We can all be Mandelas

The writer is a barrister and a public policy graduate from Harvard University mahreen.khan@tribune.com.pk

For me there was only one hero in the World Cup 2010. Nelson Mandela — the man responsible for galvanising South Africa into a nation and a country capable of hosting such an impressive event. His life and leadership have all the answers we in Pakistan are seeking. He has shown us how to salvage a country ready to fall apart.

Let me remind you how dire the situation in South Africa was. The British and Dutch had been brutal colonisers and apartheid was installed as an inhuman form of institutionalised racism and segregation to perpetuate white rule. In their own homeland, black people were barred from owning land, using public utilities reserved for whites, marrying of their own free will. Every day they were stripped of their humanity and degraded — they lived and died like animals in impoverished shanty-towns. If ever there was a crime against humanity, if ever retribution was warranted and would have gone unquestioned and unchallenged, South Africa was that case. If ever the path for exacting justice would have been nobly led, then Mandela was the man to lead it. Yet he made the decision not to.

Mandela’s greatest act of leadership was renouncing the policy of retribution. He chose not to seek justice for his 27 years of confinement, humiliation and torture and asked his people to forego their right to vengeance. No white police officer or prison guard was tried or imprisoned for rape, murder or torture. No white legislator or politician was targeted. An entire race that had been humiliated, disenfranchised and brutalised went un-avenged.

Instead, a genuine process of truth and reconciliation was instituted. A clean slate and a fresh start were opted for as the sins of the past were buried. An entire people who had been subjected to an undeniable, unmitigated injustice forgave their tormentors. Not because Mandela is a saint but because he was a statesman who knew that this was the only way to achieve peace, unity and progress. His decision averted a bloody civil war, prevented economic ruin and forged a nation out of forgiveness.

So my fellow countrymen and women, we have to take the same road as South Africa. As painful and as shocking it may seem we, the people of Pakistan, must forgive our leaders and politicians. All of them, for everything they have done. Ours is a case where the guilty and innocent are not so black and white (pardon the pun) as was the case in South Africa and the crimes they are accused of are not as heinous. Many are guilty and others complicit. Sorting it all out will be a colossal task and the probability is that the stolen money will still be stashed away in Park Lane apartments, Swiss accounts and offshore companies. Justice will be elusive, expensive and possibly irreparably destructive upon our fragmented national soul. Justice cannot be done when so many of those who claim to seek it are tainted themselves.

Let us not stay shackled to the past, decimating our meagre resources and valuable time in a futile and divisive journey. Yes, I hear your cries. How can we forget the billions stolen from a poor nation, the corruption and the lies, the broken promises, the unashamed attacks on law and property, on life and liberty? Well, if Mandela could forgive 27 years of incarceration, if ordinary South Africans could forgive the torture and murder of their children, then we Pakistanis can choose to forgive corruption, legal transgressions and bad decisions. This is the only way to end the whole sorry mess that surrounds us.

Mandela has shown the way. We need to follow that proven path instead of praying our hearts out for a messiah. Our Mandela will not be written in the stars or be delivered from the heavens. Our Mandela will not be one man; it has to be a movement and a change in national consciousness. This is one thing we, the people, have the power to do. Let us start afresh and harness our energies for building up our country. Let us choose to write off the past and write the future instead.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 17^th, 2010.