I took this photo back in January, on my first trip
to London. While I was snapping pictures right and left, I had to make sure
that I captured digitally this statue of Nelson Mandela. There were already constant news reports that the former South
African leader was seriously ailing (indeed, the wonder is that he lasted until
his death Thursday).
I took several other photographs in Parliament Square that late Friday
afternoon, including ones posted to this blog about Winston Churchill and Sir Robert Peel. But this nine-foot bronze statue of Mandela by sculptor Ian Walters was special. He is
not set as high as the other figures in the square, and in his characteristic
floral shirt he looks as if he shares more of the air of the common man than
anyone else here. Moreover, unlike the others here (including the lone
American, Abraham Lincoln), Mandela was the only figure alive for his statue’s
unveiling, having lived long enough to pass from heated controversy to
something approaching secular canonization.
Mandela shares one other thing with Lincoln. Both
were, in essence, liberators—men responsible, through political guile,
persistence, and moral passion, an entire class of human beings from the worst
kind of legal shackles and inhumanity. They were, in the truest sense, fathers of their reborn nations.
When the statue was unveiled six years ago, Mandela
noted: “Though this statue is of one man, it should in actual fact symbolize
all of those who have resisted oppression, especially in my country."
No comments:
Post a Comment