Nelson Mandela – a worldwide hero
Thank you, Madiba
Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s rights activist, dies
Source: The Associated Press
Katharine Lackey, USA TODAY
William M. Welch, USA TODAY 4:54 p.m. EST December 5, 2013
Nelson Mandela, whose successful struggle against South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation and discrimination made him a global symbol for the cause of human rights and earned him the Nobel Prize, died Thursday. He was 95.
Mandela spent 27 years in South African prisons before his release in 1990. He negotiated with the nation’s white leaders toward establishing democracy and was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994, serving one term.
“He probably will be remembered both inside and outside South Africa as a political saint,” said Michael Parks, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his coverage of Mandela and South Africa’s struggles.
“He had flaws that he had to overcome. He had a temper he had to deal with. He had to deal with what was going to be life imprisonment. Not all his decisions were great decisions, but what political leader’s are,” Parks said.
As a young man, Mandela worked as a lawyer and political activist to dismantle white minority rule under which blacks were denied political rights and basic freedoms. He began by emulating the non-violent methods of India’s Mahatma Gandhi. But a turn to violence as the leader of the armed wing of the African National Congress that included a bombing campaign against government targets led to his imprisonment for over a quarter-century.
A worldwide campaign against apartheid pressured the regime into releasing Mandela in 1990 at age 71. He vowed to seek peace and reconciliation with South Africa’s whites — but only if blacks received full rights as citizens.
“He probably will be remembered both inside and outside South Africa as a political saint.”
— Michael Parks, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times
Amid tense negotiations with the government and the threat of violence on all sides, Mandela emerged as a leader who guided South Africa to a new democratic government guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens. Four years later, Mandela became his nation’s first black president.
Mandela’s charisma, stoic optimism and conciliation toward adversaries and oppressors established him as one of the world’s most recognizable statesmen of the 20th century and a hero of South African democracy.
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy,” Mandela once said. “Then he becomes your partner.”
Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with South Africa’s president at the time, Frederik Willem de Klerk, for working together to dismantle apartheid.
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Nelson Mandela’s Life Story
Nelson Mandela giving a speech in Court in 1964 stating that he is prepared to die as he was being sentenced to death.
BBC News Nelson Mandela released from prison
Nelson Mandela speech delivered at the Nelson Mandela: An International tribute to Free South Africa concert on 16/4/1990,at Wembley stadium, two months after his release from prison on 11/2/1990
Nelson Mandela Congressional Gold Medal Speech
Nelson Mandela elected President of South Africa (Millennium Minutes)
Nelson Mandela Speech after being elected President
Nelson Mandela – on OPRAH WINFREY
Nelson Mandela – on OPRAH WINFREY
Nelson Mandela at the United Nations
MIT PhD Candidate Sues CIA for the Records Surrounding the 1962 Arrest of Nelson Mandela.
http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2014/01/nelson-mandela-cia-foia-lawsuit/
[WASHINGTON, DC] Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) PhD candidate Ryan Shapiro filed a lawsuit this morning against the Central Intelligence Agency over the spy agency’s failure to comply with his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records on recently deceased anti-apartheid activist and South African President, Nelson Mandela. Shapiro wants to know why the CIA viewed Mandela as a threat to American security, and what actions the Agency took to thwart Mandela’s efforts to secure racial justice and democracy in South Africa.
Shapiro, a FOIA specialist, is an historian of the policing of dissent and the political functioning of national security. His pathbreaking FOIA work has already led the FBI to declare his MIT dissertation research a threat to national security. Shapiro also has FOIA requests for records on Mandela in motion with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Shapiro is represented by FOIA specialist attorney Jeffrey Light.
Two Key Issues Regarding Today’s Filing Against the CIA:
1) The CIA is widely and credibly believed to have been involved in Mandela’s 1962 arrest that led to his decades-long incarceration. Yet, the Agency has never admitted its role in this affair, and little specific public information exists on the matter. Shapiro’s FOIA efforts will begin to fill this massive hole in public knowledge of U.S. intelligence operations.
