The Mandela Effect Part II

The Mandela Effect – Part II

If only Mandela had been able to live another ninety-five years, South Africa and the world would be in better shape. If ever there was a time one would wish for a spirit power to descend upon the earth, it would be now. There is a resurgence of all that Mandela stood for throughout the land, and yet it is waning as people say “What will we do now that he is gone?”

And they wait for another giant to come along to rescue them from themselves. If anything improves as a result of Mandela’s life, it will only be marginal at best. People have a natural tendency to follow the leader and when the leader is gone, they look for a new one. It's one of the flaws of human nature. It's what natural leaders count on to keep them at the head of the pack. Perhaps the people may be right to do so. After all, that’s roughly how Mandela rose from the ashes of Africa to govern over the nation. Perhaps there is another Mandela somewhere in Africa to do the same. And so they wait.

Should no one emerge to take up the reins, there are enough people in abject poverty to begin a groundswell for change. We know the government is corrupt and it is busy entrenching itself in much the same manner as Mugabe has done. They shouldn’t be too complacent though because it is in recent memory that Mandela and the ANC, at its wit’s end, took the help from Cuba and armed itself. When the whites saw their white brothers lying dead in the street much as had been the case for their black counterparts up until then, they did the math and there was a sudden big move to end apartheid.

Things are a bit different now. The color lines are now somewhat blurred. You don’t have the advantage of color differences so much anymore to make it easy to see who’s doing what, but don’t you believe for one minute the people don’t know who in the government is corrupt and who is stealing from them. And don’t you believe for one minute that there aren’t countries out there that would help them in their cause either.

There seems to be a lull in South African society right now in deference to Mandela. But it almost seems like the calm before the storm. I am very much afraid that unless the government and all the NGO’s begin to move in the direction that Mandela has set out for them, there will be a storm unlike anything that South Africa has seen before. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.