A Life Well Lived, A Story Worth Telling

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.

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