Nelson Mandela held a “deep and abiding” respect for Canada, never forgetting the support he received from former prime minister Brian Mulroney, family friend Stephen Lewis said Sunday in an interview from Johannesburg.
Across South Africa, people are praying, contemplating and singing on this official day of mourning for Mandela, as leaders from around the world, including Mulroney and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, begin to arrive for the memorial Tuesday.
While most people will remember the legend that was Mandela, a lucky few remember what he was like as a friend. One of those is Lewis, Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations and, until recently, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Through years of working with Mandela’s wife, Lewis was afforded opportunities to visit the family home in South Africa.
“We did have on occasion a lunch or dinner together,” he said in and interview on The West Block with Tom Clark. “The conversation was relaxed and friendly, sometimes humorous, often impish.”
All Mandela wanted to know about, however, was Mulroney and Canada’s stance on apartheid, Lewis said.
In the 1980s, Mulroney broke ranks with other western leaders to lead the fight against the apartheid regime, that included strict economic sanctions.
WATCH below: Former South African journalist and former vice president of Global Television Network, Ray Heard, describes Nelson Mandela as a very practical and imperfect man who was tired of being likened to a saint.
When Mandela walked out of Victor Verster prison on Feb. 11, 1990, it was a defining moment in the end of apartheid. Even though the South African government had freed him after nearly three decades of imprisonment, Mandela felt a need to call on international governments, including Canada, to help bring an end to the era of oppression in South Africa.
Mandela praised Canada for supporting the anti-apartheid movement and asked the government not to lift trade sanctions on South Africa — a request then prime minister Mulroney proudly obliged.
Canada eventually lifted the sanctions in 1993, the year before Mandela became president.
Twenty years earlier, Canada had taken a stand against apartheid when John Diefenbaker played a key role in having South Africa excluded from the Commonwealth.
But Mandela’s interests laid mostly on Mulroney, Lewis said.
And that’s where his interest ended, Lewis said.
“We didn’t much discuss the politics of Canada and we didn’t much discuss the culture of Canada. He was very circumspect about international issues,” he said.
South Africa remains a society of tremendous inequality, Lewis said, noting that more than six million people are living with the HIV virus, and that high levels of sexual violence, crime and unemployment linger.
But Mandela instilled hope in the society.
“There’s a great deal to be healed in South Africa, but everybody measures the future against the words of Mandela from the past and his tone, his feeling, his goodness will undoubtedly live on.”
– With files from The Canadian Press
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