When Mandela Goes

"The telephone rang in the office of F.W. De Klerk. It was back in the days when South Africa's reform-minded president and the man he had released from twenty-seven years of martyrdom, Nelson Mandela had an affable easy-going relationship

The phone was answered by a boyish man in his late twenties...the PS. It was Nelson Mandela on the other end of the line....  He had to pay a visit to a squatter camp on the Cape Flats and didn't have anything appropriate to wear having  brought only suits with him to Cape Town.

Well ventured PS tentatively, why didn't he simply buy something.... 

That was just it, responded  Mandela in his deliberate slightly nasal way: he also didn't bring any cash, cheque book, that sort of thing

The PS said he would get back to him. F.W. was consulted on this minor ,yet delicate, matter of state.

Mandela was called back. Why didn't he go to an outfitter in the town that F.W. favoured, get what he needed, and simply send the money afterwards or arrange payment for when he next returned to Cape Town ?
Well, no, that wouldn't really work either,Mandela mused. He felt he couldn't impose because, you see, he had never bought at that shop before and they couldn't be expected to give him ' an account'.

The exact response of the PS is not recorded, but you can fill in something like: sweet suffering mackerel. you're Nelson Mandela.You're the single most trusted person in the world today. The World Bank would give you a fiscus of credit without even a handshake.


In the end F.W.'s office explained the sensitivities of the matter to the shop keeper. With F.W. expressly standing good for the proposed purchase, the venerated Mandela went along for his squatters camp outfit."

From When Mandela Goes  incidentally while trying to avoid typing this in I goggled it to  no effect and and typo's stuff ups are mine not Lester  Venter's but I did discover this blog and it is worth a read. My point though is to compare Mandela and Mugabe. There is no comparison. The best comparison I can think of for President Nelson Mandela is a bee keeper, a mountaineer our very own Sir Ed.

Mugabe well he can only be compared with like Hitler, Stalin maybe the irony being they at least were effective in the evil they committed. Mugabe is just evil.