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http://newsblogged.com/live-streaming-video-nelson-mandela-state-funeral-qunu-south-africa-sunday-15th-december-2013
Michelle Obama and South Africa’s Graça Machel have a personal connection
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/michelle-obama-and-south-africas-graca-machel-have-a-personal-connection/2013/12/09/de2e068c-60f7-11e3-8beb-3f9a9942850f_story.html
Michelle Obama, who is accompanying her husband to Tuesday’s memorial service for former South African leader Nelson Mandela, made her first trip to the nation in the summer of 2011. For the popular first lady, that visit was part diplomacy and part personal pilgrimage.
The personal was evident in Obama’s interactions with Mandela’s widow, Graça Machel.
Obama and Machel share more than the rarefied experience of being first ladies. The women, born on different continents nearly two decades apart, are both advocates for children and wellness. And like Obama, Machel has a law degree.
In Mozambique — where Machel lived prior to marrying Mandela — she served as minister of education and culture for a decade and is credited with boosting the number of children enrolled in school.
The two women got to know each another as Obama toured Mandela’s archives at his foundation during her 2011 visit to South Africa and Botswana.
Together, Machel (pronounced mah-SHELL) and Obama appeared relaxed. Machel, who is in her late 60s, took Obama’s arm and guided her through a collection of letters, photos and years of desk calendars that Mandela kept while in prison for 27 years.
“Wow,” Obama said as she looked at Mandela’s meticulous record-keeping. Obama, who was accompanied by her mother, daughters, niece and nephew, later described the experience as emotional.
Machel, for her part, tended to the Obama family with care. At one point on the tour, when Machel lost sight of Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, she called out, “Are you there, Ma?” Robinson smiled and pulled in closer.
Obama later praised Machel’s warmth and said the two had discussed everything from the complicated racial history of South Africa to the potential for impact the Obamas could have even after their time in the White House.
Machel, who married Mandela on his 80th birthday in 1998 — two years after his divorce from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela — served as first lady of Mozambique prior to her first husband’s death. She continued her advocacy work after her time as first lady.
While Obama was in South Africa, Machel brought the U.S. first lady into her world. Soon after the tour of Mandela’s archives, Machel took Obama, her daughters and mother to the home she shared with Mandela to meet the then-ailing leader. Obama described the meeting as akin to a family reunion.
Wonderful sharing here. The African & South African women take their guest in and treat them like family. I love it!
x2
MADIBA’S LOVE
Graca Machel: A Powerful First Lady
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/graca-machel/4216.article
As the world mourns the passing of Nelson Mandela, few people will miss him more than Graca Machel, who has earned respect and admiration for her own humanitarian and political work.
Graca Machel is the only woman in the world who can say she’s been the First Lady of two countries. She was recently widowed by Nelson Mandela but sadly, she’s no stranger to grief. Before saying goodbye to Mandela she had lost her first husband, Samora Machel, the president of Mozambique.
”It’s not two leaders who fell in love with me, but two real people,” the 68-year-old once said.
”I feel privileged that I have shared my life with two such exceptional men.”
Her extraordinary husbands are an important part of African history, however Machel does not want to be defined by her marriages. “I’m not Samora’s wife,” she has reportedly said in the past. “I’m me.”
And a strong me that is. Born Graca Simbine to a peasant family on the coast of Mozambique, Machel earned a law degree, was a freedom fighter, and was trained to strip an assault rifle as a guerrilla fighter. She is fluent in Tsonga, French, Portuguese and English. She was the minister of culture and education when her husband became the first president of independent Mozambique. The couple had two children together.
Machel was credited with moderating her husband’s Marxist tendencies and, before Mozambique’s civil war, boosting school attendance and literacy rates across a country known for high illiteracy. Tragically, Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash under suspicious circumstances in 1986 and Machel grieved, wearing black for five years and continuing to seek answers as to whether or not he was killed by the South African apartheid regime.
Machel was credited with moderating her husband’s Marxist tendencies and, before Mozambique’s civil war, boosting school attendance and literacy rates across a country known for high illiteracy. Tragically, Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash under suspicious circumstances in 1986 and Machel grieved, wearing black for five years and continuing to seek answers as to whether or not he was killed by the South African apartheid regime.
