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Madiba...Nelson Mandela and Miss G and Me?

jenniferswallace

Updated: Jan 2, 2023

I walked into Indigo to cash in some gift cards and near the front entrance I saw Miss G and Me in the Diversity section. This was wonderful. Normally, she is tucked into Biography a long way from the front cashiers. When I looked closer I could hardly believe whose beautiful face and eyes were glancing towards Miss G: none other than Nelson Mandela. His book Long Walk to Freedom was beside Miss G and Me. Could there be anything better? Nelson Mandela was incarcerated as an anti-apartheid activist in 1964. Trevor Noah, who was born in 1984, wrote Born a Crime because apartheid was still very much a reality in South Africa when his mother gave birth him, a mixed race child. My siblings and I, who were born in the 70s in Canada, are mixed race. Growing up I was aware that my very existence in that part of the world would have been problematic and even criminal.


I remember so well the turmoil and excitement in the early 90s when news coming out of South Africa was signaling the end of apartheid. Nelson Mandela was going to be freed. It seemed miraculous and predestined that he should lead the country into a new era and a path of Truth and Reconciliation and he did. He continues to be a big deal the world over.


The late "Desmond Tutu said, 'Like a most precious diamond honed deep beneath the surface of the earth, the Madiba who emerged from prison in January 1990 was virtually flawless.' Tutu said Friday that Madiba's legacy would live on in South Africa." ("Why Nelson Mandela is called Madiba," USA Today, Dec. 6, 2013)


Could I be more excited? I don't know. But for now I am so pleased the company that Miss G and Me is in. Wow!




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© 2021 by Jennifer S Wallace. Photo credit for "The Driveway Sunrise," Ian MacLeod

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