Mandela

As I write this, Nelson Mandela lies in a South African hospital on life support.  Ninety-four with consciousness fading, his last days on earth may be approaching.  While his family battles over his body and his possessions, his country holds its collective breath.  What will happen to South Africa, they wonder, after he’s gone?

“I’m no saint.”  Mandela once remarked to a celebrity journalist fawning over him.  He understood his path.  So often we seek to idolize our heroes.  We make them perfect.  Mandela knew better.  He was a lawyer by training.  Faced with the oppressive Apartheid system, he sought revolution. An active leader in the ANC (African National Congress), he saw military action, bombings, and the like against the minority white government as not just legitimate but necessary.  Simply put, he was no Gandhi.

And, he had blood on his hands.  As corrupt and ruthless as the white Afrikaner government was, the ANC matched them.  Mandela was arrested, convicted and sent to prison.  The government believed by removing him they would silence him.  They were wrong.

A few years ago I read a book built around Mandela’s prison diary.  I was intrigued.  I had started a daily journal three days after my arrest.  I assumed Mandela’s would be different.  I assumed his would be political rhetoric of the first order.  I was wrong.  He diaried the things he saw, and felt, and experienced.  As I read his diary I saw the growth, the transformation of the man in the ordinary (if life in prison can ever be considered ordinary). 

I was no political prisoner, but I wanted to face my incarceration the way he did, with dignity, and courage, and honor, all those concepts that are in such short supply in places such as this.

I remember the day years ago when he walked out of prison.  I watched on TV and was sure South Africa would explode in violence and bloodletting.  There would be vengeance, I believed, retribution for his imprisonment.

I was wrong.  Contrary to what those in power thought, prison hadn’t broken Mandela.  It made him stronger.  And wiser.  I still see him walking out the front gate of the prison, a solitary man, but a man with a calmness because he knew what had to be done.  There was no bloodletting.  There was no call for revenge.  There was Mandela with a message of peaceful transition of power and reconciliation.  And South Africa moved forward, just as Mandela did when he walked out of the prison.

His nation is not perfect. There are problems; the social divide still lingers; corruption in government; crime; and yet, it has moved forward.  It is a nation with a future.

“I’m no saint.”  Perhaps, we are too quick to declare actions and people heroic only to topple them later.  Perhaps, we can learn from Mandela’s experience and the power of human will for transformation, for vision, for mercy.

Madoff, Mandatory, Mandela and the Magi

Bernie Madoff – convicted con man currently serving a 150 year federal prison sentence for the theft and loss of billions – received some devastating news this week. His elder son, Mark, estranged from him since his arrest, committed suicide the other day. Mark took his own life while his two year old son napped in an adjoining room. His death was staged on the second anniversary of Bernie Madoff’s arrest.



It was a tragic ending to a family drama that has played out on the pages of business journals, daily papers, and celebrity rags. Mark, as I noted, was estranged from his father. He was a party to numerous lawsuits by the Madoff trustee seeking to recover part of the billions lost in Bernie’s scheme. He was also the subject of an ongoing federal criminal probe into his involvement in the Madoff con.


Mark Madoff always professed his innocence, always said he knew nothing of his father’s wrongdoing. He couldn’t forgive his father for destroying his career, his future. He couldn’t forgive his mother for standing by his father. “That’s what you do when you love someone. That’s what my vow means”, she told him.


Mark told anyone that would listen that he was innocent. “My dad lied and betrayed me as well,” was his common refrain.


Yet, people talk. It’s painful and embarrassing to be the fodder of community gossip. It’s stressful to see your name in the paper and have every purchase you ever made, every decision you ever took, scrutinized. Over and over Mark heard “you were paid over $400 million working for your dad. You really think you were that good an investment counselor?”


I feel for the Madoff family. In many ways, my own circumstances parallel theirs. Almost every person who hears my story begins with the same question “How can she [my ex] claim she didn’t know? She sure enjoyed it while it was going on.” I tell everyone that will ask she knew nothing. It doesn’t matter. What she knew – or suspected – is between her and her conscience. But, people whisper and she couldn’t handle the public evaluation. So unlike Mrs. Madoff, she fled.


I used to worry a great deal about what other people thought. I was raised by parents – a mother especially – who obsessed on what other people thought of my actions. After my arrest, every time I appeared in court an article showed up in the paper. Within days of the article, a “love” letter arrived from my then wife – “you a—hole. People are talking about us . . . .”


