his white captors and the white minority government.

While he was criticized by some in South Africa and other parts of the continent for his perceived weakness, the thinking behind the strategy was sound.

Mandela undoubtedly looked at post-independent Africa and realized that getting rid of the drivers of the economy was a recipe for economic collapse.

The record of countries that fought to end colonialism is not encouraging. Once wealthy nations have become destitute because of civil wars and corrupt governments.

The most glaring example of this phenomenon is South Africa’s neighbor, Zimbabwe, which has been ruled for decades by Robert Mugabe. The country was once known as the bread basket of Africa; now, it is a basket case.

Property confiscation

Mugabe has launched a campaign against the white minority, confiscating property, including farms, and encouraging violence.

The president also has ordered the murder of his political opponents and other critics of his dictatorial rule. Thus, today, Zimbabwe is what South Africa used to be under white minority rule.

There can be no doubt that Nelson Mandela saw in Mugabe the same evilness that he did in the leaders of his homeland during apartheid.

Thus, as world leaders assemble to pay tribute to a great human being, they should pledge to take up the mantle of freedom that Mandela has willed to the world.

It is not enough for them to pay lip service to one who dedicated his life to the proposition that all people are created equal and that those in positions of power have an obligation and responsibility to care for the least among us.

So long as there are millions around the globe shackled, literally and figuratively, by immoral leaders, Nelson Mandela’s dream of a world free of inequality, strife, pain and suffering will remain unfulfilled.