Nelson Mandela, Negotiation and Conflict Management: David Venter at TEDxEutropolis

good morning ladies and gentlemen I am greatly honored to have the opportunity to be with you and to share with you something of the experiences that I had spending ten years of my life in government and working very very closely along a man whom I think we do not celebrate often enough a man who's an enigma who comes once in the lifetime of a continent and that man is 93 years old today is a very frail old man and I think not too very far from now we will awake one morning and he will no longer be there I thought it opportunity use an occasion like this to pay tribute to the man who had the greatest influence of my life Nelson Mandela who taught me that no matter how dark it is we can look beyond conflict and the destruction that it causes hence I've said reconciliation or recrimination and it probably needs a subtitle which says beyond conflict Mandela on occasion said if there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa there are also roads that lead to their goal two of these roads could be named goodness and forgiveness ladies and gentlemen these are the words of a man who was incarcerated for 27 years in a 3x4 Cell probably if one is very healthy one third of your life and one would normally think that a person who suffered such inhumane treatment for a political ideal would come out of prison and would ask for recrimination would say that I want nah to punish those who've inflicted hurt an indignity upon me but this is where this man is so unique because he breaks the paradigm of victims become aggressors I was very very fortunate to be present the day when Nelson Mandela was released and I was there with the who's who of the international media and when he went to ask wearing Ketron to deliver his first speech as a free man after 27 years I promise you that one South Africa hold its heart and said now he will come and reclaim his dignity now he will vent his anger and when that man got on a podium and said never never never again and the history of this country or one man be allowed to discriminate against another on the basis of race color creed religion belief the whole of white South Africa was speechless their expectation had been violated and all of a sudden one man one man with a solid belief took the heart out of conflict and anger and taught people that we can live together in love and in kindness for each other if we look at the word goodness there are a few things that I would like to share with you and I'm going to put them all up there optimism courage humility empathy and respect we often ask how do we get beyond where the world currently is the world currently is a very very sad place we've come through the whole Libyan crisis and we notice that what very often happens is after revolutions the situation is not necessarily better it's sometimes even worse unfortunately the dreams don't always pan out we've seen the Syrian violence and we've seen the terrible consequences of this and once again we see the same situation unfold that was in Rwanda when millions of people died the world is a talk shop it doesn't do anything Nelson Mandela on the other hand was willing to be a minority of one because he was optimistic he believed despite 27 years of incarceration he saw like a Viktor Frankl the meaning of suffering and misery and he believed that one day he would leave a 3x4 soul and he would sail across the waters to the mainland of South Africa and to the borders of South Africa and to the world and would turn this pariah state into an example of how people can live together and harvest the tremendous wealth of their diversity he was a man who had unbelievable courage I know because I saw the inside workings of what happened he was offered freedom on numerous occasions many many years before he was released on condition that you will rescind your political beliefs you will go back to where you should live and then you will live there quietly and every time he uttered these profound words only free man can negotiate only free man can negotiate he held to that steadfastly he had the courage when he came out of prison his organization was still absolutely motivated for an armed struggle and he said no the road to the future is not a road of recrimination it is a road of reconciliation now we need to heal the wounds of the past now we need to build the bridges to span the divides that have deliberately been created by one of the most repugnant ideologies ever he was a man who had empathy in natural reaction he should have rejected the offeree corner and yet he embraced them he said I can understand their fear I can understand their reluctance but it is only by showing my love for them that I will draw them towards me those of you who had the privilege of seeing Invictus will know the wisdom of this old man who was a man who did not seek honor and recognition but who sought to bestow it on others had tremendous empathy he had respect for everyone everyone there was a wonderful occasion where he took one of the most righteous leaders after he'd become president and he invited him to his office and the media waited in anticipation afterwards to see how he would lecture the sky on the future of this country as they came out he put his arm around him and he said to the media this is my fellow South African and a man stood next to him who had said never ever would there be a black man to lead this country the blood would flow the bodies would pile up man stood there proudly he said because he is my fellow South African but Mandela also had humour which is a great quality of creative people and on that occasion the media all piled on top of each other and people had stepladders so that they could get shots good photographs and one guy fell in the fish pond and his fellow journalists broke out laughing ha ha why you bloody idiot and he lay in the fish pond with his huzzle blood camera which costs quite a few bucks and the old man with a sore back came down the stairs and everybody went quiet he put his hand out and he helped the man out of the fish pond and he picked up his camera and he said I am so sorry sir and the media silently disappeared the man Nelson Mandela goodness forgiveness he had kindness he had generosity ah and his kindness didn't only happen in public fora it happened in the ordinary day-to-day life if we would do a trip for Nelson Mandela and everybody would stand at the bottom of the stairs so that the dignitaries could leave there was not this thing of ignoring these ordinary people he would come to every one of them and he would know them by name and he would thank them individually it is this man's kindness and generosity that today is increasingly written in the DNA of Africa do not take note of the 10% fringe element that you also have in your society nobody will change those people they will always be with us but if you look at the majority something has happened to them something dramatic has happened to them and this old man that is why he was given the Nobel Peace Prize this is probably one of the most worthy recipients ever of the Nobel Peace Prize he showed respect he wrote a moral code we always say that leaders should be role models role models for those who follow we live in a world where we are facing the greatest leadership drought ever this man came and taught us what leadership is how we transcend violence and hatred to come to reconciliation on my last slide I have put Nelson up there because it's a face I think that we never will forget if you want to make peace with your enemy you have to work with your enemy then he becomes your partner now this quotation I think is originally ascribed to Moshe Dayan after the six-day war the man with a patch over his eye but as it happens with rotations they often tend to be claimed by many different people ah the Clintons seemed to have claimed it as well on occasion I want to conclude ladies and gentlemen you know I'm always inspired by the following quotation and when my friend Hal month on a Brook and I sat down write the book beyonders at the end of it all we could uh tur a quotation from George Bernard Shaw who said he was a grumpy old Irishman but he wrote great things who said you see things that are and asked why I dream things that never were and ask why not may we become wires and not why not is I thank you very very sincerely for the wonderful opportunity to share a few moments with you on the life of a wonderful human being thank you very much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 85,367

Keywords: nelson mandela, TEDxEutropolis, conflict management, negotiation skills, Belgium, ted talks, tedx, ted, tedx talk, ted x, Hasselt, ted talk, English, tedx talks

Id: ufjV1fdCTbQ

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2012