While Machel was in mourning, she received letters from both Nelson Mandela, who was in prison, and Winnie Mandela, who was under house arrest. ”Today we believe that our place was to be with you, physically,” wrote Winnie. “Each of us is imprisoned in different jails.”
Mandela flanked by his second wife Winnie Mandela (Right) and third wife Graca Machel (Left) at his 90th birthday party/Michelly Rall/WireImage/Getty
Machel eventually responded. “Those who have locked up your husband are the same as those who have killed mine,” she wrote.
She also drafted a reply to Nelson, writing, ”From within your vast prison, you brought a ray of light in my hour of darkness.”
I’m in love with a remarkable lady.
Nelson and Machel eventually became friends following his release from prison and subsequent divorce from Winnie. Their friendship blossomed into something more, with Nelson pursuing Machel’s hand in marriage. “We were both very, very lonely,” Machel once said. “We both wanted someone you could talk to, someone who’d understand.”
The duo was married on Nelson’s 80th birthday in 1998
Two fighter jets escorts the aircraft taking the casket of Nelson Mandela on his final journey home.
I love this pic! Madiba’s SPIRIT soars/
Nelson Mandela’s remains reach his childhood home in Qunu
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/14/world/africa/nelson-mandela-qunu-funeral/
Qunu, South Africa (CNN) — A funeral cortege carrying Nelson Mandela’s body arrived Saturday in his ancestral village of Qunu, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, where he’ll be buried surrounded by the lush green hills of his boyhood.
South Africa’s first black president will be laid to rest in Qunu on Sunday.
After a plane carrying his casket touched down in Mthatha, the closest airport to Qunu, it was transported in a procession to his rural home. Mourners lined the roads to pay their respects.
Mandela has always said he feels most at peace at the rural home in the southeastern corner of the nation.
“Look, he loved these hills. He really believed this is where he belonged,” his daughter, Maki Mandela, told CNN in an exclusive interview.
His burial Sunday comes after 10 days of mourning for the international anti-apartheid icon.
Before his journey home, the ruling African National Congress bid him farewell Saturday morning at an air force base in Pretoria.
Members of the ruling party stood around his black, flag-draped casket. They bowed and prayed.
“Icon of our struggle. Father of our nation,” read a giant poster with a picture of a smiling Mandela.
His wife, Graca Machel, sat on the front row, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.
“We will miss him. He was our leader in a special time. Go well, Tata,” President Jacob Zuma said, using the Xhosa word for father. “You’ve played your part. You’ve made your contribution. We’ll always remember you.”
Helicopters hovered overhead as soldiers marched the casket into the military plane. It was followed by fighter jets as it took off for Qunu.
‘He really wanted to die here’.
A mourner is helped by military personnale after paying her respects to former South African president Nelson Mandela on the final day of his lying in state in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Alexander Joe, Pool)
*tears* and *gratitude*
Mandela’s body is scheduled to be taken to Waterkloof air force base early Saturday morning, for the two-hour flight to Qunu in Eastern Cape province, where he grew up.
On Sunday, some 5,000 people, including foreign dignitaries and senior political figures, are expected to participate in a formal, two-hour ceremony beginning at 8:00 am (0600 GMT).
But the actual burial will be a strictly private affair, barred to both the general public and the media, government spokeswoman Phumla Williams told AFP.
“The family has indicated they want to make the burial a family matter,” Williams said.
“They don’t want it to be televised. They don’t want people to see when the body is taken down,” she added.
Around 3,000 members of the media have already descended on Qunu where a special stage and marquee have been erected for the invited guests who include Britain’s Prince Charles.
The funeral will be held according to traditional Xhosa rites overseen by male members of Mandela’s clan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10516298/Nelson-Mandela-Hundreds-break-through-police-barrier-to-see-Madiba.html
U.S. civil rights campaigner Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was in Cape Town in 1990 when Mandela was released from prison, also walked past Mandela’s casket today.
After viewing Mandela’s body, Rev. Jackson was seen comforting a woman who was overcome by emotion.
