Rio De Janeiro - There is a picture of Nelson Mandela on the wall of the Cardeal Arcoverde Metro station in Copacabana. It is an advert for an exhibition on ‘Making Peace’ being shown at the Complexo Rubem Bragga, which began on August 1 and will run until September 21.
Someone has put a sticker on the poster. And someone else has scratched most of that sticker off. Some respect, if you please.
On Saturday, TV Brasil broadcast a documentary on Madiba’s life. No matter what else South Africa does, what heroes it produces, the country will forever be marked and measured by this one man.
Madiba came to Brazil twice, at very different times in his life.
In August 1991, he had been released for a year and some months, and was travelling the world to introduce himself and get support from countries on the way forward. It was a whirlwind tour.
Mandela did not want Brazil’s president Fernando Collor de Mello to lift the sanctions the country had on South Africa until apartheid was abolished.
The second time he came was for a bit of a honeymoon with Graca Machel.
It was a whirlwind tour, one that took in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Espirito Santo, Sao Paulo and Bahia.
The Gazeta do Povo reported that most of the people he addressed were ‘killed with love’.
He spoke to 40 000 in the Praca da Apoteose (Apotheosis Square), and afterwards said: “I am now prepared to meet Holyfield and Mike Tyson.”
At the Praca da Apoteose, they sang “Under the sun of Johannesburg”, written by Martinho da Vila for him.
It was all joy and happiness. It was fun and sun and happiness, but there was some discord.
“For Brazilians, however, the trip had another direction and created a lot of expectation,” wrote Gazeta do Povo.
“Mandela was an icon, and the announcement of his arrival intensely mobilized the black movement. But the visit seemed poorly organised, with delays and excessive commitments for a 73-year-old man. When the intense schedule was changed, black groups in Rio de Janeiro objected. The controversy increased when Mandela declared that Brazil was an advanced model of racial democracy. The negative impact from the black groups led him to say, before he left, that he felt a strong sense of bitterness among Brazilian blacks and that racial discrimination still existed here.”
Mandela said a lot of things in his life, sometimes he got it wrong, but he mostly got it right.
The saying that is repeated most often by Paralympians is when he said he believed sport had the power to change the world. Baroness Grey-Thompson, who until recently was Britain’s most decorated Paralympian, took the saying a little further speaking at St Paul’s Cathedral before the 2012 Paralympics.
“Nelson Mandela once said that sport has the power to change the world, but I believe it goes beyond this. Paralympic sport has the power to change the world. The Paralympic Games will show the world what extraordinary athletes can do, who happen to have a disability. These Games will inspire a generation to think differently.”
Whether the Rio Games will do the same to Brazil is to be seen. They have tried and they are still trying.
At the Metro yesterday morning, guards rushed to help English journalist Emily Yates, a presenter on BBC Three, down the stairs on her wheelchair. She was surrounded by Games volunteers, whose accreditation identified them as part of the ‘interational relations team’.
They also had badges that informed, ‘I speak English’. It’s a good thing the guards rushed to help her. Yates is also an access consultant and worked with Rio Metro for nine months on making their service easily usable for the disabled.
It wouldn’t have done had they given her the cold wheel. She got to the Paralympic Park in fine fettle, via ramp, chair and metro. At least one small legacy may remain from these Games after the world has gone home.
The Star