Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela

The world is honored and made a better place by your presence among us and by the lessons and leadership you have provided throughout a life of courage and character.

Nelson Mandela
Image in public domain

I am grateful that despite all the horrors of apartheid, all the violence that was done, your life was preserved because that life has been a gift to all life on earth.

You are the role model most needed in a world where too many people rush to destroy anyone they have decided to call an enemy. You are a mensch.

Here, in the 100thpost of this blog, I want to share with all of our readers, some of your enduring words of truth, justice, wisdom, and empathy:

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. ”

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. ”

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. ”

Dear Readers, if you want to see a wonderful movie that says a lot about the kind of man Nelson Mandela is, see the film Invictus and enjoy this fine poem by William Ernest Henley:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

(Poem in public domain)

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Healing in the aftermath of 9/11

Ground Zero memorial
Ground Zero (Photo by Niesy74; Permission is granted to use this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. From WikiMedia Commons)

As we reflect back on the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001, it is useful to consider the question of healing.

Let’s look at an example from the last century. The U.S. and several of its allies learned, at least temporarily, a lesson after World War I.

They learned that a rabid preoccupation with revenge and punishment can keep hatred and a desire for retaliation alive and lead to further violence. Thus, the outcome of World War I led to World War II.

The aftermath to World War II was handled differently and with wisdom, as the allies helped the Axis powers rebuild. Today Germany and Japan are major allies of the United States.

Furthermore, the U.S. government has apologized to the innocent Japanese Americans who were corralled into concentration camps in the U.S. for no reason other than their Japanese ancestry.

Today in New York City we see a reprise of the kinds of hatred and distrust being leveled at innocent Americans because of their ancestry–in this case because they are Muslims.

The efforts to stop the building of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero are fueled not just by prejudice and ethnocentrism but by the political agenda of power-seekers.

Those power-seekers know that one way to get people to follow you and build your power is to foment fear while also making them believe that you have the answers. But are they the right answers?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology