As recipient of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, president of the African
National Congress, and head of the antiapartheid movement, Nelson Mandela
is one of the world's great moral and political leaders.
"Nelson Mandela has accomplished many things, but his greatest influence
may be for something he didn't do: run for a second term as South Africa's
leader. As the first President of a post-apartheid South Africa, he was,
like George Washington, aware that everything he did would be a model
for those who would follow. He once said, "I don't want to be an octogenarian
President." What he really meant was that no man - not even one unfairly
imprisoned for 27 years - should be above the law or the people.
"Mandela remains perhaps the only figure on the world stage who
is an unambigous moral giant. That is not to say he is pure. He is a
hero precisely because he always admitted his errors and then tried to
rise above them. And he has never stopped learning. I spent many days
with him in 1993, working on his autobiography. He had to catch up on
almost three decades of social change, and one of the things he had to
learn about was AIDS. At first, this 75-year-old man did not have the
most enlightened view. But within a year - long before other, younger
South African leaders - he understood that AIDS was an enormous tragedy
for his country and his continent, and he saw it as another moral challenge
in a life of facing up to them. After he stepped down, he became a thorn
in the side of his chosen successor and his beloved African National
Congress on the issue of its less than progressive AIDS policy. That's
moral leadership."
- Richard Stengel, president, National Constitution Center
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