"1969년 5월12일 새벽, 보안경찰이 (요하네스버그 인근) 올란도 집에서 위니를 연행했다. 경찰은 (어린) 제니와 진지가 치맛자락을 붙잡고 매달리는 위니를 질질 끌고 갔다…위니마저 철창에 갇혀 있다는 사실을 생각하는 것만큼 감옥에서 괴로운 일은 없었다. 비록 겉으로는 담대한 척했지만 속으로는 매우 불안하고 걱정이 됐다…며칠 동안 잠을 잘 수가 없었다."
"어머니의 죽음은 과연 내가 옳은 길을 택한 것인가라는 질문을 다시 하게 했다. 민족의 행복을 내 가족의 행복보다 앞세우는 게 올바른 선택인가? 내 가족은 내게 (민주화) 투쟁에 참여하도록 요청하거나 바라지도 않았다. 하지만 나의 투쟁 참여는 가족에게 고통을 안겼다."
만델라의 자서전 '자유를 향한 머나먼 여정'(LONG WALK to FREEDOM)에 기술된 그의 고백이다. 케이프타운 앞바다 로벤섬 교도소에 갇혀 있던 그는 어머니의 임종을 지켜보지 못했을 뿐 아니라 장례식에도 참석할 수 없었다.
만델라는 남아공 민주화 투쟁의 상징으로서, 첫 흑인 대통령으로서, 그리고 노벨 평화상 수상자로서 국내외에서 존경과 사랑을 받았다. 하지만 그의 국가와 민족에 대한 헌신은 자신과 가족에게 커다란 아픔과 희생을 안겼다.
만델라는 1962년 8월에 경찰에 체포돼 구금된 뒤 27년여가 지난 1990년 2월 석방됐다. 1918년 7월생인 만델라는 43세라는 중년의 나이에 교도소에 투옥돼 노년인 71세에 다시 세상으로 돌아왔다.
이 바람에 그는 오랫동안 사랑하는 아내와 가족을 만날 수 없었고 자녀의 성장과 교육에 아버지로서의 책임도 제대로 수행할 수 없었다.
그가 출옥해 나중에 남아공의 첫 흑인 대통령으로 올랐지만, 공인으로서의 바쁜 생활 탓에 가족에게 오붓한 시간을 제대로 할애할 수 없었다. 이 때문에 자녀 등 가족들은 때로 서운한 감정을 표출하기도 했다.
만델라는 1944년 첫째 부인 에블린(사망)과 결혼해 두 아들과 두 딸을 낳았다.
그는 이후 1958년 에블린과 이혼하고 위니 마디키젤라와 결혼해 두 딸(제나니, 진지)을 낳았다.
그는 그러나 1996년 위니 마디키젤라와 이혼했다. 위니 마디키젤라는 만델라의 아내이면서도 민주화 투쟁에 참여해 만델라가 이끈 '아프리카민족회의(ANC)'의 여성동맹(ANCYW) 위원장을 맡는 등 투사 출신 정치인이기도 했다. 그녀는 그러나 과거 경찰 스파이로 의심되는 흑인 청년 살해를 자신의 경호대원에게 지시했다는 의혹을 받는 등 논란의 대상으로 떠오르기도 했다.
만델라는 1998년 7월 18일 80회 생일에 모잠비크 전 대통령 부인 그라사 마셸과 세 번째 결혼을 했다. 마셸은 당시 53세였다.
'넬슨 만델라 메모리센터'에 따르면 만델라는 에블린과 위니 마디키젤라와 결혼 생활에서 모두 6명의 자녀를 낳았으며 17명의 손자 손녀와 14명의 증손자를 뒀다.
이들 자녀 중 두 아들은 교통사고와 에이즈(후천성면역결핍증)로 숨졌고 큰 딸인 마카지웨도 어려서 사망해 지금은 품라 마카지웨(59)와 제나니(54) 진지(53)가 생존해있다.
장손격인 만들라 만델라(39)는 국회의원이면서 만델라가 태어난 이스턴케이프주
(州) 음베조 마을의 추장(전통위원회 위원장)을 맡고 있다.
한편 (품라) 마카지웨-제나니는 장손 만들라와 만델라 사후 묘역 장소를 놓고 법정 다툼을 벌여 국민이 눈살을 찌푸렸다.
마카지웨 등은 지난 6월 음베조에 있는 만델라 세 자녀의 유해를 쿠누로 이장하 기 위한 소송을 내 승소했다. 마카지웨 등은 만델라가 생전에 자신이 죽으면 세 자녀 유해와 함께 쿠누에 묻히길 원한다는 이유에서 법정 다툼을 벌인 것으로 알려졌다.
만델라는 음베조에서 태어났지만 어머니를 따라 어린 시절 쿠누로 옮겨 살았으며 쿠누를 고향으로 여기고 있다. 만들라는 그러나 쿠누에서 약 30km 떨어진 음베조의 추장을 맡고 있다. 만들라는 지난 2011년 가족과 사전 상의 없이 자신의 아버지를 비롯한 만델라 세 자녀의 유해를 쿠누에서 음베조로 이장했다. 만들라는 소송에서 패배한 후 기자회견을 열어 마카지웨 등을 격렬하게 성토하기도 했다.
이 때문에 데스먼드 투투 주교 등이 나서 제발 만델라의 명예를 훼손하지 말라고 충고하는 일이 벌어졌다.
만델라는 지난 6월 폐 감염증이 재발해 3개월 동안 입원하는 등 최근 수년 동안 병원을 찾는 일이 잦아져 고령에 따른 노쇠함을 역력히 드러냈다.
만델라는 27년의 투옥 기간에 로벤섬에서 18년 동안 복역하면서 약 13년을 채석 장에서 일해 이후 폐결핵을 앓는 등 호흡기성 질환으로 고생했다.
