Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More


Nelson Mandela And Transformation

Napa Valley, California, USA

July 1, 2002



This essay, Nelson Mandela And Transformation, is the companion piece to Standing With.

It is also the second in the quintology Transformation:
  1. Transformation
  2. Nelson Mandela And Transformation
  3. The Way Of Transformation
  4. Transformation II
  5. No Line
in that order.

It is also the first in a group of ten on People: I am indebted to Nelson "Madiba" Rolihlahla Mandela who inspired this conversation.




Nelson "Madiba"
Rolihlahla Mandela
There's a lot to love about Nelson Mandela, and the thing I love about him most was expressed in an almost dismissed remark I heard him make when some overly enthusiastic TV news interviewer went on and on and on about how Nelson Mandela had transformed South Africa. I mean, he was literally slathering Nelson with acknowledgment, like you would put chocolate syrup on an icecream sundae. It was almost embarrassing.

After a while Nelson said "You don't get it, do you? Nothing of what happened in South Africa was the work of any one individual. The transformation of South Africa came out of a partnership between many, many people.".

That for me is who Nelson Mandela really is.



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© Laurence Platt - 2002 through 2012 Permission