Happy Birthday Madiba!

I remember it. Do you? How could you not?

Even though I was a few months shy of 8 years old on February 11, 1990 and my grasp of the world around me was not profound, I knew it was an important day. There was a buzz around.

My mother was excited insisting that I watch the special broadcast on CBC - the broadcast that was going to be shown around the world of Nelson Mandela being freed from jail after 27 years.

I remember being caught up in the excitement, running around pumping my fist and shouting 'Amandla!' though I did not know what it meant then - I just knew it meant something great. It was gripping - the thousands of South Africans cheering and dancing, Mandela peering around hesitantly, Winnie urging him to raise his fist in the ANC salute and boldly pumping her fist in the air and then he followed and everyone did in kind.

It was many years later when I fully understood the significance of it all of course. When I was a child, the South African issue was this thing that was present in the lives of all black people. It was both spoken and unspoken. For instance, those cricketers who had 'gone to South Africa' I knew something was wrong with them though I did not understand quite what. But I knew it was bad - mentions of them brought a furtive, uneasy undercurrent among the adults, especially as I went to school with the children of some of them.

As I grew older and learned and read more (much, much more) and became an avid formal and informal student of history, I came to understand so much better. For the Christmas of my 18th year, my best friend gave me a copy of Mandela's autobiography and I came to know even more.

And I was filled with admiration. How did he do it? How did they all do it? Being raised in the Caribbean, in a majority black nation, it was hard to fathom what they went through, also living in amajority black nation but being subjugated in your very own land. Living with that veil of fear always hanging over you.

How did he bring himself to forgive? That remains our greatest question and the source of everyone's admiration. Having had 27 years of his life taken from him, countless friends and comrades, enduring his son's death but not being able to even go to his funeral, the dissolution of his marriage - after all that, how do you forgive? And not just forgive in a superficial way but in a way that inspires others to forgive and to repent and that helps a nation move forward?

We have all been made better by the example of Mandela. And this is why, as he approaches his 90th birthday (on July 18th) the world celebrates. It is a joy to us that he has been able to enjoy so many years on the outside and reap the fruits of his sacrifice. Living well truly is the best revenge. Happy birthday Madiba.