Creon, the king of Thebes

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Sumber: Nelson Mandela, The autobiography of Nelson Mandela ― Long Walk To Freedom, (halaman 626 – 627), Bay Back Books, June 2008. (Copyright 1994, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela).  

Semasa dipenjarakan, Mandela terlibat dalam persatuan drama amaturnya yang antara lain mementaskan Antigone oleh Sophocles.  Perhatikan antara cerapannya berhubung Sang Penguasa dengan alat permainannya, kuasa:  

“When Antigone was chosen as the play, I volunteered my services, and was asked to play Creon, an elderly king fighting the civil over the throne of his beloved city-state.  At the outset of the play, Creon is sincere and patriotic, and there is wisdom in his early speeches when he suggests that experience is the foundation of leadership and that obligations to the people take precedence over loyalty to the individual.

Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he’s shown his colors, ruling the people, making laws! Experience, there’s the test.      

But Creon deals with his enemies mercilessly.  He decreed that the body of Polynices, Antigone’s brother, who had rebelled against the city, does not deserve a proper burial.  Antigone rebels, on the grounds that there is a higher law than that of the state.  Creon will not listen to Antigone, nor does he listen to anyone but his own inner demons.  His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy.  It was Antigone who symbolized our struggle; she was, in her own way, a freedom fighter, for she defied the law on the grounds that it was unjust.”