What today's political leaders can learn from Mandela

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What Obama can learn from Mandela:

What Mandela understood is that the human factor matters. Big decisions – in politics and beyond – are made by people. Enemies are people who don’t respect you and think you don’t respect them. If you can demonstrate respect and empathy, they will trust you to treat them right.

The talks that ended apartheid have parallels with today’s talks on Iran. Mandela would have loved to sit down with Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani or Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, intuiting their hopes and anxieties and soothing them. By contrast, Barack Obama obviously dislikes Netanyahu. That’s a luxury Mandela never allowed himself. Dislike is an easy way out of engagement.

What GWB could have learned from Mandela (and from his own dad, but let's not go there):

Mandela understood that the Afrikaners weren’t going anywhere. A South Africa without them wasn’t on offer. So he worked with what he had. On Robben Island, he always told fellow prisoners that the new South Africa must include Afrikaners.

When leaders succumb to the fantasy of a blank slate, things go wrong. George W Bush imagined he could achieve an Afghanistan without the Taliban, and an Iraq that excluded former Ba'athists. Bush’s father always made time to brief Mandela. Had his son done likewise in 2001, he might have saved himself lots of trouble.

Again, what Obama can learn from Mandela (and from Reagan, too):

Mandela had a mission: replace apartheid with one person, one vote.

That principle was non-negotiable, yet on most other matters he was flexible, even opportunistic. After leaving jail in 1990, he planned to nationalise South Africa’s main industries. But in 1992 he flew to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where delegates from several countries told him this was nuts. Back home, he called in officials from the African National Congress and said, “Chaps, we’ve got to change.”

Successful politicians are unbending only on very few issues. Every position on lesser matters is just a bargaining chip. Ronald Reagan, for instance, wanted to cut taxes. Flexible in his tactics, he got there.

What the Egyptian military and Assad and other actors in the ME can learn from Mandela:

Mandela “made pacts with plenty of devils”, writes Carlin. Even as president, he never punished those devils. As he told white audiences: “Forget the past.” Often people punish others to affirm their own moral superiority. Mandela affirmed his superiority precisely by forgiving. It happened to be the only way to make a new South Africa. Egyptians, Libyans and Syrians should take note.

Don’t imagine that you are irreplaceable

Mandela retired after one term as South African president. His successors have disappointed. But only by coming and then going could he create an improbable democracy.

All excerpts taken from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a342e372-5c64-11e3-931e-00144feabdc0.html