Collective Action or Collective Misery
Lessons from the Life, Transformation and Actions of Nelson Mandela
We celebrated Nelson Mandela day on the 18th of this month. On the same day at the highest levels the cry came out that if we do not undertake collective action on the climate situation we would doom ourselves to collective suicide. Having been the chief of voter education for UNOMSA, the United Nations Observer Mission in South Africa, the one which saw the election of ‘Madiba’, as he was affectionally known, to the presidency of that country, I humbly try to follow in his footsteps and so I say, “Collective action or collective misery.”
When Mandela was taken prisoner at the age of forty four, he was a fighter against apartheid and for the people of color in South Africa but, when he came out at the age of seventy one, he had become a national builder, one bent on making all South Africans, regardless of their origins, race and culture, one people working together for a better future for all. One of his jailors, a white young eighteen year old who then believed in apartheid, became close to him, calling him a father, as Mandela taught him to care.
That is what we need to build a good world for all us, for if we continue as we have been doing, too many of us will fall into a miserable state. Heat waves, wild fires, a growing number of storms, various epidemics, and more will tax our systems so much that those who are touched directly or indirectly by them will find little relief.
Of course, those with the means or with power will often find ways to escape the general degradation but that will not be true for the majority of the eight billion of us on this little planet we all share.
We have seen the disruptions, the changes, the suffering brought on by one pandemic, however we believe it came to be or was created. Yet, we have not taken to heart the lessons that came at the beginning of the lockdown when human activity had been drastically cut. Remember the period of clean air in major cities like New Delhi and Los Angeles? Remember the dolphins swimming in clean streams in Venice in what had been dark, trashy waterways?
No, we do not need to stop what we are doing, but we can consider what moderation will do while giving us the time for simple pleasures. We can weigh what various transformative approaches to everyday actions and needs can bring for each and all of us.
Just like the young and middle aged Mandela we can look at the world through our hurts, our needs, our suffering or like him grow into real ‘homo sapiens’ — intelligent, wise beings — and consider what each and every one of us can do through collective action so that we can contribute to a good world for our children and grandchildren.
