healdtoWn - a Moral Quandary W

hen he was 19 years old, Nelson Mandela left for healdtown, “a mission school of the Methodist Church... and “the largest African school below the equator”. Dr. Arthur Wellington, principal of the school claimed to be “the descendant” of the Duke of Wellington who had “crushed...Napoleon at Waterloo... thus saving civilization “for Europe” and for “the natives”. ‘Saving civilization for the natives’ was a british fantasy that would have been recognizable to many colonialist era inhabitants of trinidad and tobago.

h is biology teacher, Frank Lebentlele, a “Sotho-speaking” African, was married to an Xhosa girl. Mandela had been taught that such unions were taboo but observing their relationship undermined his “parochialism” and loosened “the hold of the tribalism that still imprisoned (him). (he) began to sense his identity as an African not just a thembu or even a Xhosa”.

Mandela was appointed a prefect. One of his responsibilities was to ensure that students used the outhouse at night instead of relieving themselves on the edge of the dormitory veranda into the nearby bushes. One rainy night, he had written up 15 students for breaking the rule when toward dawn a young man who happened to be a prefect did exactly the same thing.

the “prefect was above the law because he was the law... one prefect was not supposed to report another”. Mandela’s sense of fairness did not permit him to excuse the prefect and charge the others. he tore up the list. “If the prefect’’, he reasoned, “does not obey the rules, how can the students be expected to obey?” It was a “moral quandary” that remained in his memory.