Maki Mandela — the daughter of Nelson Mandela — yesterday called for black and white people to talk openly about their feelings to help heal Bermuda's racial divide.

Speaking as she visited the Island for the first time, Dr. Mandela said Bermudians could learn from the example of South Africa, where her father has helped bring a level of racial cohesion almost unimaginable 20 years ago.

Asked for her thoughts on Government's Big Conversation, which critics have suggested some whites have avoided because it makes them feel uncomfortable, Dr. Mandela told The Royal Gazette: "People need to feel uncomfortable for them to feel comforted.

"If Bermudians are not going to be honest with themselves to talk, how can they feel comforted? If they decide it's too painful to talk, they are not going to get to the point of healing.

"Bermudians are not going to feel better by hiding things under the carpet and saying things are OK. You can't say, if a baby has soiled himself, we are not going to change the nappy.

"You can't hide the smell — the smell is there. It's the same if you are not going to talk about the issues."

Dr. Mandela is in Bermuda for five days to launch a new water catchment scheme developed by members of Youth News which aims to tackle water shortage problems in parts of the world.

She gave her backing to the project in her role as head of the Industrial Development Group, and executive director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, which promotes sustainable socio-economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa.

She arrived in the Island on Saturday and has already been shown the African Diaspora Heritage Trail, while she was due to join Premier Ewart Brown, Governor Sir Richard Gozney and US Consul General Gregory Slayton at a dinner party last night.

In an interview with this newspaper yesterday, Dr. Mandela reflected on the similarities between Bermuda and her homeland. South Africa is still recovering from apartheid, while Bermuda is attempting to tackle the long-term consequences of slavery from hundreds of years ago and, more recently, segregation.

Bermuda played a role in the death of apartheid, when Somerset's Lantana Cottage Club hosted secret meetings between South Africa's National Party and the then-banned African National Congress in 1989 and 1990.

During the get-togethers, leading Afrikaner establishment members, ANC leaders, United States Senators and members of the House of Representatives discussed how the Pretoria regime could be dismantled.

In 1990, under a National Party government dedicated to reform, formerly banned black congresses were legalised and black leaders such as Mandela were released from prison.

In Bermuda, nearly 2,000 people celebrated Mandela's release by taking to the streets with an anti-apartheid march.

Four years later, free general elections were held in South Africa for the first time, Mandela was elected as South Africa's first black president and the last vestiges of the apartheid system were outlawed.

The relationship between South Africa and Bermuda also came to the fore during the Boer War at the start of the 20th Century, when thousands of South African prisoners of war were transported to exile on the Island. More recently, Bermuda has retained strong business connections with the country.

On the links between the two countries, Dr. Mandela said: "While South Africa didn't have slavery, it had a form of slavery in apartheid.

"Certain people in Bermuda, black people, were denied privileges, so the effects have still been here long after slavery had gone — just as apartheid has gone but South Africa is still feeling the effects of apartheid."

On his release from prison, Mandela said his main focus would be bringing peace to the black majority and giving them the right to vote; and declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the white minority.

Regarding her father's speech on his release, Dr. Mandela said: "He said he was a servant to the people.

"For us to move forward we have to move forward as a united people, but we also have to address the inequalities of the past. We have got to find a way to coexist in an equal and fair way."

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa has given many victims of apartheid the chance to speak out.

One of Mandela's most noted reconciliatory symbolic moves came during the 1995 Rugby World Cup when he encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springbok team, and donned a Springbok shirt himself.

Government will spend $365,000 on Bermuda Race Relations Initiative this year, with the Big Conversation set to be broken into several smaller chats, and plans in the pipeline for a website, radio and TV shows and inter-racial lunches. BRRI panel discussions and lectures will continue.

Explaining the role of conversation, Dr. Mandela said: "Understanding comes from talking. How do you expect to understand me if I don't talk to you?

"It's through the language that any people is embedded. By talking, you begin to understand where that difference is, and you get to understand that other person better. Talking is the first step toward understanding.

"I feel strongly that Bermudians have to start addressing the issues. It's a part of their history. You can't want to throw it away and say it didn't happen.

"You can't have a country so beautiful as this, with all beautiful facilities and amenities, and a section of the indigenous peoples can't enjoy it.

"It's a prescription for disaster. You can't create this island of success and wealth in a sea of poverty.

"I'm not going to tell Bermudians how they should run the Island, but there are lots of lessons around the world of how people have done it.

"I'm not saying South Africa is the only one, but we think South Africa provides a good example of how you start a healing.

"That's not to deny that you still have incidents — however, I think we have not stopped trying to engage in dialogue and trying to heal.

"We have not tried to hide where we come from. The challenge is that as we come forward, people resist any kind of change. But increasingly they are becoming smaller and isolated."