Number Seventeen - June 2006
Greetings, friends, from Johannesburg
I am here to prepare for my debut South African concert in Sun City June 24th. After spending time in Soweto today, I am so moved to be in the place where great courage in the fight for emancipation and human rights took place.
The end of Apartheid could not have occurred without the unity, sacrifice
and extraordinary spirit of its people. And its people may not have been
unified to achieve such an accomplishment without the vision and leadership
of Nelson Mandela. Here are some of his words for contemplation and
inspiration:
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.
Then he becomes your partner.
It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when
you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when
there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African
people, I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against
black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free
society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal
opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But
if it needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates
others.
As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never
have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great
peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills
to climb.
If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads
that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and
Forgiveness.
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If
you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find
the ways in which you yourself have altered.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that
fear.
If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't
ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they
want observers.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every
time we fall.
There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which
it treats its children.
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass
through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach
the mountaintop of our desires.
We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to
do right.