2) Despite longstanding public knowledge of U.S. intelligence assistance to apartheid South Africa in general, and in Mandela’s arrest in particular, much of the U.S. and world press has paid distressingly little attention to these issues. Even in the wake of Mandela’s death, these issues, including the fact that Mandela remained on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008, have for the most part remained ignored or discounted. Shapiro’s efforts will bring much-needed attention to these vital topics, as well as to the U.S. intelligence community’s continued outrageous aversion to transparency.
According to Shapiro:
“Though the U.S. intelligence community is long believed to have been involved in Mandela’s arrest, little specific public information exists regarding this involvement. Similarly, though the U.S. intelligence community is long understood to have routinely provided information to the South African regime regarding the anti-apartheid movement, little specific public information exists about these activities either. Further, despite now being universally hailed as a hero and freedom fighter against gross injustice, Mandela was designated a terrorist by the United States government and remained on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008.
In bringing suit against the CIA to compel compliance with my Freedom of Information Act request, I seek access to records that will begin answering the following questions:
What was the extent and purpose of the U.S. intelligence community’s surveillance of Nelson Mandela prior to his arrest? What role did the U.S. intelligence community play in Mandela’s arrest and prosecution? What role did the U.S. intelligence community play in the broader effort to surveil and subvert the South African anti-apartheid movement? To what extent, and for what objectives, did the U.S. intelligence community surveil Mandela following his release from prison? To what extent, if any, did the U.S. intelligence community continue providing information regarding Mandela to the apartheid regime following Mandela’s release from prison? What information did the U.S. intelligence community provide American policymakers regarding Mandela and the South African anti-apartheid movement? To what extent, and to what ends, did the U.S. intelligence community surveil the anti-apartheid movement in the United States? How did the United States government come to designate Nelson Mandela a terrorist threat to this country? How did this designation remain unchanged until 2008? And what was the role of the U.S. intelligence community in this designation and the maintenance thereof?”
************
What’s done in the dark will surely come to light.
NOW THAT’S THE TRUE-TRUE
AMEN!
@FrankConniff
Santorum is wrong to compare Obamacare to Apartheid because unlike Obamacare, many Republicans supported Apartheid.
https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/409013920599248897/photo/1
https://twitter.com/DaRiverZkind/status/409000706561937408/photo/1
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/408998056198041600/photo/1
https://twitter.com/DaRiverZkind/status/408990032951660544/photo/1
Nelson Mandela – A personal eulogy
By Liberal Librarian 41 Comments
As I’m sure you’ve all determined by now, I’m a bit odd. And that was true in my childhood as well.
I was probably the only freshman in high school who would stop off and buy copies of the New York Daily News and New York Times every morning. (Daily News for the sports and local news, NYT for the national and international news.) And Dan Rather’s broadcast was appointment viewing for me every night.
Growing up I was, while not consumed, very mindful of the struggles of black South Africans to secure freedom from apartheid. For most of the 1980s, their struggles dominated the evening news and newspapers. I remember curling my lip in disgust when the Reagan administration pursued “quiet diplomacy” with the racist regime. That told me all I needed to know about Reagan, as if I didn’t know enough already.
Growing up, Nelson Mandela was a mythic figure, the Once and Future King, kept on the isle of Avalon (Robben), awaiting to return to a nation in desperate need of him. And it finally happened in 1990.
Back when CNN was a real news network, I remember its coverage of his release. I remember watching an old man, bent by years of hard labor but far from broken, ennobled by his hardships. This many years later the memories blend into one another, but I do recall thinking “Well, this is something unique.” The leadership of a despotic regime realized that to continue the despotism would be to wallow in a sea of blood, eventually its own blood, and moved to co-opt its sternest opponent.
Except Mandela would not be co-opted. His position was still the position which he stated in his closing speech at his treason trial: full democracy, for black and white, with no half measures. If F.W. de Klerk thought he could preserve white privilege by freeing Mandela, he was sorely mistaken.
And yet South Africa did something amazing. It saved itself. The road wasn’t smooth. There were outbursts of heartrending violence, especially between the ANC and the Zulu Inkatha Party. But through it all there was the example of Nelson Mandela, a secular saint, preaching both forgiveness and remembrance, so that the sins of the past never again occurred.
His election as South Africa’s first fully democratically elected president was never in doubt. And yet, when he made his inaugural speech, the world changed. If a country as mired in violence and oppression as South Africa could change, then any other country could change. His election was important not only to his fellow citizens; it was a call to the world, to be better than what it was.
