Nelson Mandela as the "world's a father figure tackling global problems Mandela is long and varied. In some disputes, like Burundi's long-running conflict, he was a mediator. On other intractable issues, like the stigma of HIV, he was the campaigner and bereaved father who tried to address. But even his critics would concede that he became a figure with unequalled status on the global stage.transformation from prisoner of conscience and iconic human rights leader to practical political leader who became in every single way the father of modern South Africa and then transformed again into elder statesman," Simon Marks Mandela had the capacity to operate as an honest broker in situations where others might not have been able to, says Christopher Alden of the London School of Economics