Part I: Go with peace Nelson Mandela, father of rainbow human beings

Part I : Go with peace Nelson Mandela, father of rainbow  human beings

By Farsijana Adeney – Risakotta

World is still mourning. Earth is cry but also thankful receives back her beloved fellow who ever strengthens and restores the rights of his people, and the people of this world for their equal citizens.   Liberation from oppression is not an imagination, but a struggle to do without fear because of the alignments of the Creator.

 

Born of the tribe Thembu in Umtatu, a part of Cape Province in South Africa, Nelson Mandela , began to enter Yohanessburg , the capital of South Africa to start a political fight against the discrimination that had practiced  since the Dutch colonial era . Dutch divided the population in South Africa over several groups, namely the Europeans , colored , Indian and African. People of color were people who come from a variety of European mixed blood. Before becoming a fighter of swadeshi movement in India , Mahatma Gandhi lived in South Africa for 21 and worked for the civil rights movement. Beginning his career as a lawyer when he was invited by a rich Muslim Indian trader, to defend the Indian Muslim traders against British discriminatory policies .

Mandela was fascinated towards the dynamics of social groups that existed in South Africa when he began his study at the University of South Africa. In 1943 , when Mandela was 26 years old he was the only black student who dared to studying law at a private university of the Witwatersrand . While he continued his studies, apartheid was implemented in 1948 . Apartheid politics applied by minority groups, white group of Dutch descent who speak Afrikaans . Different from political discrimination practiced in the Dutch era , political apartheid  applied separation occupation and eliminated the right of  public service for skin color.   Restrictions on social and public areas is done according to the classification of occupation.

In 1966 , the United Nations passed a resolution number 2145 to abolish Apartheid politics . But in 1970 , the South African government expanded the application of Apartheid politics especially to revoke citizenship rights of the black community . Public services and social formerly distributed by the state was limited to residents of each region according to the classification of the population to stop. Political representation of the black community in parliament legalized revoked . Blacks were forced to have their own governments  and categorized according to the ten tribes . Government was based on tribal areas called bantustans.

Nelson Mandela who had first studied law became involved with the popular movement to restore the citizenship rights of black communities. These tribes who actually the landlords then was removed by the use of minority policy and economic power to abolish the rights of indigenous people of South Africa. Mandela began organizing African people when he joined with the African National Congress ( ANC ), which has been introduced since he began moving to Yohanessburg. Because of his involvement with the struggle to restore the rights of the African people, the government of South Africa threw Nelson Mandela in jail for 27 years, moved in three different areas of prisons . Before the UN resolution abolishing political apartheid  1966, Mandela had been in prison before I was born , namely in 1964 .

Two fighters of civil society movement , Gandhi and Mandela were born because of unjust political structures in South Africa . But the people's resistance movement was actually stronger in 1974 when the Afrikaans Medium Decree applied. This decree required that all public services must  use the Afrikaans language . Previous national language was British. Later that same year, on June 16, a student named Hector Pieterson was shot by a white policeman. This shooting arouse and united all the people of South Africa. Soweto became a defense area used by Africans to fight against the oppression that they experienced.

Since emerging Soweta Uprising, the murder and killing were made very violent society . I learned about the atrocities of apartheid that was not only related to the political structure but also an attempt to kill the character who bounce against the rulers of society . Nelson Mandela's victory was due to expectations concerning the rights of faith God has given life to all mankind through the struggle to restore it. History has established that unjust political structures maintained for centuries. Mandela was released from prison started because the pressure of the international community, the African communities in the surrounding area has become a sovereign state of Africans which collectively supported through Pan African struggles to free South Africa from political Apertheid. Political force, human and capital resources of Africans in South Africa at the time were still not balanced, but the whole world was ready to support the changes that must take place in South Africa . Dated February 11, 1990 , Nelson Mandela locking arms of his wife , Winnie Madikizela leaved Victor Verster Prison prison. Later in 1994, Mandela was elected as the first African President of South Africa.

I visited the home of Mandela and Winni in Soweta in 2007 while attending the general assembly of EATWOT ( Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians).  Soweta still keeps the rest of the defense of South African civil society to inspire me to continue to work to fight for the civil rights of people who are marginalized by the state. On the way to Las Vegas, Rev . James Campbell of the Presbyterian Church took us to visit United World College of the American West to meet some Indonesian students. There I met again with Nelson Mandela in Montezuma New Mexico. I touched all over his face at the bust stands proudly overlooking the home of interfaith that flows between the colors of the rainbow reflection of the glass to goes in it . Humans like a rainbow are colorful. Nelson Mandela look the rainbow of faith home with understated eye because he knows that his faith in God in the struggle to restore the rights of African citizens and at the same time do justice according to the law of truth and reconciliation that allows violence can be stopped to start a new life. Good bye my rainbow father! Good bye baba yangu upinde wa mvua!

Note: for seeing the pictures, please visit the same article written in Indonesian
 http://farsijanaindonesiauntuksemua.blogspot.com/2013/12/bagian-i-selamat-jalan-nelson-mandela.html

Part II: Nelson Mandela and the Truth & Reconciliation to Indonesia, particularly Papua

http://farsijanaforpizza.blogspot.com/2013/12/part-ii-nelson-mandela-and-truth.html

Part III : Recognition of Indonesian Government, Relevance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Human Rights Violation in Papua

http://farsijanaforpizza.blogspot.com/2013/12/part-iii-recognition-of-indonesia.html