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-a-personal-eulogy/
https://twitter.com/Only4RM/status/409033369985372160
http://youtu.be/844oPFWG6Lg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-s2Ch2BtAFs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=31-gUUkfQrA
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/408978923490254848/photo/1
https://twitter.com/SpeakerBoehner/status/408975883072839680/photo/1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8OcqVKq0ahM
Ladies, where are the 3CHICS gifs for this
…….
Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel.
DECEMBER 6, 2013
Dear revisionists, Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view. Right now, you are anxiously pacing the corridors of your condos and country estates, looking for the right words, the right tributes, the right-wing tributes. You will say that Mandela was not about race. You will say that Mandela was not about politics. You will say that Mandela was about nothing but one love, you will try to reduce him to a lilting reggae tune. “Let’s get together, and feel alright.” Yes, you will do that.
You will make out that apartheid was just some sort of evil mystical space disease that suddenly fell from the heavens and settled on all of us, had us all, black or white, in its thrall, until Mandela appeared from the ether to redeem us. You will try to make Mandela a Magic Negro and you will fail. You will say that Mandela stood above all for forgiveness whilst scuttling swiftly over the details of the perversity that he had the grace to forgive.
You will try to make out that apartheid was some horrid spontaneous historical aberration, and not the logical culmination of centuries of imperial arrogance. Yes, you will try that too. You will imply or audaciously state that its evils ended the day Mandela stepped out of jail. You will fold your hands and say the blacks have no-one to blame now but themselves.
http://www.okwonga.com/?p=869
They’re trying. Murdering Joe had on all the GOP usual suspects: James Baker, Colin Powell singing Mandela’s praises. When Ray-gun was so PRO-APARTHEID. And of course that simple Harold Ford Jr. was on.
Nelson Mandela’s statement from the dock at the opening of his trial on charges of sabotage, Supreme court of South Africa, Pretoria, April 20 1964.
http://www.theguardian.com/Guardian/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela1
Excerpt:
With thanks to the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Ametia, this says it all, to support the article.
The Black Africans in S.A. had suffered horrific conditions forever under the White rule.
More from his statement from the dock at his trial for sabotage:
Nelson Mandela Tribute – Boston City Singers and Imilonji KaNtu Cho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oaQpcJQb4Nk
Thanks for this Ametia!
YVW
“Tribute to Nelson Mandela (Swahili Version)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rIZrMCdWE6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GazpeCBlznI
Madiba – “The Mandela Tribute Song” by Dr Cyril Harrisberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WCSv1b-I6oc
Nelson Mandela Tribute: Now is the Time by Lorraine Klaasen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3pVzWtkKZ-I
The New Real America
by BooMan
Fri Dec 6th, 2013 at 10:54:19 AM EST
Here in the United States, particularly among conservatives, the African National Congress was considered to be a communist organization. So, sophomore Barack Obama was inviting members of a communist terrorist organization to speak at his school. Despite this, he somehow became president of the United States about 25 years later. This is perplexing to people like Dinesh D’Souza who think an embrace of the ANC should be fatal to a political career. It’s maddening to people like Sarah Palin who thinks the president should never have palled around with terrorists. In her “real America,” a movement to raise black consciousness was racism in reverse, and the socialism espoused by most in the African independence movement (including Barack Obama Sr.) was morally suspect and un-American.
It should be noted that Nelson Mandela addressed these accusations at his trial in a speech that he made in his own defense. After the speech, the public did not hear from him again for more than 25 years. He explained that his organization embarked on a program of sabotage that explicitly ruled out terrorism, guerrilla warfare, or open revolution. He explained that the communists were useful allies but held some fundamentally irreconcilable beliefs.
Another way of putting this is that white South Africans, as well as many white Brits and white Americans, did not fully appreciate how much the Soviets gained from the West’s institutional racism. Mandela explained the phenomenon very well. But he and his movement were not communists.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/12/6/105419/999
BREAKING: President Obama and the First lady to travel to South Africa next week to pay respects to Nelson Mandela.
So happy to hear FLOTUS will accompany POTUS.
