I feel the need to express my feelings about the passing of one of my heroes - Nelson Mandela.  I don't have direct memories of the Kennedy's or Martin Luther King but the issues of apartheid and Nelson Mandela were ones I directly participated in.

It is amazing to me that apartheid was put into place in 1948.  Just three years after the Allied forces had fought WWII and defeated the Axis forces, the National Party of South Africa put forth the same disgusting ideas of the Nazi's - white superiority and a political and social separation of races.  Apartheid means "Apart-hood" or the state of being apart.  The separated the nation into groups based on color - the lighter your color, the more rights you had.  Black people were made to carry paper documents on them at all times, like the Nazis made the Jews carry in Germany.  No papers meant jail or worse.  This caste system or hierarchy existed even among the prisoners.  For example,  prisoners of Indian decent were given long pants but Black prisoners were given shorts, usually only worn by children.  Protests were met by massacres.  I don't understand why the world stood by for so long when WWII was fought to overcome these types of ideas.

I attended the University of California, Santa Cruz in the 1980's.  The UC student movement was at the forefront of putting pressure on both the UC Regents and the State of California to divest billions of dollars of their retirement systems holdings in South Africa in an attempt to pressure the South African government to end apartheid.  The city of Berkeley was one of the first to pass a divestment ordinance. 

Our schools' and our region played such a significant role in the divestment movement, Mandela came to the Bay Area and spoke at the Oakland Coliseum on June 30, 1990.  This was only a few months after  his release from 27 years in an Alcatraz-like prison on Robben Island.  He acknowledged the help the divestiture movement had on ending apartheid and gaining his freedom.  He particularly thanked the region and the UC students for standing with him when he was in prison.  UC Berkeley had some of the biggest protests (natch) but UCSC was also very active and involved.

I remember watching the elections in 1994 with amazement and delight that Madiba had gone from prisoner to President.  Because of the high illiteracy rates in South Africa, the ballots had pictures of each candidate and the brightly colored symbols of the political parties so voters could recognize who to vote for.  It didn't even have the names of the candidates, only the party's name.  I wanted to have a piece of that history, like having a piece of the Berlin Wall after it came down,  and thought others would too.  I thought of selling them as souvenirs and even made calls to South Africa to see if I could purchase and import the cancelled ballots but it never worked out.

After the election, Mandiba kept the country from falling into what could have turned into a bloodbath of revenge or reprisal killings.  He maintained there must be reconciliation for the country to move forward.  He oversaw the formation of  the Truth & Reconciliation Commission whereby victims could confront their former oppressors and learn first-hand what happened to their disappeared relatives.  Think of that - it would be like Jews from concentration camps confronting Nazis!  Too few of the former regime came forward but it did help heal the country's wounds and to move on.

Mandela was as important to South Africa as Gandhi was to India.  He had the same ability to work with his former enemies with little to no outward bitterness or hate.  His vision for the country and his political and oratory skills, even the timbre and tone of his voice had a way of uniting a country that could easily have slid into civil war.  We will not see another person like him in my lifetime, if ever.

Welcome to the Free2Move Chiropractic blog!  I intend to focus (of course) on chiropractic topics but will also include musings on issues "ripped from the headlines!", generally health-related but not exclusively.  I think I will begin with an introduction to chiropractic and the basic principles on which it is based.

Chiropractic is based on the fact that the nervous system controls all the functions of the body.  The nervous system is made up of the brain, the spinal cord and the spinal nerves coming of the spinal cord.  Our designer was amazing and encased the most important and vital organs in bone - the skull completely encases the brain, the vertebrae protect the spinal cord, the rib cage protects the heart, lungs, and liver, and the pelvis protects the reproductive organs of the female.  The brain sends signals down the spinal cord and out the nerves that come out between the vertebral bones of the spinal column and go to all the cells, tissues and organs of the body.  That is why chiropractic can help almost any health condition.  If the nerve going to any organ of the body is pinched, whatever organ or system that is, it will not work as well as it should be.

The amazing thing about our body is that even when a system is not working at 100%, we can still carry on.  We all know people who suddenly developed symptoms but before that, didn't know they were ill.  Maybe they had angina - heart pain with physical exertion - but before their first episode, they thought they were "healthy as a horse".  Then they find out their heart was only functioning at 40%!  I guess they weren't that healthy.  The point is, if the nerve that is going to the heart is pinched, they will be much better able to return to health without that pinched nerve.  Of course, they are going to have to change other aspects of their health regimen.  They will have to eat a healthier diet, get more exercise and rebuild the damaged heart muscle.  But again, if they include chiropractic into that health regimen change, they will have a better chance than someone who has a similar condition and doesn't use chiropractic.
'Nuf said.