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People sometimes had a view of him as a weak and sentimental old man who just loved the world. But this detracts from, and overlooks, his efforts in achieving genuine reconciliation, and the fact that he was as much concerned about transformation as he was about reconciliation. Madiba's reconciliation was soberly political, and dependable for that. He was adept at using political power for good. He had a sound grasp of the political impact of what sometimes seemed merely soppy warm-heartedness. On the other hand, there is a mistaken view that he alone nurtured this conciliatory spirit: Thabo Mbeki was no less committed to it.
&main=It was a broad process, but in the end Madiba did become the "father of the nation" and he was really the embodiment of the whole concept of reconciliation. It is easy, however, to dismiss this as soft politics. It wasn't. It had everything to do with the bedrock of the new society South Africans were feeling their way towards, and Madiba was entirely rational about this. And it wasn't as if he was afraid of speaking his mind or even of straining relations with those who were important to this project of reconciling South Africans from different backgrounds. In the early days of the government of national unity, he had sharp exchanges with, for instance, FW de Klerk, who was then his second deputy president. One clash in particular struck those present as being out of character, of being almost ill-considered, but it emerged later that he hadn't merely lost his cool. It was a considered response, and it formed part of making this remarkable government of national unity a workable mechanism. There is a credible argument that, given the historical processes at work in South Africa over the centuries, South Africans as a whole were more or less forced to live together and find common solutions - the embodiment of the government of national unity. In that sense, it was a natural product of our history. But the point is, we almost take it for granted today that the nation would cohere. The truth is, it couldn't just have happened on its own. The fact of a unified nation after Madiba's five years was really a major achievement. So were the material improvements in the lives of ordinary people - the taps and toilets and houses; the consolidation of democracy and constitutionalism through instruments such as the constitutional court and the public protector; and the fact that the departure of the New National Party from the multi-party government did not so much as put a strain on our young democracy. All these things underscore what was a remarkable transition. After only five years, nobody was vulnerable to arbitrary state action as they had been, routinely, under apartheid. Some often thought of this as a soft issue, but it wasn't. For those who had lived in the undemocratic setting preceding 1994, this was as hard an issue as you could find. And the one man who embodied the spirit of this achievement was Nelson Mandela.
A lot was made at the time, and has been made since, of Madiba's visit to Betsie Verwoerd at her home in the "white enclave" of Orania. Some felt this was going too far. But he understood the very real and important symbolic value of making this journey. It took political courage and insight to carry it off. In fact, he always spoke fondly of Mrs Verwoerd. He had the stature and integrity to reach across the divide to her world without cost to the struggle for justice and freedom.
There was a moment, those who were there describe, when she was trying to read something in bad light, and he stepped in and held the light for her. It was typical of the sort of simple human gesture Madiba was capable of making with grace and generosity.
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Nelson Mandela's sense of human goodness and also of human frailty were at the core of a considered, rational and often misunderstood political wisdom. Generous when generosity was called for, firm - sometimes even brutally so - when he felt firmness was needed, he was an astute leader and masterly negotiator. He was a complex person, not in the sense that he was hard to understand, but in the sense that there were so many facets to him.
People sometimes had a view of him as a weak and sentimental old man who just loved the world. But this detracts from, and overlooks, his efforts in achieving genuine reconciliation, and the fact that he was as much concerned about transformation as he was about reconciliation. Madiba's reconciliation was soberly political, and dependable for that. He was adept at using political power for good. He had a sound grasp of the political impact of what sometimes seemed merely soppy warm-heartedness. On the other hand, there is a mistaken view that he alone nurtured this conciliatory spirit: Thabo Mbeki was no less committed to it.