SO happy about this
Don’t Sanitize Nelson Mandela: He’s Honored Now, But Was Hated Then
By Peter Beinart
December 5th 20137:40 pm
If we turn the late South African leader into a nonthreatening moral icon, we’ll forget a key lesson from his life: America isn’t always a force for freedom.
Now that he’s dead, and can cause no more trouble, Nelson Mandela is being mourned across the ideological spectrum as a saint. But not long ago, in Washington’s highest circles, he was considered an enemy of the United States. Unless we remember why, we won’t truly honor his legacy.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his “vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/05/don-t-sanitize-nelson-mandela-he-s-honored-now-but-was-hated-then.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet#url=/articles/2013/12/05/don-t-sanitize-nelson-mandela-he-s-honored-now-but-was-hated-then.html
pareene @pareene Follow
Imagine being young in the 1980s and supporting apartheid. Those people still run most of the conservative movement.
11:32 PM – 5 Dec 2013
Mandela Taught a Continent to Forgive
By JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA
Published: December 5, 2013
ACCRA, Ghana — FOR years, it seemed as though only one photograph of Nelson Mandela existed. It showed him with bushy hair, plump cheeks, and a look of serious determination. But it was a black-and-white shot, so grainy it looked ancient — a visual documentation of an era and an individual whose time had long passed.
In the early 1960s, fed up with the systematic oppression and inhumane treatment of indigenous Africans, Mandela successfully proposed a plan of violent tactics and guerrilla warfare, essentially forming the military wing of the African National Congress. Within a few years, this martial division, aptly named Umkhonto we Sizwe or Spear of the Nation, was discovered and its leadership detained. In 1964 Mandela was found guilty of sabotage, and ordered to serve a life sentence.
During his trial, in lieu of testimony, he delivered a speech from the dock. “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities,” he said. “It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
I was 5 years old when Nelson Mandela became prisoner number 46664, and was banished to spend the remainder of his years on Robben Island, five square miles of land floating just north of Cape Town. Robben Island had been the site of a colony for lepers, a lunatic asylum and a series of prisons. It was a place of exile, punishment and isolation, a place where people were sent and then forgotten.
But the haunting image in that photograph did not let us forget. In the 1970s, I was a member of the African Youth Command, an activist group that protested against social and political injustices. We idolized Mandela. We hung posters of that photograph in our dormitory rooms; we printed it on pamphlets. We refused to let Mandela fade into irrelevance; we marched, held demonstrations, staged concerts and boycotts, signed petitions and issued press statements. We did everything we could to decry the evils of apartheid and keep his name on people’s tongues. We even burned effigies of John Vorster, Jimmy Kruger and other proponents of that government-sanctioned white supremacy.
Freedom on the African continent was a reality for which we were willing to fight. Nevertheless, I think we’d resigned ourselves to the likelihood that Mandela would remain a prisoner until his death, and South Africans would not experience equality until well after our lifetimes. Then on Feb. 11, 1990, the miraculous happened; Mandela was released.
The world was spellbound. We wondered what we would do if we were in his shoes. We all waited for an indescribable rage, a call for retribution that any reasonable mind would have understood. Twenty-seven years of his life, gone. Day after day of hard labor in a limestone quarry, chipping away at white rock under a bright and merciless sun — without benefit of protective eyewear — had virtually destroyed his tear ducts and, for years, robbed Mandela even of his ability to cry.
Yet, the man insisted on forgiveness. “To go to prison because of your convictions,” he said, “and be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, is something worthwhile. It is an achievement for a man to do his duty on earth irrespective of the consequences.”
By the time I finally came face to face with Nelson Mandela, he had already been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and elected president of a land in which he and all other black people had previously been refused suffrage. He had become an icon, not only of hope, but also of the possibility for healing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/opinion/mahama-mandela-taught-a-continent-to-forgive.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
https://twitter.com/amk4obama/status/408943909755043841/photo/1
Mandela to be buried Dec. 15
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA — Dec. 6, 2013 8:39 AM EST
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s president says Nelson Mandela will be buried on Sunday, Dec. 15.
President Jacob Zuma also said Friday that a memorial service in a
Johannesburg stadium will be held for the anti-apartheid leader on
Tuesday, Dec. 10. Zuma said that Mandela’s body will lie in state at
government buildings in Pretoria from Wednesday, Dec. 11, until the
burial.
