Friday, 6 December 2013

19 sleeps to go - Intermission...

A little over 2,000 years a man like Nelson Mandela might have been proclaimed as a Messiah and gone on to give rise to a new religion. As it is, he was just a man, but a very good man and one that we can all learn from. The world really is a poorer place for his passing just as it was when another teacher and freedom fighter passed over 2,000 years ago.

I no more believe that Jesus was the actual son of God than I do that Nelson Mandela is the second coming. But there is no doubt that Jesus was a man of wisdom who fought for the oppressed and suffered as a result of it.

If I have one wish for Nelson Mandela and his memory, it’s that he remains a man and does not become a legend or a doctrine. I also hope that he doesn’t have a book of fairy stories built around his life in order for religious and political organisations to benefit from his work and sacrifice so that they might build a controlling, greedy empire around his life, legend and memory.

I don’t think either man would have wanted that.

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