EDITORIAL Nelson Mandela, Champion Of Forgiveness

South African leader Nelson Mandela leaves a lengthy list of accomplishments: successfully fighting against apartheid, becoming the first black South African elected to the presidency of that country, being chairman of the African National Congress, winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

But perhaps his greatest and most enduring legacy is his commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation.

Mr. Mandela, whose death was announced Thursday, was a lifelong opponent of apartheid, South Africa’s established system of racial segregation that greatly restricted the rights of the black majority. His activism in the struggle led to his being imprisoned for 27 years.

When he was finally released in 1990, apartheid was in the process of being dismantled, due in no small part to his own efforts. And in 1994, after he was elected president in South Africa’s first multiracial election, he made reconciliation — not revenge — a top priority.

No one could have blamed him for being bitter. When he was in prison, for 18 years he was confined to a cell without a bed or plumbing. He was forced to work at hard labor. He could meet with someone from the outside once a year, for just 30 minutes.

Yet in his eventual victory, he sought unity with the very officials who for so long had oppressed him and all nonwhite South Africans. At his presidential inauguration, one of his honored guests was his white jailer.

“Courageous people do not fear forgiving,” he said. Those are words that many people — and many governments — should take to heart.

Mr. Mandela realized that for a nation to move beyond its shameful history, its people must not just accept reconciliation, but embrace it. At the same time, he understood that the past must not be forgotten, because it can hold powerful lessons for the future. He helped form the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which spent two years investigating crimes committed both by apartheid supporters and by its opponents.

“To be free,” Mr. Mandela once said, “is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Those are words to live by.