Mandela’s Miraculous Capacity for Forgiveness a Carefully Calibrated Strategy

Nelson Mandela became a global leader while serving a life sentence in prison for opposing South Africa’s cruel system of apartheid. Sacrificing much, initially labeled terrorist, Mandela never gave up fighting for justice, and went on to become South Africa’s first president in a new era, publicly forgiving his political opponents – and urging lasting reconciliation in large ways by working with the country’s white minority and small by giving jailers front-row seats at his inauguration. He became a role model for democracy, serving one term in office and trusting other South Africans to lead. “Mr. Mandela lived an extraordinary life, from a barefoot boyhood tending cattle to his days as a fiery young lawyer in Johannesburg, then underground as a guerrilla leading the armed wing of the African National Congress and the long, lonely, curiously rich years in prison, capped by the high-stakes years as he led South Africa out of apartheid and into its new role as a continental leader,” writes Stephanie Nolen for the Globe and Mail. “He had a phenomenal, almost unbelievable, ability to rise above bitterness and rancour, and clearly had made a conscious decision that this was the best route for the liberation of black Africans.” Mandela died at age 95. – YaleGlobal