<관련 영문 기사>
How Mandela changed everything with a rugby jersey
He emerged into bright winter sunshine, stepped onto the lush field and pulled on a cap. His long-sleeve green rugby jersey was untucked and buttoned right up to the top, a style all his own. On the back, a gold No. 6, big and bold.
Within seconds, the chants went up from the fans packed into Ellis Park stadium in the heart of Johannesburg: “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!”
Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, was wearing the colors of the Springboks and 65,000 white rugby supporters were joyously shouting his name.
It was 1995. The Rugby World Cup final, rugby's biggest game. And yet it was much more. It was nation-defining for South Africa, a transcendent moment in the transformation from apartheid to multi-racial democracy.
The day spawned books and a blockbuster Clint Eastwood movie. It still speaks -- nearly 20 years later -- to what sport is capable of achieving. With his cap and a team jersey, Mandela showed an incisive understanding of the role sport plays in millions of lives.
Mandela died Thursday at the age of 95.
“Sport has the power to change the world,” Mandela said in a speech five years after that match. “It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.”
A statesman, Mandela didn't just have brushes with sports, occasional appearances timed only for political gain. He embraced them wholeheartedly -- rugby, football, cricket, boxing, track and field, among others. And, by many accounts, he truly loved athletic contests, with their celebration of humanity and how they unite teammates, fans and countries in triumph and, sometimes, in despair. At one time in his youth, Mandela cut an impressive figure as an amateur boxer.
On June 24, 1995, Mandela and South Africa were triumphant. And he may just have saved a country by pulling on that green and gold jersey with a prancing antelope on the left breast. The Springboks were dear to the hearts of South Africa's white Afrikaners and loathed by the nation's black majority. By donning their emblem, Mandela reconciled a nation fractured and badly damaged by racism and hatred.
“Not in my wildest dreams did I think that Nelson Mandela would pitch up at the final wearing a Springbok on his heart,” South Africa's captain on that day, Francois Pienaar, said in a television interview some time later. “When he walked into our changing room to say good luck to us, he turned around and my number was on his back.
“It was just an amazing feeling.”
Mandela also could leave millionaire sportsmen like David Beckham and Tiger Woods star-struck.
“Allow me to introduce myself to you,” Mandela joked to then-England soccer captain Beckham when they met in 2003. Only there was no doubting who wanted to meet whom.
A young Woods came out of his audience with Mandela proudly clutching a copy of the president's autobiography.
Beckham, sitting -- almost shyly -- on the arm of Mandela's chair, said his meeting was “an amazing honor,” even if Mandela wasn't sure what to make of the superstar's hairstyle of the moment -- dreadlocks.
“I'm too old to express an opinion on the latest developments for young people,” Mandela said with a laugh.
In fact, Mandela, who came out of prison at 71 after decades of isolation, never lost touch. It was part of what made him an inspiration for sport and sportsmen and women. While he was incarcerated, South Africa was thrown out of the Olympics for over 30 years and only allowed back in after he was released.
Now, Mandela, known affectionately to South Africans by his clan name Madiba, was wearing the No. 6 jersey of Pienaar -- the Afrikaans rugby player with whom he had struck up a close friendship. The relationship was portrayed by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon in the film “Invictus” and took rugby and the story of the `95 World Cup to millions unfamiliar with South Africa's game.
The underdog South Africans won that day, beating New Zealand -- the top team in the world -- in extra time of a nerve-racking final.
“We underestimated how proud it would make South Africa,” Pienaar said, recalling the tournament and telling of how Mandela would phone him up regularly to check on the team. “It would be Madiba, wanting to chat to me, to find out what's happening. Is the team focused? Are they OK? Are the guys cool?”
The phone calls told of Mandela's desire for the Springboks to win for all South Africans, but also his affinity with sport.
He repeated his success in 1996, this time wearing a South Africa national football team shirt as Bafana Bafana claimed the African Cup of Nations title, again on home soil. With Mandela, it appeared you couldn't lose.
He also was pivotal in helping South Africa eventually win the right to host the 2010 World Cup, the first in Africa and perhaps the biggest test of South Africa's progress, of its coming of age, just 16 years into its young democracy. South Africa came through it with high praise, sweeping aside the doubters -- as Mandela said his country would.
Mandela's last public appearance for South Africa was at that World Cup final in Soweto, the township closely connected to the struggle against apartheid and the center of the world again for a few weeks -- this time in celebration. By then, Mandela was old and, unable to walk for too long and bundled up against the cold in a thick coat and hat, he circled the stadium on a golf cart.
South Africa, and the world, couldn't celebrate the country's biggest sporting moment without him. Yet, painfully maybe, it reminded them of a former Mandela. One 15 years earlier.
As he strode out onto the Ellis Park field in June 1995, Mandela stretched out his hand as he approached a line of muscular, young, mostly white South African players. He was crossing a chasm, both in sport and in politics. And yet, he made the journey smoothly and with a smile.
After South Africa had won the final 15-12, a fairytale ending to its first major event as a democracy, Mandela -- still in his jersey -- handed the glistening gold World Cup trophy to the blonde-haired Pienaar, an ideal picture of a new South Africa. Mandela reached out his left hand and laid it on Pienaar's right shoulder, patting it gently.
“He said to me `Thank you for what you have done for South Africa,”' Pienaar recalled. “I said to him, `No, Madiba, you've got it wrong. Thank you for what you've done for South Africa.' And I felt like hugging him. I really felt like giving him a big hug, but it wasn't protocol ... and that just gave me shivers down my spine.”
And then Mandela raised both his arms in celebration, smiling gleefully with obvious and undisguised delight as Pienaar lifted the cup.
“Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination,” Mandela said.
And he proved it. (AP)
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