Nelson Mandela fit the type of leader that Africans had in mind when they struggled for freedom from the European empires. Africans wanted leaders who would reconcile and reunite them, leaders who would restore to them the dignity robbed by colonialism – and in Mandela they finally got one.
NAIROBI – Before I knew that Nelson Mandela existed, I thought our then-leader, Kenyan President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, was the world’s only statesman. I was five years old, and no world existed for me outside Nairagie Enkare, my birthplace in rural Maasailand. Moi was a mythical figure to me, because he didn’t live in Nairagie Enkare, yet he was always present through radio, a technology too complicated for a child like me to understand.
NAIROBI – Before I knew that Nelson Mandela existed, I thought our then-leader, Kenyan President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, was the world’s only statesman. I was five years old, and no world existed for me outside Nairagie Enkare, my birthplace in rural Maasailand. Moi was a mythical figure to me, because he didn’t live in Nairagie Enkare, yet he was always present through radio, a technology too complicated for a child like me to understand.