Here’s what I learned. People love to talk a whole lot about other’s misfortunes. We’re somehow wired to feel better about ourselves when other folks’ indiscretions come out. Perhaps that’s why so much time is spent in the New Testament warning believers’ gossiping is a sin.


I learned through my own experience not to give a damn about what other people think. We all screw up. Even my ex, who I still love dearly, needs to face the fact she isn’t perfect. Same goes for my sons. They are wonderful, strong, loving boys, but, it’s time they “nut up”. At the end of the day, what my ex and sons need to learn, what Mark Madoff couldn’t quite grasp, is it doesn’t matter what they say or write about you. What does matter is we all screw up and we all need those people, who in good times claim to love us, to love us when the world seems out of control.


It’s not about being right and well regarded. It is about love and forgiveness.
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There are approximately 8,000 inmates in Virginia still covered under the “old law” (pre – 1995 when parole was abolished). Each year these guys come up for a parole hearing. That is really a misnomer. There is no “hearing”. Guys are called into the lead counselor’s office and sit in front of a TV. On the screen, a young woman with her face buried in a laptop, confirms the name and DOC number, then asks four or five silly repetitive questions:


“You’re still in here on a first degree murder charge?”


“You were rejected for parole last year?”


Approximately two weeks later, a letter arrives from the board. In all but 2% of the cases the letter reads “denied”. The reason: “severity of crime”. There was no hearing. The parole examiner (the pretty young bureaucrat with the laptop) sent email summaries of the cases to board members. No “blood and flesh” face to face with the inmate, just electronic summaries and, in most cases, denial.


Prior to parole being abolished an inmate in Virginia made early parole in about 50% of the cases. Today, parole cases almost always have to wait for their mandatory date.


How does it work? Take my fifteen year sentence. Had I been “parole eligible” I would have had a parole hearing after two years. Even if I was rejected, odds were better than 50-50 I’d be out at my next anniversary. With earned good time credits applied (30 days good time for 30 days served) my mandatory release would occur after less than eight years.


There has been a lawsuit going on in federal court over Virginia’s parole board. The inmates lost the initial battle but an appeal is underway. The case focus revolves around the argument that the board denies parole candidates their due process rights by the lack of hearing and relying on rubber stamped grounds (“severity of crime”).


A few guys make parole every year, but they aren’t “violent” inmates. DC has done 38 years. He has 5 more before he mandatories on his murder 1 sentence; Black’s done 16 years. Three to go to mandatory on his murder sentence. Tyrone: 30 in, 7 to go on his armed robbery sentence. Powers: 14 in, 14 to go on his murder 1 sentence. Malik: 23 in, 4 to go. The list of guys I know who can’t get out early because of the severity of their crimes goes on.


Here’s a question to ponder: If all these guys committed crimes so serious that they can’t be released early, what are they doing at a low custody corrections center? Each one of the men I mentioned deserves another chance. They deserve parole.
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Nelson Mandela, as I’ve written before, is an amazing man. He survived over 26 years in South African prisons. He was no saint, he’ll tell you that. He was a serial adulterer, fathering numerous children out of wedlock. He committed and supported acts of violence against the apartheid regime in South Africa.


Yet, this man maintained his dignity throughout his imprisonment. He did not become an icon, a revered hero, for his actions before his arrest. He became so by the example he set in challenging apartheid from his cell. He held strong, he endured, he overcame, he defeated the prison.


For many of the men I’ve met in here Mandela is living proof that you can never be broken by prison if you keep your mind free.


Time Magazine got it wrong with its choice for “Man of the Year”. In the hearts and minds of prisoners around the world, Nelson Mandela set the example for properly enduring prison. As long as I remain behind these fences, he will always be my man of the year.
____________________________________________________________________________________As you enjoy your holidays, remember that the Magi found the light of the world in a broken down barn. He didn’t come into the world in wealth and power, but in poverty and humble origins.


And the word was spread by outcasts and nonconformists, most of whom ended up in prison and executed. The good, decent, law abiding society rejected Him. It was the prostitutes, the possessed, the lepers and the tax collectors that flocked to Him.


The Magi went to find the new King, but it wasn’t as the folks in power expected. He came for the broken, the troubled, the oppressed, the law breakers. He brought salvation, forgiveness, redemption and hope to those in dire need. That may be a boring message when you think you have everything, when you think you’re “livin’ the good life”. But, for a guy in prison, it’s the most amazing liberating message ever received.


John 1: 1-14. Merry Christmas!