A man is comforted after he walked past the coffin of former South African president Nelson Mandela on the last day of Mandela’s lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria December 13th 2013 AFP photo/Alexander Joe
Many of the visitors wept as they witnessed the statesman’s body. Even the police were unable to contain their grief as the emotion took hold of the gathered mourners.
Viewpoint: What ‘Madiba magic’ means to me
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25299315
Dear Nelson Mandela,
As your body lies in state, let me salute you for the sterling contribution you made to the anti-apartheid struggle over more than 40 years.
You were prepared to die for the freedom of black people like me. You did not just give us the vote. You helped to restore our dignity, ending to a large extent the racial abuse we had faced all our lives. We are who we are because of you – and the other great leaders of the freedom struggle.
Who shall ever forget the horrors of apartheid, when many white people treated us as though we carried germs? We could not sit and stand next to them at most public places – and we certainly could not fall in love with them, the purity and supremacy of the white race had to be maintained.
We had inferior education and inferior jobs – in a nutshell, we were inferior human beings. We were told we were born stupid – that God had created us like that.
Even dogs were trained to be racist – they barked when people like me walked pass the homes of their masters. The bark got more vicious when those of a darker shade walked pass.
Apartheid-era dogs knew that there was a pecking order in apartheid – the blacker your skin the more you had to be fenced out of society. Whites were gripped by a “swart gevaar” (black threat) mentality, an Afrikaans phrase that encapsulated their fear of people of your skin colour.
Parcel bomb
I remember sirens wailing at police stations in some towns at nine o’clock every night – no “native” or “bantu” could be outside after that.
They had to be in townships reserved for them – or in their servants quarters and single-sex hostels.
But we have come a long way – those who denounced you as racially inferior, called you a terrorist and wanted you hanged are now celebrating your life and mourning your death. They will miss you, just as I will miss you.
You are now joining the illustrious sons and daughters of the anti-apartheid struggle – the likes of Andrew Zondo, who went to the gallows singing for freedom; Ruth First, who was killed by a parcel bomb, and Ahmed Timol, who was thrown out of the 10th floor of what was then John Vorster Square police headquarters.
“Indians can’t fly,” some of the security policemen were said to have joked.
These activists all inspired me to campaign for freedom, but you, as leader of the prisoners on Robben Island, were the greatest inspiration.
I grew up with images of you as a revolutionary in the mould of Che Guevara, hearing tales of how you launched Umkhonto we Sizwe as the “Spear of the Nation”; how you slipped out of South Africa under a false name to receive military training; how you surreptitiously walked into telephone booths to call journalists as part of a propaganda war against the apartheid regime and how you disguised yourself as a chauffeur of white comrades – until you were caught in August 1962 near the small town of Howick.
More at the link above
Ohhh…..he really is gone from us.
But he lives on in our hearts…..may his soul rest in peace.
My soul grieves.
A rainbow forms over the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013, after the public viewing of the late former South African President Nelson Mandela’s casket lying in state finished for the day. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)Matt Dunham / AP
Remembering Nelson Mandela and the Songs of Freedom: A Playlist:
Nelson Mandela Passes: 10 Musical Tributes to the Iconic Political Figure
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1568194/nelson-mandela-passes-10-musical-tributes-to-the-iconic-political-figure
5 SONGS THAT PAY TRIBUTE TO NELSON MANDELA
http://www.mensxp.com/entertainment/celeb-trends/21296-5-songs-that-pay-tribute-to-nelson-mandela.html
“It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailor as well”
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.fr/
Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa- Ubuntu – that describes his greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us. We can never know how much of this was innate in him, or how much was shaped and burnished in a dark, solitary cell. But we remember the gestures, large and small – introducing his jailors as honored guests at his inauguration; taking the pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS – that revealed the depth of his empathy and understanding. He not only embodied Ubuntu; he taught millions to find that truth within themselves. It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailor as well; to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion, generosity and truth. He changed laws, but also hearts.
After listening to President Obama’s remarks at the service for Nelson Mandela, those are the words that I’m reflecting on. Too often we forget that it is not only the prisoner that is chained…it is the jailor as well. Oppression affects not only the oppressed, but the oppressor. To rid the world of evils like apartheid requires that we free not only the prisoner, but the jailor as well. More than any man in recent history, Mandela knew that.
