Happy Birthday to me and my friend Nelson

Spending a birthday while ttravelling far away from home and routine is a little thought- and feeling-provoking.

On the one hand, you are somewhere new, maybe exploring somewhere quite exotic.  You are seeing different landscapes and peoples, and smelling, touching, eating new sensations.  Perhaps taking part  in some actitivity you had never had the chance to try before.  It will be unlike many other days let alone any other birthdays and so will be remembered always as the year you turned (pick a number here) becuase you were in (pick a country here).

But on the other hand, it's a day much like yesterday and tomorrow, all equially unique and so in an odd way does not stand out.  It blends into the entire travel experience.

I am lucky enough to share a birthday with Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela.  I am also here in South Africa, his home country.  But what makes the day a bit more memorable is that this birthday might be his last.

He is 95 years old, and given his life - poverty, persecution, imprisonment - that age is quite a remarkable thing. He was taken to hospital in early June and remains there now in a "Critical condition.".  Given that the same report has been provided to the media and the public for nigh on 6 weeks now has provoked some criticism. 

There is widespread belief that he is being kept on a respirator until after his birthday, until after the family and the country can decide where he will rest, until the roads to that place can be repaired so that they look good on camera, until all the world's leaders get a chance to come and pay their respects, etc. etc.  All of which is a bit sad - he of all people should allowed to go in peace.

One of the saddest things has been a very public argument about where the bodies of his dead children will ultimately rest,.  This squabble is between various family members who seem to be riding on Nelson's coattails of fame now that the man himself is not present.

Three of his six children have died (through three marriages, he wasn't particularly a paragon of family values having been an adulterer on more than one occasion, and a stern and difficult father): a son who died from Aids-related diseases, another killed in a car accident, and his first daughter who died in infancy.

Nelson's grandson Mandla is now head of the Mandela clan as district chief in Mvezo, Nelson's birthplace. Mandla moved the three bodies in 2011, without the consent of his family, to Mvezo where he is trying to build a tourist destination.  The elders and family members in Qunu, the village where Nelson Mandela has publicly stated he wishes to be buried, are reportedly worried that the spirits of the ancestors have been angered by Mandla's actions, and that Nelson's soul will not rest peacefully if the family disputes, now working their way through the courts, are not resoved soon.

Also, Nelson's daughters Makaziwe and Zenani have filed a lawsuit to try to regain control of the trust set up to handle Mandela's income from sales of art and images of Mandela, not inconsiderable given his global fame.

It's all quite tawdry and sad.[, and adds fuel to the thought that he is being kept alive artificially while these legal arguments play out.

I think there is also concern about what will happen to the country of South Africa when he does die.  there will certainly be a short period of respect, but after that I sense difficult times ahead.  Since his release from prison in 1989 Nelson has been magnanimous in promoting a forgive-and-forget doctrine. For twenty-odd years this compassion shown against the truly repulsive behaviour shown to him and the country's black population during the decades of apartheid has brought economic and cultural success to South Africa. But dark clouds are looming as the African National Congress, the party he helped found and lead, is regressing into a more tit-for-tat approach.  From an emotional side this can hardly be surprising.

I myself have noticed that the two worlls of black and white citizens are still not integrated.  There is friendly interaction, but housing is starkly separated into so-called European abodes that generally have a bit of land and are often secured and gated, and the black shanty-towns of plywood, metal siding and patched together shacks placed cheek by jowl with the next, most with an outoors loo and no electricity.  At the end of the day I see teams of black day workers walking back to these places as their white counterparts generally drive home.  The only blacks I come into contact with at all are cleaners, or waiters, or checkout clerks, and the white I have come into contact with are managers, owners and directors.

One of our lodge managers freely admitted that he had been fed a steady diet of propaganda throughout his entire life - at school, during military service, at work - all delivered by the military who saw the black population as dangerous and degraded, and must be kept apart and at bay physically, and prevented from forming any sort of group polically.  Inter-racial marriages were prohibited. 

So it is not hard to understand the pain the black population suffered through for so long, and that it is still in many minds. It would not be overly surprising if a period of retribution took place once Mandela dies and the mourning period is over.  However, after twenty years of economic growth and political gain, the mature direction politically would be to develop true integration, which may mean focussing on the next generation, those that did not directly experience apartheid.  Countries' citizens rarely act maturely though. I fear the worst for this county in the short term at least, which would many years of being the shining hope of the entire continent of Africa, economically, culturally, politically. 

The other voice of reason over the recent decades is another Nobel Prize winner, Desmond Tutu, who is relatively young at 81.  He and Nelson Mandela have been couragously effective at defining a new South Africa and it is my hope that he is able to strongly helm a postive course for the mid term, taking the country past the critical period of Nelson's death and its aftermath.  This is a lovely country, with exceptional landscapes and friendly people.  And such potential.  I am lucky to be here and experience it during the best period it has had this century.

My birthday wish, if I may be so bold, is to allow Mandela's physical body to go in peace and his compassionate influence to take over the country's future and fulful its potential.  That a true integration of race and gender is allowed to prosper, and a common vision of economy, culture, language and education move through this generation in a peaceful manner.

And I will always remember this birthday of mine for that very reason.