By Leah H.
Mwainyekule
I remember it was in 1994 when
I first watched the movie ‘Sarafina!’
and found myself in tears after watching the part where young students were
killed at a school by police during the apartheid regime in South Africa, for
simply demanding for a quality education.
As the six caskets were ready for burial, the pastor who led the service
made a powerful statement: “They fear you because you are young. They fear you because you are the generation
of a free nation…” Yes, I cried.
It was just a movie, but it
depicted the reality of how South Africa had gone through during the apartheid
regime. A regime that used brutality
against the true sons and daughters of the African soil; punishing them from
being black, and killing them for seeking justice.
This was a generation of
people filled with hatred, people filled with the desire to avenge what they
had gone through: losing their fathers, losing their brothers, losing their
children, losing their lovers, and losing their best friends. It was a generation of people who wanted to
take justice into their own hands, just waiting for the right time to zoom in
on the target and strike. But you said
no Madiba, you said it wasn’t worth it.
This was a generation of
people who hailed you, who saw you as their hero, their idol, their role model,
their saviour. People who were demanding
for your release from the life imprisonment that was handed to you years before
they were even born. They wanted to see
you walk out of that jail call, join them in the fight, and crush the enemy
together. But you said no Madiba, you
said it wasn’t worth it.
It was a generation of people
with bitterness, people whose eyes were filled with anger as they remembered
how one of their own icons, Steve Biko, was killed in the hands of police because
of demanding for equal rights. They wanted
to avenge his death, wanted all those who caused it to die, wanted to do it
with their own hands, and with your help.
But you said no Madiba, you said it just wasn’t worth it.
This was a generation that had
experienced massive segregation, a generation that was not allowed to live as
normal human beings, a generation that faced restrictions from an administration
that did not formerly belong there, a generation that wanted to claim back
their land, their glory, their pride and their strength. But you said no Madiba, you said it wasn’t quite
worth it.
You said no to the quarrels,
you said no to the hatred, you said no to the bitterness, you said no to the
revenge. You said yes to forgiveness,
you said yes to peace, you said yes to unity, and you said yes to freedom. You were the icon for the rainbow nation, and
you taught all of us – Blacks and Whites, Christians and Muslims, Jews and Gentiles,
Believers and Non-Believers, Old and Young – you taught us that the hatred, the
vengeance and the bitterness were just not worth it.
Now you have gone, gone back
home to our Father who sent you to us, and I don’t want to shed a tear. I don’t want to shed a tear because of your
departure, because you have managed to fulfil the duty that the Father sent you
to do. I don’t want to shed a tear over
your departure because you have managed to see a nation that you
envisioned. I don’t want to shed a tear,
because yours is a life well lived, and a story worth telling. Oh no, I will not cry.