He said this coming Sunday, Dec. 8, will be a national day of prayer and reflection.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/south-africans-mourn-celebrate-mandela-0
Mandela, in His Own Words
http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/12/mandela_in_his_own_words.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
The man that the world is mourning today was a son, a husband, a father, a lawyer, a freedom fighter, a president, a statesman and a lot more. When Nelson Mandela passed away on Thursday, he left words behind that were uttered in court, written in letters from prison, spoken to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and more. Here are 10 quotes from Mandela to celebrate a long life committed to justice.
Nelson Mandela, the conscience of the world
By Eugene Robinson, Published: December 5
His smile was like sunshine, but Nelson Mandela was made of steel. It was his strength of character, repeatedly tested throughout his long and impossibly full life, that made him one of the towering political figures of our time.
“Our nation has lost its greatest son,” South African President Jacob Zuma said Thursday as he announced Mandela’s death at age 95. Zuma was being modest. Mandela belonged to the world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-nelson-mandela-the-conscience-of-the-world/2013/12/05/0dd6f536-5e07-11e3-be07-006c776266ed_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
Mandela’s funeral confirmed for December 15th @ABCNews24
Live video
Mourners gather to remember Nelson Mandela
http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/nelson-mandela-dies/
Thanks for this, SG2!
South Africans mourn, celebrate life of Nelson Mandela
http://news.msn.com/world/south-africans-mourn-celebrate-life-of-nelson-mandela
People across South Africa commemorated Nelson Mandela with song, tears and prayers Friday as the government prepared funeral plans for the former president.
JOHANNESBURG — As flags were lowered to half mast, people across South Africa commemorated Nelson Mandela with song, tears and prayers on Friday as the government prepared funeral ceremonies that will draw leaders and other dignitaries from around the globe.
A black SUV-type vehicle containing Mandela’s coffin, draped in South Africa’s flag, pulled away from Mandela’s home after midnight, escorted by military motorcycle outriders, to take the body to a military morgue in Pretoria, the capital.
Many South Africans heard the news of his death, which was announced just before midnight, upon waking Friday, and they flocked to his home in Johannesburg’s leafy Houghton neighborhood. One woman hugged her two sons over a floral tribute.
In a church service in Cape Town, retired archbishop Desmond Tutu said the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first black president would want South Africans themselves to be his “memorial” by adhering to the values of unity and democracy that he embodied.
“All of us here in many ways amazed the world, a world that was expecting us to be devastated by a racial conflagration,” Tutu said, recalling how Mandela helped unite South Africa as it dismantled apartheid, the cruel system of white rule, and prepared for all-race elections in 1994.
In closing his prayer, Tutu said: “God, thank you for the gift of Madiba.”
South Africans grieve outside Nelson Mandela’s home in Johannesburg
Oh girl is looking like” Take me home, NOW Jesus” while the white kids are like “Um, ok”
Thu Dec 05, 2013 at 03:29 PM PST
Farewell Madiba, Who We Once Called Nelson Mandela
by shanikka
I was asked to write an obituary about Madiba for the front page. In keeping with the rather clinical nature of obituaries for public consumption, I therefore wrote the diary as a chronicle of Madiba’s life rather than as the personal testament I might have otherwise authored.
This does not mean, and should not be taken by anyone to mean, that my heart is not broken into a million pieces upon his death. Madiba and the struggle in South Africa were transformative for me, personally, at a very young age. Indeed, the first political action I ever undertook, as a young adult, was at Stanford University in connection with the struggle to end South African apartheid.
Madiba has Gone Home to join the Ancestors. He is, as we speak, being embraced and welcomed Home by those whose lives were, like Madiba’s, dedicated to the liberation of the members of the African diaspora and, thus, humanity.
Like me, Madiba was a lawyer. He was a political leader. He was a man who knew the value of non-violence and the place for counter-terrorism and armed self-defense against racial oppression. Yet he was also a soft-spoken man. A reflective man. An intellectual man. A spiritual and religious man. There are many words and phrases I could have used to describe his complexity as the extraordinary human being that he was.
