‘Madiba! Madiba!’ Oval crowd praises Mandela

Over 20,000 people thronged the Oval to see visiting South African freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela  in person. They wanted  to be able to tell friends and relatives at the end of a rainy, memorable day, that they had breathed the same air, passed in the same vicinity as the man universally regarded as the best living metaphor for social progress. With incredible modesty, Mandela told them:  “I came for two reasons because I love you very much and because it is not easy to love an old man. So I came to urge you to love South Africa, and this old man.”

If the stage in the middle of the Oval seemed far away, people took comfort in the fact that Nelson Mandela was there. His head of grey hair and his colourful shirt stood out amidst the sea of business suits surrounding him and the canopy of Carnival costumes which encircled the stage on which he sat.  Mandela’s greatness needed no jacket, no tie, but radiated  through a humble demeanour, a frail voice, a feeble body and an informal style of  dress. “Madiba! Madiba!” the throngs shouted jubilantly, as this gentle spirit of a man, bearing a  kind and  persistent smile  waved in acknowledgement of the name by which he became known in prison, his South African nickname. And so when Mandela stated that this journey to Trinidad and Tobago’s shores would be his last international trip, everyone understood just how favoured we were.   “I have come here although I am in my mid-80s,” he said.

Mandela travelled to Trinidad and Tobago against the advice of “our authorities” (his doctors) who felt that his last trip should have been in December. Mandela said because he was a “disciplined man” he was going to listen from here on. This would be his last trip, he said to thunderous  applause. Before Mandela spoke, Tokyo Sexwale, (who spent 15 years in jail with Mandela) also pointed out that the doctors had said that Mandela must cut short his travels. “But he (Mandela) said he must go to a country that was named in the name of God,” he said to loud cheers. “Among you run the blood of slaves. Nelson Mandela is here to say I love you,” Sexwale said. Still paying tribute to the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Sexwale said Mandela went to jail as an ordinary man and emerged as the greatest statesman of all time. For those who were lucky enough to come within inches of Mandela as he was helped out of the car to take the slow, patient walk to and from the stage,  it was a momentous few minutes. And for all those fortunate enough to be in the Oval to bear witness, and to feel his presence it was worth all the trouble and all the wait.