Dear President-Elect Trump:
Nelson Mandela left prison in 1990 and became the central figure in the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC sought to give blacks the same standing as whites by ending apartheid in South Africa. Whites in South Africa fought bitterly to retain white supremacy over blacks. Rather than motivating bloody vengeance, Mandela exemplified peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness. His people followed. The result was a peaceful end to apartheid and a transition to non-racial democracy in South Africa.
In April 1994, Mandela became the President of South Africa, completing South Africa’s incredible and improbable transformation from white-only rule to a black and white democratic government.
However, at the same time Mandela pushed for peace and reconciliation, 2000 miles north of South Africa, leaders in Burundi and Rwanda advanced hatred and ethnic violence. Burundian and Rwandan leaders encouraged the Hutu to kill the Tutsi.
The result was the massacre of 800,000 men, women and children in just 100 days.
Today, Burundi and Rwanda—national twins–have chosen very different paths. Rwanda flourishes. Burundi teeters on the precipice, ready to repeat another generational genocide.
The difference? Rwanda’s president works to heal and lead with principles that invoke the higher power while Burundi’s president is satisfied to retain power through darker means.
The comparisons of South Africa and Burundi/Rwanda in the 1990s and Burundi and Rwanda today teach us that the higher and lesser powers–light and dark—exist as the worlds two most basic forms of human power. Neither power; higher or lesser, light or dark, good or evil, or however else we call them; can work independently. They each work through us, as their agents. The relative power of light or dark depends on the relative numbers of us who choose one or the other. Consequently, they battle for the same space within the hearts of women and men. They are the world’s original partisans.
Undoubtedly, some hearts are decidedly for one or the other. But most of us are swing states and in play. And in each of us, the battle of choice continues.
Do we settle for the lesser power, or do we seek the higher?
It’s a choice that each heart makes. Your heart, Mr. Trump, is no more or less valuable than any other. But because you are the most visible among us, and because most of us are willing to settle for the lesser power, even though we’d really all prefer the higher power, your endorsement of one or the other carries significant weight.
Will you choose the healing power that unified South Africa? Or the destructive power that devastated Burundi and Rwanda?
The choice is collectively ours. But all eyes are on you.
More to come,
David O. Leavitt