My ancestors were African, thus making me an African even though I have never seen the Motherland and cannot ever identify my ancestors stolen from our ancestral home in Africa for a complete sense of my true family since my past is opaque, like so many slave-descended Africans here in the United States, any further back than the 1880’s. Thus, the cause of Nelson Mandela in South Africa was the cause of my people here in the United States: the true equality of the Black race despite white supremacy. I may have no current need for the methods used by Madiba and the other members of the ANC, being in a different time and in a different place, but I understand those choices and why they were necessary at the time even if they are presumably not necessary today.
All that being said, throughout his life Madiba carried with him a fire in the belly for justice for the liberation of his people that is truly reflected in only one word. A word that became the rallying cry for revolution in South Africa, that many worldwide learned and used in solidarity with that cause. So, in reflecting upon and grieving his passing, it is a word that I will whisper tonight, in his memory. I will shout it, between reflection, tears of sorrow at his passing, tears of thanks for his long struggle on behalf of the people with whom I share a race, and tears of joy that he is now, after much suffering and much victory, now at his much-deserved resting peace:
Amandla!
Amandla!
AMANDLA NGAWETHU!!! (The Power to the People)
Rest in Peace, Tata (“Father”) Madiba.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/05/1260472/-Farewell-Madiba-Who-We-Once-Called-Nelson-Mandela
https://vine.co/v/hxTVulzmY2t
https://twitter.com/amk4obama/status/408802440306118656/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Dudette9t9/status/408799210385854464/photo/1
I have always been impressed by what Nelson Mandela accomplished after his 27 year incarceration while in his 70s and beyond. It was as though he had this destiny to fulfill and age was irrelevant. We watched him from another continent, but it was still amazing because he was one those rare, morally advanced leaders who affects the whole world. And, because he lived, we did, in fact, make a few steps forward. As PBO said, “he belongs to the ages,” and he will inspire us forever. We were so fortunate to have Nelson Mandela for 95 years. May he rest in peace.
RIP Nelson Mandela.
First Lady Michelle Obama Visits with Nelson Mandela at his home.
http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100209&t=2&i=58162442&w=580&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2010-02-09T091625Z_01_BTRE6180PRO00_RTROPTP_0_SAFRICA-MANDELA
Pope John Paul II and South African President Nelson Mandela talk on September 16, 1995 at the presidential guest house in Pretoria.
“The Rainbow Song – A celebration of Nelson Mandela”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vvsxXE5Gv4I
Princess Diana met President Nelson Mandela in March 1997 while on a visit to Cape Town, five months before her death.
She knew. She couldn’t say out loud, but she knew.
Wow! President Mandela commanded much respect and love worldwide.
This is a song popular in Uruguay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fxAwVhkBiIE
Eight men, among them anti-Apartheid leader and member of the African National Congress (ANC) Nelson Mandela, sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia trial, leave the Palace of Justice in Pretoria, June, 16 1964, with their fists raised in defiance through the barred windows of the prison car.
Thousands of protesters march for the release of anti-Apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. Johannesburg, South Africa, circa 1987.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mkBG3KeTBrI
https://twitter.com/nxthompson/status/408725684542926848/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/408720062481047552/photo/1
Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder on the death of Nelson Mandela
http://www.scribd.com/doc/189731187/Statement-of-Attorney-General-Eric-Holder-on-the-death-of-Nelson-Mandela
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/408739884342730753/photo/1
Wow!
Awesome!
http://youtu.be/0i-BH3HXT24
http://youtu.be/f8LFLzMX2nk
Beautiful tribute here:
http://oblogdeeoblogda.me/2013/12/05/nelson-mandela-1918-2013/
What a beautiful blessing the world received through the life and dedication of Nelson Mandala!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VVcuBbg0pSQ
May your soul always be blessed, Nelson Mandela, and may we always remember what you have taught us.
Read the most important speech Nelson Mandela ever gave
By Max Fisher
December 5 at 6:36 pm
Nelson Mandela was already 45 years old when, on April 20, 1964, he gave the defining speech of the anti-Apartheid movement, from the dock of a Pretoria courtroom.
Mandela had been in prison for two years already, for inciting workers to strike, when he was put on the stand again as part of the Rivonia Trials. Named for the Johannesburg suburb where South African police had arrested 19 ANC leaders, the trials were meant to be a blow against the group. But Mandela, charged with three counts of sabotage, seized the moment to speak directly to South Africa and the world.
