By Anwar Sadat
Nelson Mandela was once labeled a terrorist for fighting for his people. Mandela knew that those who labeled him as a terrorist never understood the struggle of his people.
Rather than placate the West, he chose to go to the prison and was prepared to lay down his life for his people. He preferred to be villain in the eyes of the West and but liberate his people from the shackles of oppression and discrimination.
There are two positions that are impossible to reconcile: Darling of the West and the liberator of your people. You can choose to be a darling of the West and forfeit your struggles for the Justice of your people or you can choose to fight for the liberation of your people and be an enemy of the West.
But history has shown that once you liberate your people, the world will understand the motivation for your struggles.
My heart goes out to those we have lost in this struggle. My understanding of “their death shall not be in vain” was that regime that executed them was never going to be allowed to stand.
Personally, it will be difficult to embrace those who called a 6 month child “a thief and demonstrator” to justify her execution.
I understand the frustrations of most of our people. We have lost lives, killed by persons who didn’t care about their international reputation; but we are quick to talk of international reputation.
We failed to learn from history. 2007 should have been the last time our people were killed, when we entered into the coalition government, we would have laid the infrastructure to ensure that we are never executed again like Chicken. We didn’t and we have seen the bodies of our people scattered along the streets, killed and executed like chicken.
If we are not prepared to go all the way because we are concerned about our international reputation, let us leave our people to heal in peace. Let us not keep moving them back and forth without a clear message.
