South Africa's true test begins now

Four buildings over from my home in 1988 in Paris' 7th District was the South African Embassy, which reminded me at the time of the Israeli Embassy. The two buildings were under tight security and looked more like fortresses, each for its own reasons. At the end of the 1980s, Pretoria was still a champion of racist apartheid policies and the governments of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher chose to look the other way. So did Israel. It was, at the time, an alliance between outcasts -- a perfect example of realpolitik.

In contrast to the government in Jerusalem, the South African regime truly "earned" its isolation, even if some people still insist on calling Israel an apartheid state. The horrific images from America of the 1950s and 1960s and the race wars between whites and blacks were a daily reality in South Africa.

And then, in February 1993, Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years of incarceration, followed by his election as the first black president of South Africa. Nelson Mandela had become a global icon as the world's leading moral authority. World leaders, including those who did not exactly help him during his years of struggle, were quick to request meetings with him. A photograph with Nelson Mandela on the office wall became requisite decoration among world leaders.

Mandela was not Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. He reached their stature as time went on. Different from Gandhi, for example, who from the beginning of his endeavors negated the option of using violence, Mandela eventually became a protagonist of armed struggle, guerilla tactics, and terrorism -- after believing that all other nonviolent methods of resistance were exhausted. Mandela the Marxist fought for his people, fought for his country, fought against apartheid. To a large extent he also fought on our behalf so that we wouldn't have to live in a world with an apartheid state in it. Terrorism, however, was indeed an option for him. Moammar Gadhafi, Fidel Castro and Yassir Arafat idolized him. In contrast to Arafat, Mandela knew how to make the career change from terrorist to statesman, to man of peace, and he understood that sincerely extending his hand was the only way toward political progress.

Mandela's major victory and the defining moment of his legacy came in 1995 during the Rugby World Cup. I can't say it was easy for me to persuade my editors to take an interest in this especially unpopular sport in Israel. But this was not a rugby championship; it was a lesson in politics, and in strategy.

South Africa hosted the tournament; rugby was always the white man's sport. The African National Congress party, the symbol of the black struggle, opposed the idea. Mandela succeeded in convincing the party and the blacks in his country to support the national rugby team, the Springboks, whose players, he argued, belonged to all of South Africa despite having just one black player (Chester Williams) on the squad. The tournament and its culmination would become a moment of reconciliation for the country. The Springboks, ostracized by the blacks during apartheid, won the tournament and brought tears of joy to black children across the nation.

"Madiba" was first and foremost a political animal, and thankfully so. Before his passing, he managed to write: "The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

While apartheid is behind us, South Africa still has many tests to face. Mandela showed the way, his successors must now pave the road. South Africa now embarks on its true test of implementing Mandela's legacy now that he is gone and only his spirit remains. He was truly a great man.

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