‘His autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, makes it clear that he can be unreasonably stubborn (a quality he traces to his father) and imperious and that he is capable of towering rages when he believes his dignity and authority have been crossed,’ Drew Forrest writes about Nelson Mandela.
‘A democratic traditionalist who often harks back to the consultative style of the Thembu regency of his childhood, his practice is to listen and weigh his moves carefully. But once he has made up his mind, it sets like metal.’
Furthermore, it is a mistake to ‘cast him as a latter-day St Francis or paragon of Gandhian non-violence. From the early 1950s, when the ANC was formally committed to peaceful resistance to apartheid, he was gravitating towards a military solution. He and Walter Sisulu were dressed down by angry party leaders, including Albert Luthuli, for an unauthorised jaunt to China to discuss revolutionary war.’
That does not mean he’s a mean, vindictive and petty man, however. ‘Mandela is,’ Forrest goes on to explain, ‘incapable of the vices of small men — cruelty, vindictiveness, petty intrigue or deluded grandeur.’ He’s a great man, but one with his weaknesses and bad sides. He’s not perfect, but a great man nonetheless.
What this article makes clear is that too many people often seem to assume that ‘great man’ are nearly perfect. They are not. As we say in Dutch, great men often have great vices. But that does not mean that they were any less great. All individuals have their weaknesses and characteristics they rather would not have. Great men and women as well.
What makes them great, however, isn’t their vices. It’s their virtues and, above all else, how they use both their vices and virtues in pursuit of a greater goal and how they, despite their obvious flaws and despite troubles, achieve said goals.
