A lifetime habit of picking up interesting rocks on ocean beaches and elsewhere posed a household problem 鈥� what to do with all those rocks. Couldn鈥檛 just throw them out, could we?
So we bought a rock tumbler and were delighted to find that with the right application of grit, polish and time, seemingly ordinary stones can become beautiful gems. But others are ground down by the process and become part of the sludge at the bottom of the barrel. It depends on what they are made of.
Just like people.
One of those gems is in the news this week as the world remembers Nelson Mandela, South Africa鈥檚 first black president who led the country out of the apartheid era in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness.
If anyone had an excuse for being bitter and vengeful, he did. As a black attorney in a country ruled by a white minority government, he was severely restricted in his ability to practise his profession.
For years, he and other members of the African National Congress had petitioned the South African government, to no avail, for the opportunity to build a country in which all South Africans could participate and prosper, not just the whites.
When Mandela was tried in 1962 on charges of incitement, he told the court he did not consider himself bound by laws in which he had no part in forming. He defended his actions with eloquence and power, even though he knew his oratory would not affect the outcome.
鈥淭here comes a time, as it came in my life, when a man is denied the right to live a normal life, when he can only live the life of an outlaw because the government has so decreed to use the law to impose a state of outlawry upon him,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 was driven to this situation, and I do not regret having taken the decisions that I did take.鈥�
I lived in South Africa for a couple of years in the 1960s. At that time, Mandela was not a household name. He was just one of many 鈥渢errorists鈥� imprisoned for their part in the struggle for equal rights.
Apartheid was in full bloom then. All public facilities were strictly segregated. Post offices, for example, had separate entrances for white and non-whites. Trains, buses and taxis bore 鈥渇irst class鈥� and 鈥渟econd class鈥� labels that had nothing to do with price. Whites 鈥� first class; everyone else 鈥� second class.
Although most South Africans employed black household servants, non-whites could not live in white residential areas, but had to commute, in some cases for hours, to black townships outside the white cities.
To be a non-white in South Africa was to be reminded every moment of every day that you were considered inferior to whites. Socializing between the races was strongly discouraged; interracial marriage was illegal.
That was the grinding, abrasive system that Mandela grew up with before he was imprisoned for opposing that system. Yet the harsh treatment of prison polished him and shaped him, and he refused to be conquered by bitterness and hate.
When I returned to South Africa in 1986, many signs of what was called 鈥減etty apartheid鈥� had disappeared. Gone were the 鈥渂lankes鈥� and 鈥渘ie-blankes鈥� signs. Change had begun. Whites were talking about Mandela with admiration and reverence, even though he was still in prison. When he emerged from prison, his was a political triumph, but more than that, it was a moral triumph. He had not let adversity grind him down.
It鈥檚 a sad contrast to some Canadian politicians 鈥� federal, provincial and municipal 鈥� who have been in the news lately, who have been shaped, not by adversity, but by greed, political opportunism and a sleazy sense of entitlement.
The results of the grinding and polishing of rocks is determined by the material the rocks are made of. The harder the material, the more likely it will polish up into something beautiful.
Rocks have no say in how they turn out. People, on the other hand, have a choice on how to respond. They can make those decisions that develop strength of character, or they can take the easy way and become sludge at the bottom of the barrel.
