Mandela was a man of rare human quality

Nelson Mandela embodied the best qualities of humanity and inspired them in others, writes Bob Geldof

NELSON Mandela was a rare example of what humanity should be about. It wasn’t just his moral courage and physical bravery but his generosity, his elegance, his dignity and, above all, his forgiveness.

I know it is an over-used word but he was a real hero, who inspired millions. He became this transcendent global moral figure who never let up. He had a clear moral purpose and he was prepared to die for it.

He lived an heroic life and was prepared to sacrifice it for what he believed in.

He showed the world the delusional construct of apartheid. It was ridiculous — the Boers pretending that the majority of the population of South Africa did not exist.

You wonder how the hell he became the man he did after what he went through.

Mandela disproved WB Yeats’ contention that “too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart”.

He proved Yeats wrong by exhibiting love and forgiveness even after suffering the hell of prison for 27 years.

While being psychologically tortured beyond measure, he remained focussed on what he felt was true.

He had huge generosity of spirit. He literally learned the white man’s culture and language and even wrote poems in Afrikaans.

He has been compared to Mother Teresa or Gandhi but the nearest modern historical figure I can think of is Garibaldi, who created something out of nothing.

Gandhi, although a very wise man, was a waspish figure who went around, razor thin, wearing a toga. He was an aesthete and was not an attractive personality.

Mother Teresa was a pain to be with and was very hard on her nuns. In contrast, Mandela was a man you grow to love intensely and he had huge personal warmth.

He also had great personal style and, in many ways, he was a bit like an Edwardian gentleman and he always looked fantastic in those colourful shirts.

I am sure he was prone to the same frailties as the rest of us because he was a real person. He was a proper man — both gender and species. He was fully in love with life and he was hero-worshipped. Children loved him and he loved them. He adored women, too, flirted with them, but always regarded them as absolutely equal to him.

Mandela also possessed a great intellect. He was a boxer in his early days and was always a quick thinker, with a razor- sharp mind. He set up South Africa’s first black law firm with Oliver Tambo.

He never stopped learning. When he was released from prison he did not understand how things had moved on, so his friends sat him down and told him about social change that had happened.

He had an enormous intellect as well as a great heart, which was how he was able to learn and deal with social changes. He stood up for gay rights and women’s rights when these were explained to him.

I knew him quite well. One time I was looking at some pictures taken with him and my kids and I wondered how an unschooled pop singer from Dún Laoghaire became friends with this giant who was both the godmother and godfather at the birth of his country. He was known as Madiba in South Africa. He knew he was hugely loved and he never betrayed that.

He was a monster of a man — in the best sense of the word.

— in conversation with Dan Buckley