Madiba

Soweto's favorite son Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is South Africa's George Washington and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one. Every single person with whom we spoke about Mandela talked about him in awestruck, reverent tones. They commonly refer to him as "Madiba," his Xhosa honorary title. Legend, icon, revolutionary, Nobel Peace Prize winner, world-historical, Great Man: all the above apply.
It was great that he had a chance to make an appearance (above) at Soccer City Stadium prior to the World Cup final. He missed the opening ceremony a month earlier because, that morning, a drunk driver killed his 13-year-old great-granddaughter. So his Cup was one of sadness and ambivalence, simultaneously proud for his country and aching for his family. He certainly deserved the overwhelming cheer he received from the crowd.
During our tour of Soweto, Bill and I had the opportunity to visit his humble house on the corner of Vilakaze and Ngakane Streets in Orlando West, just blocks down the hill from the Hector Pieterson Museum, site of the 1976 student uprising. Perhaps not coincidentally, Vilakaze Street is also home to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, making it the only street in the world to claim two Nobel Peace Prize winners. And, I have to say, it is a pretty peaceful and lively place.
Today, the government-issue, "matchbox" house--complete with corrugated aluminum roof!--to which Madiba moved in 1946 is now the site of the Mandela Family Museum. Outside is a newly-created brick courtyard featuring quotations from his writings and speeches...
Our tour guide LOVES Obama and fist-bumped us immediately upon learning we are American...
More quotes, this from a 1977 letter to his wife Winnie...
Here's what he wrote from prison in 1976 upon getting word of the student uprising...
This is the tree out front where the Mandela family buried the umbilical cords of all their newborns to bring them luck and connect them to one another (or something like that)...
The bullet hole below (now filled in by the restoration project) is one of many in the exterior wall of the house courtesy of the police. They spent years setting up shop on the corner opposite the house and firing rounds at it, breaking windows and terrifying those inside. This continued well after Nelson went to prison; they considered Winnie just as subversive. Note that the wall outside the children's room bore the brunt of the police attacks...
Having been restored for museum traffic, the interior of the house has just four small rooms, each of them containing interesting pictures and artifacts from his life and work. They asked us not to take pictures inside. If I could have, I would have taken pictures of Sugar Ray Leonard's world championship boxing belt, a gift from the boxer to Madiba. Also in there were many letters from universities in the United States, particularly historical black colleges, congratulating him on his release from prison or his election as president.

There was an early-1990's resolution from the legislature of the State of Michigan apologizing for the CIA's role in ratting out Mandela's location to the apartheid regime in 1962, leading to his arrest and eventual incarceration. We had no idea such a seeming betrayal had taken place, so at first we were aghast that our government would do such a thing. Then we saw a photo on the wall of Mandela cozying up to Fidel Castro and the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. Hey! Long lost Comrade!
The United States, in the era of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, viewed Mandela as both a terrorist--he was a founder and leader of the ANC's militant wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe--and a communist. Therefore, he represented an important African communist "domino," and a threat to American interests in the region. Also, in the year 1962, the US was still in the early stages of the civil rights movement at home. Martin Luther King, Jr. had not yet declared that he had a dream, and the National Party's apartheid regime was not yet the international pariah it would become. The American relationship with apartheid South Africa was relatively friendly, and the two nations did not hesitate to engage in Realpolitik, where the ends justified the means.

Yada yada yada...militant tendencies...27 years in prison...government in exile...yada yada...peaceful transition of power...Nobel Prize...yada yada...elected president...yada yada...global icon...yada yada...World Cup...and he shows up at Soccer City.