What began as a statement by an accused prison became, over the 29 minutes it took Mandela to deliver it, his best known and most important speech. It was a recounting of his story up to that point, an expression of his views and a morally forceful argument on behalf of his cause. You will surely know it from the final lines:
Read on
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/12/05/read-the-most-important-speech-nelson-mandela-ever-gave/
Scene in front of Nelson Mandela’s house. It’s 1:30am.
He was there family too.
YES INDEED!
I wish I still had my “No Apartheid T-Shirt”. I wore it out!
We’ll get new T-shirts that read: WE WILL NOT BE GOING BACK TO THE BACK OF THE BUS!
Amandla! Awethu!
Power To The People!
Nelson Mandela’s Life Story
NELSON MANDELA SPEECH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL8Qmznec2o
President Obama remembers Nelson Mandela: “A man who took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice.”
Madiba’s body was imprisoned, but not his SOUL. Soul is free, always.
PBO didn’t waste any time getting away from the media jackals. *dorpsmic* BYE
Obama: “Through his fierce dignity & unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others—Madiba transformed South Africa.”
“He no longer belongs to us, he belongs to the ages” – President Obama on the passing of Nelson Mandela.
The photos of Madiba are wonderful.
Madiba: A symbol of the power of good
05 Dec 2013 23:34| Mark Gevisser
Nelson Mandela will be remembered as a universal symbol for goodness and wisdom, for the ability to change, and the power of reconciliation.
The words “Nelson Mandela is dead” feel strange in the mouth today, almost impossible to say, given the unique way he was both martyred and canonised during his lifetime. He embodies a paradox: on the one hand we love him for his humanity; on the other, he already passed long ago from the world of the flesh. He is a peak of moral authority, rising above the soulless wasteland of the 20th century; he is a universal symbol for goodness and wisdom, for the ability to change, and the power of reconciliation. In person, he was not notably affectionate, but his image beams a very particular sensation: you just look at him and you feel held, hugged.
Mandela epitomised those instincts we most associate with childhood: trust, goodness, optimism; an ability to vanquish the night’s demons with the knowledge that the sun will rise in the morning. But he also made us feel good, and warm, and safe, because he found a way to play an ideal father, beyond the confines of his biological family or even his national one. He was the father we would all have wanted if we could have designed one. He was wise with age, benignly powerful, comfortingly irascible, stern when we needed containing, breathtakingly courageous, affirming when we needed praise – and, of course, possessed of the two childlike qualities that make for the best of fathers: an exhilarating playfulness and a bottomless capacity to forgive.
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-12-05-madiba-a-symbol-of-the-power-of-good
7 ways Mandela changed South Africa
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/05/17519665-7-ways-nelson-mandela-changed-south-africa?lite
Almost two decades have passed since the end of legalized racial segregation in South Africa, yet the abolition of apartheid remains the biggest legacy of Nelson Mandela.
Anyone aged 18 or under will not have witnessed the public separation of whites and blacks enshrined in law, yet that was the daily reality in a country where races had been kept apart since colonial times.
South Africa continued to enforce racial division, denying blacks the right to vote, until Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 allowed him to begin negotiations with then-president Frederik Willem de Klerk. Apartheid ended with the arrival of multi-racial elections in 1994.
This transformation was achieved almost entirely peacefully despite the country’s long history of racial violence and a brutal police force.
On his release from captivity in 1990, Mandela’s African National Congress continued its historic commitment to an armed struggle against apartheid.
https://twitter.com/MichaelSkolnik/status/408722058223181824/photo/1
So fitting that the film “The Long Road to Freedom” is showing in South Africa right now.
I knew he would. Thank God we have PBO as our president to deliver the statement.
I’m in tears…
Me too, SG2. Madiba is our family.
Thank you, Madiba.
For showing the way
Rikyrah, your post is a MAGNIFICENT tribute to Mr. Mandela. Thank you!
Thank you, Madiba, for showing us the road is long to freedom, in fact it is never ending. But we only need rest a while and take in the beautiful moments, before we continue on.
May your journey continue with the love and grace in which you left this earthly plane.
May God bless your family.
Thank you very much for your beautiful tribute to Nelson Mandala, rikyrah!