The Center for African Studies Remembers Nelson Mandela

More than most world figures, Mandela was powerful both as a symbol and in his humanity. As a symbol, he stood for all those acts of courage and defiance that helped bring an end to apartheid. He stood for all those who suffered under it, for the complex and painful compromises that followed it, and perhaps above all for an idea of forgiveness that was perhaps either super-human or all too human. Admired even by those political enemies who feared him, he challenged even those who most loved him.

Mandela aspired, with partial success, for a South Africa dedicated to both memory and dialogue, to both forgetting and truth. He was a man whose physical body remained a testimony to the violence of apartheid but also to the possibilities of a New South Africa; some of those possibilities have been realized, some are yet to come. A man who was deeply cognizant of his own role in making history and of all the burdens and obligations such a role brought with it, Mandela was also rare in his willingness to recognize the flow of time that carried history beyond him to the next generations—generations who faced and will face troubles perhaps as grave and certainly more subtle.

Mandela died today in a South Africa free of the legal apartheid that tried but failed to consume his life. May his passing provide the context for the kind of reflection that can precede new forms of freedom. Today's news is of great significance to the whole CAS community and indeed to all of Stanford. Although this is a busy time for everyone on campus, we hope we can all take an opportunity to reflect and to commemorate before letting the swirl of our daily duties engulf us. We hope too for an opportunity for greater dialogue and reflection after we return from the winter break.