European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 27, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 a the stars and stripes . Rosenthal Mandela prisoners dignify their causes the moment Nelson Mandela walked into the room at Gracie mansion in new York City i was sure we had met before and As he talked the feeling grew. I put it out of my head or tried to because the times i had been in South Africa were when the government thought it had him locked up forever. But that kind of thing a where when a nags at the mind until there is an answer. An hour later Riding up in the elevator Back at the office i suddenly recalled the Man Mandela had touched in my mind and Why. It was in another interview room about 5,000 Miles away in a soviet prison Camp in the urals. The Man was serving 10 years for trying to escape from the soviet Union. When he walked into the room at the prison he ignored the police and wardens glaring at him looked straight at three americans who had been allowed to visit the Camp and said a Ruslan be Tench yes. Illegally arrested illegally convicted illegally detained in this then he talked about the Camp and his life in it stood up Shook hands with the visitors As courteously As if he were the Host in an embassy and walked past the furious Camp commandant to his cell. This prisoner is not known to the world. He is known to almost nobody except his family and jailers. And he is 40 years younger than Mandela. But Mandela brought him to the Corner of my mind because both had that elegant Carriage and that Way of talking directly to you and not to All the others in the room. Both spoke with a mixture of Calm and passion. And both conveyed a sense of certainty that one Day Victory would come to them and those who fought with them. In be not thought about it until now William Safire but most of the relatively few Public figures i have met and come to Admire have something in common a prison or forced exile. Nehru Sakharov Havel Sharansky among them. And i think it is impossible to meet Nelson Mandela and not feel you Are talking to an admirable Man. Some of the things he says or what the african National Congress stands for Are distasteful to me a including the opportunistically kind words about Castro Arafat and Qadhafi. But those things Are peripheral to the lives of Mandela and most of the people who follow him. I suppose it should be no Surprise they will take help where they can get it for what is Central to them a the political Power of the Black majority in South Anca. In his visit to the United states Mandela has shown something Many leaders Lack entirely a a taste and Talent for civilized discourse. He listens examines turns things Over in his mind and responds. His responses cannot be entirely different every time or divorced from his own struggle or Anc ideology. But he does not need a briefing Book or a teleprompter and he does not keep mouthing memorized press releases. Mandela has not satisfied the Wistful Hopes of some of his White supporters abroad that he will agree to the United states lifting sanctions. He says if anybody is to be rewarded it should be the Black movement not the South african government which makes sense. Mandela seems to have come out of 27 years a Twenty seven years a without hate or bitterness. At Gracie mansion i kept thinking White South africans Are fortunate to have their former prisoner sitting across the negotiation table. It was not prison that gave Mandela tit 5 5i6i�i5i7 11 6 1# 63 Hiji ? it a �?�7 a 2 i n his strength of self. It would be callous sentimentality to believe unjust imprisonment ennobled anybody a not a Mandela or a Nehru a King or a Gandhi. Or a Ruslan Keten Chilev. He a out of prison now but still can to get out of the country. Only god knows How Many other Fine men and women were murdered in the political prisons and so could never show the world their courage and Quality. Jawaharlal Nehru once said that during his 10 years of imprisonment he was Able to accumulate a storehouse of thinking that helped him All his life. A it May not be up to Date a he said. A but there is some historical perspective in that May have happened to Mandela too. But in any Case those who survive political imprisonment and emerge to Lead in dignity and Hope were people of strength and Grace before the doors closed on them in Africa or the soviet Union anywhere. That is Why they go together in the mind. So in new York Mandela did not show that he is truly remarkable for a Man of 71 who was in jail for 27 years. He just showed he is a truly remarkable Man. C new York time some thoughts on rearranging North America the federation that is Canada is pulling itself apart before our eyes. Russians Empire Long unnaturally bound As the soviet Union is breaking up the occupied Baltic Are leading the Way to be followed by the moldavian ukrainians uzbeks and others seeking a return to National identity. In Central Europe Yugoslavia a croats want to shake Loose of the serbs and the czechs and slovaks want to go their separate ways. With the notion of a a Union a the political amalgam of different Peoples a so obviously on the Way out Why is the United states laggard what s so sacrosanct about the states being United Little More than a Century ago we almost led the Way to orderly disunion. Only Lincoln a belated moral hang up about slavery kept us from setting the world Standard for sensible reorganization along common interest lines. If the criterion for Union is a common language like minded moral values or economic self interest the time is at last Ripe for peaceful american disunion into three Happy self contained nations. They Are 1. Bosn Wash the corridor of Power that is now isolated in our Northeast. Communicative financially powerful rust belted its Liberal patois permeated with a sharing caring vocabulary this Section already considers itself a standalone Community. 2. The confederacy plus no longer limited to the seceded states of the past would extend out to Southern California and Down through the Post Castro Caribbean with English its second language. 3. God s country the great Plains the upper Middle West to its capital in san Francisco on up through British Columbia the Yukon and Alaska a soon to be the world breadbasket preaching interdependency and standing fast against the global warm. Wars among these three logically Ereign countries would be unlikely _ Sov unlikely because their ethnic and racial divisions would be outweighed by a need for a common Market and defense against predatory european and asian regional associations. Sentimental anti reformers will prattle about a the Mystic chords of memory that join these self evidently separate nations. But if Union is to be decided on the basis of cultural identity and language economic coherence and religious or racial predominance then separation is the wave of the american future. Before Rushing into this however we should consider another possibility that the criterion of Union should not be exclusively racial religious cultural economic or philosophic. Pierre Trudeau who tried to save Canada bitterly cites lord Acton on the danger of narrow based nationalism a a state which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself a state which labors to neutralize to absorb or to expel them is destitute of the chief basis of that a Worth chewing Over. What Are the ties that should bind a nation what is the Modem purpose of Union what justifies reuniting West and East Germany that does not justify russians Union with conquests of the soviet Empire the Central purpose of a Modem Union should be to ensure following the expressed will of the majority while protecting the human and political rights of Mino ties. Size of population or contiguity of land has Little to do with that purpose. Diversity and ingrained tolerance for the seeming nuttiness of compatriots is All. Thus a country to be built Only on cultural identity Quebec Kurdistan -7 like a country fixed on a majority religion or one dominated by Pride or fear of race or gripped by a messianic political philosophy a runs the risk of xenophobia. Nonconformists Are outsiders outsiders Are outcasts and the single purpose Union is surrounded by feared strangers. If personal Freedom is the goal Here is the score card on Union the Unity of the alike is dangerous. The Unity of the diverse is Safe. Of course unionizing the diverse can go too far a leading to the autocratic excesses of Empire or the fuzzy impotence of world federalism. The trick of establishing a Union to enhance individual Freedom is to find Peoples of differing backgrounds who a by their history education or exhaustion a Are agreeably disposed to pluralism. Using these criteria you know what would be a terrific country Combine the confederacy plus and gods country invite in those neighbors. North and South so inclined a and Call it the United states of North Ameri Ca. C new York times
