Rainbow nation wears a dark shroud

I was in fairly high spirits on Thursday night. I had been honoured at our firm's annual year-end party and fell asleep content, cheerful and clear-headed.

At around 10.30pm, my wife and I were awakened by a call from my son, Graham, alerting us to the news of Nelson Mandela's death. Of course I was deeply saddened, but somehow I had a hunch it would be soon.

On the weekend before last we had been celebrating a friend's birthday at a restaurant in Melrose Arch, nearby a table at which close members of Mandela's family were gathered. While we were noisy and festive, the mood at their table was solemn and sober; a signal that perhaps the old man's condition was deteriorating and the time had come to let him go peacefully.

For Linda, my wife, Mandela was the last link to an important but trying period in her life; a chapter that had caused her family great hardship, but of which she remains remarkably proud.

They were all gone now: Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Oliver Tambo, Joe Slovo, Steve Biko, Chris Hani, Bram Fischer and her parents, Hymie and Esther Barsel.

Hymie and Esther were among so many other unsung heroes who gave everything they had to bring an end to apartheid. Hymie was one of the accused in the Treason Trial, Esther was sentenced to three years of hard labour in the Fischer trial, and both were detained at The Fort for long periods awaiting trial, spent years under house arrest and were banned from voting until 1994.

Linda was drawn to stand vigil at the Mandela residence as a mark of respect for a man whom she had known and respected longer than most.

A few months before she died in October 2008, Esther was one of a handful of guests invited to attend a lunch at The Saxon to celebrate Mandela's 90th birthday. To her dying day, Esther seldom discussed her covert activities but did let on that, while the ANC was operating underground, one of her duties was to convey info to and from leaders on the run, including Mandela. She recalled that Mandela had once asked to use her home as a safe house at which he could meet Winnie, but she flatly refused. Not through fear, but with three young daughters at home, she felt it inappropriate.

Though Esther had been confident change was near, Linda and I had often discussed emigrating, not because we dreaded a bloody revolution, but because remaining in the country was interpreted by some as tacit support for a racist government . Despite Linda's background, often on our travels we would come across people who regarded us with the same revulsion as the government in power.

But 1994 changed that. Suddenly South Africa was the toast of the world, a beacon of hope. Foreigners could not get enough of us. After years of isolation, sanctions and boycotts, South Africa was open for business. International brands appeared in our shopping malls, big brokers opened offices in Johannesburg and popular entertainers started pulling in the crowds at Sun City. At last we could carry our citizenship with pride.

After 27 years in isolation, Mandela had every right to feel embittered and resentful. Instead he displayed neither hostility nor vindictiveness and it was his astounding capacity for forgiveness and his strong sense of what needed to be done to rebuild the country that elevated his status in the eyes of the world. There is not one global leader in the past 20 years who has come close to matching his high standards of behaviour, and nor are we likely to see one for generations to come.

Regrettably, Mandela's successors have fallen short of living up to his principles, and the image of his beloved ANC has lost much of its sheen. The Mandela magic is gone and now we can only pray that his death helps reunite the nation and rekindles the values for which he sacrificed so much.