stuart ashley retweetledi
After becoming president, I asked my bodyguards to take a walk with me through the city. After the walk, we went to a restaurant for lunch. We sat down in one of the central restaurants, and each of us was asked what we wanted to order.
After a short wait, the waiter brought our meals, and at that moment I noticed a man sitting alone at the table directly in front of us, waiting to be served. Once he received his food, I told one of my soldiers:
“Go invite that man to join us.”
The soldier walked over and delivered my invitation. The man stood up, picked up his plate, and sat beside me.
Throughout the meal, his hands trembled constantly, and he never raised his eyes from his food. When we finished eating, he waved goodbye without even looking at me. I shook his hand, and he left.
One of the soldiers said to me:
“Madiba, that man must be very sick. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking while he was eating.”
“Not at all,” I replied. “The reason for his trembling is something else.”
They looked at me in confusion, and I explained:
“That man was a prison guard at the jail where I was imprisoned. After the torture sessions I endured, I would often scream and beg for water. He would come to humiliate me — he laughed at me, and instead of giving me water, he urinated on my head.
He was not sick. He was terrified and shaking, perhaps afraid that now, as President of South Africa, I would send him to prison and do to him what he once did to me — torture and humiliate him.
But that is not who I am. Such behavior is not part of my character or my ethics. Minds that seek revenge destroy nations, while those that seek reconciliation build them.”
— Nelson Mandela
English
