Word: africanism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...South Africa in 1995 I had the great fortune of meeting that country's first democratically elected president, Nelson Rolihlala Mandela. It was an honor to meet "Madiba," as he is affectionately referred to in South Africa, but there was one aspect of my encounter with him at the African National Congress's (ANC) "Shell House" offices in Johannesburg which left me rather ill at ease...
Hanging in Nelson Mandela's secretary's office was a photograph of the South African president posing in front of a tent with a grinning Muammar el-Qaddafi at some location in Libya. Pointing to the picture, I said somewhat apologetically, "I've got to be honest, that's the one thing about the man that I think is unfortunate...
Some will recall that soon after being released from prison by former South African president F.W. De Klerk, citizen Nelson Mandela did a fundraising tour of the United States. To tremendously understate the case, his effect upon American audiences was dramatic. Few could have been left unimpressed by Mandela's uncanny strength of spirit after 27 years in prison, an amount of time spent under conditions that would have wholly sapped a lesser person...
...more memorable displays of his charisma came in an episode of Ted Koppel's "Nightline" which, on this special occasion, was televised before a live American audience. At one point during a break in the questions Koppel had been posing to his guest, the leader of the African National Congress (ANC) asked, "Have I paralyzed you?" evoking vociferous laughter and applause...
Even after his years in a brutal South African penal system, the now gray and increasingly grandfatherly Mandela was endearing. We were glad to see that he had lost none of the sharp wit which we had come to expect after the famed Rivonia Trials which resulted in his life-sentence. Some of Mandela's statements during his American tour, however, were less endearing than others...