I am in Cape Town,- Africa's most popular tourist destination. The Atlantic is within sniffing distance and from my room in The Table Bay Hotel, I can see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his incarceration, bereft of everything but his iron will.
From what I have seen and read, South Africa is also a beautiful country, with a rich history of everything that humanity has come to be known for,- peace, crime, inspiration, apartheid, self-preservation, unemployment, progress, slavery, Nelson Mandela, breath-taking beauty, and (the need for) a roadmap.
From Dr. Christian Bernard's hospital three minutes from here, to Robben island, South Africa is a rainbow nation in many ways, and maybe a bit like other newly-Westernised places, where the message of universality is still in the infancy of implementation. That said, it is always better for an idea to be born and in infancy, than in the head and in gestation. The seven colours are not only distinct, but also differentiated. This plural-cultural society has to be transformed into a multi-cultural society. But then, the African people have dominated the spiritual world-map with their indomitable spirit. And if they have climbed many mountains of darkness, they can swim through oceans of inequality as well.
Some years back, I stayed with some South Africans in Puttaparthi. One of the youth mentioned: We are Africans, we can endure anything. Africa has come a long way from enduring to inspiring. And South Africa stands to exemplify this transformation in some ways.
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