Mandela: Don’t Ask Outsiders to Fight on Your Behalf… Seeking Strength from Abroad Doesn’t Build a Nation

By: Abdelaziz Yaqoub

Evening was cloaked in solemnity as a delegation of Sudanese politicians entered the garden of the old house in Cape Town. The house was not an official one, but a living memory of wisdom, struggle, and justice—where Mandela’s spirit seemed to reside as if it had never departed.

They sat in silence, until his voice pierced it—like a conscience struck by truth without mediation.

Mandela (raising his head, his voice like stone—firm and clear):
“What have you come to ask of South Africa, sons of the Nile?”

A delegation member (hesitantly):
“We’ve come to request mediation… for you to persuade China and Russia not to use their veto, so we can open the way for an international intervention to stop the war in Sudan.”

Silence fell for a moment, before Mandela’s gaze rose—as if searching them for a lost homeland and a tragic collapse.

Mandela:
“Have you asked yourselves: who started the war?
And who holds the keys to extinguishing it?
Have you tried reconciliation as you tried weapons?
Have you feared a mother’s tear and the people’s fury as much as you feared the power of arms and death?
You do not seek peace… You ask the world to relieve you of the burden of a decision you lacked the courage to make, and of a homeland you are no longer able to carry.”

Another member (with a broken voice):
“But the war is grinding the people… cities are burning, the hungry have no bread, the displaced have no shelter, and refugees have no hope. What are we to do?”

Mandela (calmly, but with contained anger):
“If you fear for your people, you don’t summon foreigners… you smother the fire with your own robe and body if you must.
Seeking power abroad doesn’t build a homeland; it rents out your sovereignty by the hour, and gambles on a conscience that isn’t theirs.
Don’t ask others to fight on your behalf, for a war you don’t have the courage to end yourselves won’t be put out by planes that come without conscience, love, or memory.
And those who fight for you—will they not ask for a price? Are you ready to pay it?”

Then he paused, as if summoning a wounded memory, and said:
“When I shook De Klerk’s hand, my heart was not clear—but the homeland was greater than my wounds.
When I left prison, I did not seek revenge on those who jailed me—I sought a constitution and justice that protected my rights and theirs.
When many countries let me down, I didn’t ask for their armies—I asked my people to be an army of wisdom, justice, and conscience.
Did you ask the Sudanese people whether you’d seek foreign intervention?
Or are you looking for a solution in New York because Khartoum no longer holds a home or supporters for you?”

One of them tried to justify:
“But the other side does not believe in peace…”

Mandela (interrupting with a steady gaze):
“I fought a regime that saw you as inferior because of your skin color—yet I still called for negotiation.
And what about you? You are sons of the same homeland—your dialects are alike, your funerals the same.
You have a great people, who supported African and Arab liberation movements, including ours.
They are your compass—if you are sincere, they are your support.
If you cannot make peace from your own flesh and blood, with this people’s help, no blue-helmeted force will make it for you—they failed in Rwanda, Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere.”

Then he turned to them, as a leader does to those who have let him down, but whom he does not hate, and said:
“South Africa will not be a gateway for internationalizing destruction—but it will not close its heart to a people being slaughtered in silence.
If you want my mediation, then make Sudan a country worthy of mediation.
Return to Khartoum. Reconcile with yourselves first, and with your people.
Lead a battle of awareness, and begin a dialogue rooted in truth and justice.
Collect the weapons, and move toward construction and rebuilding…
Before enemies divide your country as spoils in the shadow of destruction.
Don’t wait for peace to fall from the sky—build it on the ground, even if it must rise from mud and tears.”

Then he rose slowly, as one leaving a scene unworthy of his dream, and said in a soft voice:
“The worst kind of betrayal is when a leader chooses moral laziness and easy solutions in the face of his people’s suffering.
When politics fails, it should not be punished by Chapter Seven… but held accountable before the people, and before history.”

Then he vanished.

On the way to the airport, one of them stared at Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, contemplating its cold phrases—”coercive measures” and “intervention to protect civilians.”

He whispered to himself:
“Chapter Seven only succeeded in liberating Kuwait and South Korea from foreign invasions…
But in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Somalia, the endings were only more destruction and ash.”

Yet Mandela’s final words remained etched in his memory:
“Who will carry the banner when the guns fall silent?
Who will restore the people’s right to a homeland—not just a truce over the rubble of a burning city?”

They left the old house in Cape Town, heading to the capitals of intrigue and ruin—after a lesson in patriotism and love for one’s homeland from the spirit of a leader who never died.
They departed with bowed heads… burdened by a silence that this time came not from helplessness—but from shame.
A shame that makes anyone who asks for foreign intervention wish for death a thousand times over—
before betraying the blood of his people, or renting out his country’s sovereignty on the altar of international wagers.