I was wrong

It was one of those moments that burns into your consciousness, taking up a place of permanence. It was November, 1986. I was in a huge, sweaty crowd at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, watching a truly brilliant performance. Peter Gabriel's So tour, supported by Senegal's Youssou N'Dour, remains one of the very best of the many, many concerts I've seen in my lifetime. But it was the last few minutes that fixed that night in my mind forever.

I was 21, and had just started law school. For the past several years, nightly newscasts had featured horrifying pictures from South Africa. Huge crowds of black protesters being attacked by water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas. Tan coloured armoured personnel carriers moving into the crowds. The protesters, from their deplorable living conditions in shantytowns like Soweto were placing their lives on the line to overthrow the immorality of Apartheid. Nelson Mandela was still in prison, and other people and groups were "banned", a practice intended to mute opposition by threat. Notwithstanding the oppression, the protesters were growing in number, and looking increasingly determined. South Africa's white minority was acting more and more like a frightened animal, backed into a corner - fearing for its survival, unpredictable, well armed, and dangerous.

In reality, the racial struggle had been going on for decades, but as is often the case, the rest of the world had only recently begun to really take notice of the horror and injustice. We've always had an ability to ignore atrocities when they were happening to others, far away, whose lives were so different from ours that we were able to maintain a psychological distance. A family losing their house to fire in our town could rally our community to help. But people being massacred half a world away for no reason other than their desire not to be excluded because of the colour of their skin - that evoked a frown, a slight shaking of the head, as we turned the page of the newspaper to check on last night's hockey scores.

When Peter Gabriel came on for his encore, he brought Youssou N'Dour and his large African band with him, and launched into a powerful, poignant rendition of the anthemic Biko. The song was a tribute to South African anti-Apartheid leader Stephen Biko, who was beaten to death by police in 1977. But that night, it was also a call to action. Thousands sang along, chanting Biko's name, and creating a shared emotion, a shared experience. It was one of those moments that music can create, like the singing of a national anthem after an Olympic win, or the singing of a hymn at a funeral - the music binding together a collective emotion that could not be expressed in any other way. When the song came to an end, white lights suddenly turned on the crowd, and Gabriel said "The rest is up to you".

I felt like I had been punched in the chest. The air had been sucked out of my lungs, and I stood there, silent, for a long time as the crowd filed out of the arena. But for me, it wasn't a feeling of hope, empowerment, or determination. It was dread. And despair. For at that moment, it hit me more powerfully than ever before: South Africa was on the brink of inevitable genocide. I was certain that before Apartheid came to an end, there would be massive bloodshed. The blacks had the numbers, but the whites had the weapons. It was like watching bullets flying through the air in slow motion, waiting for them to kill, knowing there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Over the next four years, South African president PW Botha declared states of emergency over most of the country, trying desperately to quell the growing civil unrest. Thousands were detained, questioned, tortured. Media was censored. There were stories of South Africa developing nuclear weapons, perhaps as a deterrent to possible international military intervention. The country's economy was increasingly under pressure from growing economic sanctions. I was proud that Canada was a moral leader in urging the international community to implement stricter anti-Apartheid sanctions.

The government worked covertly to create divisions between the various anti-Apartheid factions, pushing them to internal violence. Horrific images of the "necklace" emerged - a brutal form of murder where a person had a gasoline filled tire placed around their neck, which was lit to burn them alive.

The internal violence and international sanctions were taking their toll on white South Africa. Botha made token gestures, repealing some Apartheid laws, but he backed away from substantial reforms. He must have recognized that Apartheid was doomed, but a way out seemed impossible.

In February, 1989, Botha resigned after having suffered a stroke. F.W. de Klerk became president later that year, and announced the repeal of several Apartheid laws in a speech to parliament in February, 1990. On February 11, 1990, after 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela was freed.

Four months after Mandela left prison a free man, he visited Canada. On June 19, 1990, I left my office in downtown Toronto and made my way to Queen's Park. There, on the lawn with 30,000 others, I got to hear Mandela speak. The crowd was festive. Mandela and his wife, Winnie, received a hero's welcome. Words from the stage were frequently drowned out by chants of "Mandela! Mandela!". He thanked the people of Canada for their support, and said "We are on the threshold of major changes in South Africa." Mandela exuded hope and optimism, though he recognized the struggle was far from over. Things were fragile.

South Africa remained mired in violence. Negotiations were underway to end Apartheid and create a truly democratic state, with voting rights for all. In this phase, however, there were many factions, from whites who resisted any negotiations, to various black groups who were jockeying for power once democracy was in place. Mandela had to manage the widely disparate views, and keep the movement going forward, while the threat of widespread violence loomed large.

On April 27, 1994, 20 million South Africans cast their vote in South Africa's first multi-racial election. Mandela's African National Congress won, and on May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President. April 27 is now known as Freedom Day in South Africa, and is celebrated as a public holiday each year.

Though Mandela had every reason to seek retribution for the decades of oppression he and his people had suffered, he turned instead to the goals of Truth and Reconciliation. Mandela said

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies." 

He recognized that an uneasy political truce was not enough for South Africa - real peace would come only from a population truly united. Contrition and forgiveness were the only way forward.

Much has been written of Mandela - of his grace, of his humanity, of the strength to endure 27 years in prison, of his unwavering commitment to the cause of equality and freedom despite the tremendous personal toll it took. To me, though, what set him apart was his view of equality. He recognized that there was no "us and them", just us. In his autobiography, Mandela wrote

"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

What made his success possible was knowing that he was his oppressor's equal, but also that they were his. He knew that those that had caused so much suffering were capable of goodness, that at their core, they'd prefer peace to violence, tolerance to intolerance, partnership to war. Leon Wessels, an Apartheid era South African cabinet minister, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

"I am now more convinced than ever that apartheid was a terrible mistake that blighted our land. South Africans did not listen to the laughing and the crying of each other. I am sorry that I had been so hard of hearing for so long." 

Mandela knew Apartheid was wrong, and he trusted that even his enemies would come to believe that basic truth. It was his belief in the fundamental goodness of people, despite having witnessed so much cruelty, that made Mandela so extraordinary.

That night at Maple Leaf Gardens, as the crowd sang Biko, I was convinced that a peaceful end to Apartheid was impossible. But as Mandela said "It always seems impossible until it's done." Never have I been so glad to have been proven wrong.

Good night, Madiba. You've earned your rest. You've earned your peace.