Pretoria, 05 December 2023 - On the tenth anniversary of his death, Nelson Mandela, the noble architect of national reconciliation in South Africa, but at the same time the unbending fighter willing to give his life for his ideals is remembered in Cuba, South Africa and the whole world.
On more than one occasion he claimed to have dreamt of an 'ideal of a democratic and free society in which all people live together in harmony and with equal opportunities'. But while his sugar-coated speech insists on highlighting that one side of his life, it cannot be forgotten that this sentence concluded with a lapidary declaration of how far he was prepared to go in pursuit of that goal: For that ideal, he said, 'if necessary, I am prepared to die'. Indeed, his entire adult life stood for posterity as an example of tireless struggle in defence of human dignity, both during his youthful militant activism against the Apartheid regime, and his upright stance from prison in his 27 years behind bars.
On learning of his death in 2013, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, wrote: 'No event, present or past that I can remember (...), like the death of Mandela, had such an impact on world public opinion; and not because of his wealth, but because of the human quality and the nobility of his feelings and ideas'. Mandela, he said on the occasion, was a man of integrity, a profound revolutionary and a radical socialist, who endured 27 years of solitary confinement with great stoicism. I never ceased to admire his honesty, his modesty and his enormous merit'.
And the mutual admiration between these two great international leaders was not accidental, but an inevitable consequence of their stature as fighters for a better world. On his side, Mandela had called Fidel Castro 'a source of inspiration for all freedom-loving peoples'.
In his autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela explained that, while in prison, he found inspiration in Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution. However, the indirect relationship between the two personalities was not limited to 'idyllic' admiration. Since 1961, even before Mandela's imprisonment, young South African anti-apartheid fighters travelled to Cuba to study medicine, among other disciplines. Subsequently, Cuban assistance would extend to other spheres, including military training.
Today, the links between Cuba and South Africa, consolidated with blood on the battlefields against apartheid, continue to expand in the most dissimilar spheres, as a well-deserved tribute to Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, examples of unwavering perseverance to achieve noble and just political and social objectives.
(Cuban Embassy in South Africa)