In 1989, my senior year of college, I worked as an intern at the headquarters of an international corporation. That corporation, I found out later, was founded in South Africa, but moved to be more competitive. As such, all executives of the company were from South Africa. All white. All supporting apartheid. When I learned of this, I was already in my first year as a full time employee. I remember talking to my manager about it. It was really straining my conscience to be an employee of an organization whose profits supported a political system and economy for which I didn't believe. For which I felt was wrong. Unjust. I felt the only choice I had was to leave.
But then Mandela was released from prison. And my choice became to fight from within. If I have an activist bone in my body, it was developed during the next year, when I repetitively challenged the system the executives of my company supported. When apartheid officially ended, I was ecstatic. I felt victorious. When Mandela was elected president, I felt the pride of the world. And now that he is gone, I am extraordinarily sad. Much more sad than I would have anticipated, given his age and how frail he had become.
On very very select theaters (I think only 4 in the entire United States...right now) is the film (not a documentary) - Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. U2 wrote the cover song for the movie. Watch the video. And when the film comes to your neighborhood...or anywhere near it, see the movie.
"He no longer belongs to us -- he belongs to the ages." -- President Obama