Mourning Madiba from a distance

In the heat of my country’s angst, I boarded a plane to Rwanda.With the death of Nelson Mandela came a nation’s communal sense of loss. Having experienced this mourning from another country, I have been able to reflect a bit more quietly on what this means to me.I was born in Johannesburg in 1990, the year Mandela was released from prison. When I was four-years-old, South African citizens were lining up to vote in our country’s first ever democratic elections. Although I was too young to fully understand the enormity of this day, I look back at this time with retrospective gratitude. These past battles allowed for me to grow up in a free South Africa where the violation of human rights became a scourge on our past rather than a continued, perverted normality.As a white South African, the freedom fighters against apartheid allowed for me to grow up in a country where I was not viewed as the enemy, but rather as a part of a thriving, multiracial society that had become a benchmark for Africa and the rest of the world.Last week, on Wednesday, I joined the throngs of South Africans to pay my respects at the open casket viewing of Mandela’s body. It had always been my dream to meet or even simply see Madiba, and now I was snagged by uncertainty about whether this is how I would want to remember this leader. When I arrived at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, I was met by an amalgamation of media, tourists, police and civilians. Some stood sombrely, others danced. Most wore some type of Mandela memorabilia: badges, t-shirts, hats and flags decorated the masses. It was a sea of sadness, sincerity and celebration.The crowd stretched as far as the eye could see and I soon realised my efforts were futile. I spoke to a lady about halfway to the front of the line who said she had been there for five hours already. With the viewing closing in three hours, I knew I had to walk away. I was disappointed but I knew I had seen enough. The collection of races and ages that had stood together for hours in the heat of the day was a reminder of the legacy left behind by a man that led our country in forgiveness over 20 years ago.And then, the next day, I left South Africa to board my flight to Rwanda, a flight booked long before the death of our former president.“You are from South Africa?” Rwandans have wanted to confirm. And then, “We wish you our condolences.” This has made me smile. I am far from the pulsating crowds of my country, but this, together with the flags at half-mast and Madiba’s face found on the pages of the newspaper for which I will write over the next month, has shown me that both the sorrow surrounding Madiba’s death and the celebration of his life, is something universal.I have been in Rwanda for a short time, and have already read about and seen the ties that link together Rwanda and South Africa.Last Friday President Paul Kagame was at the Union Buildings where he paid his final respects to Madiba. Kagame, as quoted by The New Times, spoke of the symbol of Madiba going “beyond Africa”.In an earlier tribute in Time magazine, Kagame also reflected on a year that has significance for both Rwandans and South Africans. “In 1994, as the world cheered Mandela’s ascension to the South African presidency, Rwanda emerged from a genocide that claimed more than one million lives.”Both apartheid and the genocide are banes on Africa’s past, but I think it is for my generation to nurse the wounds that have been left behind. Our struggle is a social, emotional and economic one. It is one that ripples through many countries on the African continent, bearing the aftereffects of colonial oppression, warfare and exploitation. This is at times overwhelming. But I now know that Madiba’s actions are not only to be revered by South Africans.I thought I would be a South African mourning the death of my country’s father in Rwanda, but my short time in Kigali has shown me that I am rather an African mourning the death of a collective and timeless leader of all countries alike.I now see that those that have wished me their condolences are in fact in mourning too, and the celebration of Madiba’s life has long since surpassed the borders of countries.The writer is a South African journalist travelling through East Africa and currently interning with The New Times