VANCOUVER – In the months after Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and the transition process out of apartheid began, Andrew Schofield had the honour of being one of the people tasked with protecting the man he calls “a great soul.”
In the eastern city of Durban, Schofield served as a part of Mandela’s security detail as he began laying the groundwork for democracy in South Africa.
Schofield said he grew up while the apartheid era government spread lies about the country’s black population, playing on Cold War fears and saying blacks were communists preparing to take over the country.
“We slowly had to unlearn that kind of lie,” he said.
“I was lucky enough to realize that South Africa would be a better place if we followed Mandela’s vision, which was a vision of people working together to build something,” he said. “But, many people didn’t learn it as quickly as perhaps I did.”
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As an adult, after returning from studying in Canada, he got to be a part of the progressive movement that was about to bring about a drastic change in South African society.
“By the 1980s, our country was completely in flames,” he said in an interview with Global News. “There was a civil war going on and students, activists were being arrested. Trade unionists were being imprisoned.”
“We were killing each other and our country was dissolving,” he said. “As a young person… It became a decision to either support a non-racial future or to stay as a dinosaur.”
Now a high school vice-principal at Britannia Secondary School in Vancouver, Schofield said he is still passing on the lessons he learned while working for Mandela’s team, saying the leader’s spirit “inspires me when I work with the young people here.”
“He was a man of great gravitas, great moral strength and, of course, great humility, ” he said of his experience watching out for Mandela.
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Despite, on a number of occasions, being just metres away from the man that would be South Africa’s first black president and its first democratically-elected leader, Schofield never had the opportunity to speak with Mandela.
“My job was to make sure he was safe,” he said on Friday, the day after Mandela passed away at the age of 95. “As much as I would have liked to shake his hand and reach over and speak to him, my job was to make sure this great soul was protected.”
“It was a great privilege to do that,” he said.
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The threat to Mandela’s safety was very real in the years when the apartheid era was being ushered out, Schofield said.
“The white minority government, the South African government that was on its way out during that transition process, had been active in assassinating a bunch of our leaders and leaders in the progressive movement,” he explained.
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But, he said Mandela didn’t concern himself about the risk in what he was doing.
“He had great trust in people, so he didn’t concern himself with the security aspects of what we were doing pre-liberation,” he said.
While Schofield had a personal stake in what was going on in South Africa at that time, there were many supporters from afar that were a part of the changing tide — including from the country he now calls home.
“There were many young Canadians who were involved,” he said. “Young Canadians I know of were smuggling weapons across the desert to get them into South Africa as a part of the liberation struggle, playing a really heroic role.”
“Many progressive Canadians were involved and Mandela realized that,” he said.
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Although he is gone, Schofield believes Mandela’s “legacy is up to us.”
“I think we are doing his work and I don’t think we should be too pessimistic or negative about ourselves,” he said.
“He reminds us that we’re human beings and that we’re humans first,” Schofield said. “That was the central message of Mandela’s, our common humanity and the greatness of our spirit.”
“That’s Mandela’s great spirit that, I think, many people around the world are reacting to.”
With files from Jill Bennett
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