Nelson Mandela: The Making of a Leader

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Even as Mandela voted last week and dutifully smiled in all directions for the photographers, his mind seemed both on the past and on the future; he thought back to his fallen comrades who did not live to share his victory and ahead to how he would contrive to forge one nation out of a divided land. His % moment of triumph gratifies him but comes with unsought consequences. While in jail, Mandela was surrounded by armed guards who never took their eyes off him. Now, wherever Mandela goes he is surrounded by armed guards who never take their eyes off him. In a sense, he has exchanged one form of prison for another, and the revolutionary who was a threat to the state has become the prisoner of fame and power. In the midst of his election he lamented the fact that he did not have time to play with his beloved grandchildren. It is the burden of the leadership he was born to and has achieved.