And so we must ask ourselves what is it that makes “a man [or woman] like Madiba” – one who truly reflects “Ubuntu?” As we’ve seen throughout history, those are the people who have bent the arc of history towards justice.
My suggestion would be that we have one of those leaders in the White House right now. And just as white South Africans initially feared Mandela while his critics were baffled by his outstretched hand to them, the dying beast of white supremacy is lashing out at President Obama, but critics misunderstand his conciliatory rhetoric.
I believe that President Obama wants to free people of color in this country from the oppression of racism. But he knows that will only happen when we can free white people from their hate. We’re in the midst of that struggle right now. And as Madiba said “It always seems impossible until its done.”
Thank you so very much for this and your other posts honoring Nelson Mandela, SG2.
I so appreciate them…..so moving…..so well done!
Thank you, Yahtc! I cried along with the mourners.
A Rainbow Appeared After Nelson Mandela Memorial Service
Madiba’s SOUL is at peace, and he is smiling down on South Africa. Spectacular!
The Rainbow is a sign from Madiba! 👏👏👏
That is one spectacular rainbow!
Beautiful sign for a beautiful soul!
Yes, Ametia! His soul IS at peace and he IS smiling down on South Africa.
Mandela, the Troublemaker
France Francois says we must remember Nelson Mandela for his revolutionary acts of defiance and not allow his legacy to be sanitized
http://www.ebony.com/news-views/mandela-the-troublemaker-045#axzz2mzLsXhVe
A s the world remembers Nelson Mandela, one of the most poignant memories of him was not that he was the first leader in South African history elected in a multiracial, democratic election or that he became that nation’s first Black president in 1994,after forty-six years of apartheid. Instead, it is the recollection that he was first named “Rolihlahla,” the Xhosa word meaning “troublemaker,” that remains most poignant. While the world mourns the great president and leader that Mandela was, we must also mourn the loss of Rolihlahla because it is the troublemakers of the world—not simply the statesmen—that challenge the moral fabric of society and change the course of history.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela launched the militant arm of the African National Congress, to oppose the system of Apartheid with a combination of acts of civil disobedience as well as guerrilla warfare tactics against the South African government. Apartheid robbed the Black majority of their right to vote, the right to choose where to live and travel, and other basic freedoms in favor of the White minority. In the spirit of the armed, pan-African resistance to colonialism, racism, and apartheid that culminated in the 1960s and 1970s, Mandela campaigned against the increasingly violent White-power structure.
Upon returning to South Africa after receiving military training in Ethiopia, the troublemaker was caught and sentenced to life in prison during the 1964 Rivonia trials for “sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government.” Even as he faced life in prison, Mandela remained defiant at his trial saying, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Winnie: ‘Very painful’ to see Madiba’s body lying in state
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-12-12/winnie-very-painful-to-see-madibas-body-lying-in-state/
Nelson Mandela’s former wife Winnie said it was “very painful” seeing his body lying in state as “in our African tradition we don’t display the departed”.
She told ITV News: “It’s very hard for the family to even share him even in his death after sharing with the whole world and our whole country while he was alive.
“He’s still not really just ours, the family, he still belongs to the whole world and we have to share.
“Here we are…the family still having to share him. It was yet another pain…one of those pains. Nothing I could do about it.”
Winnie Mandela would ‘do it all over again’ for a liberated South Africa
http://www.itv.com/news/2013-12-12/winnie-mandela-would-do-it-all-over-again-for-a-liberated-south-africa/
In an exclusive interview with ITV News, Winnie Mandela said she would make the same sacrifices and “do it all over again” to ensure the liberation of South Africa.
Speaking to ITV News presenter Mark Austin, Ms Mandela said: “I would do that 100 times more. I need to go back to those days.
“We had to fight that bitter struggle. I would do it all over again. There is no greater reward than the one we both had of a liberated South Africa”.
“I dressed up for Tata,” this woman said. /Azad Essa/ Al Jazeera
So Sweet! You know Sista’s gonna work it out.
Isn’t she too sweet?
I love this. She showed her love for Madiba!
Madiba has always inspired hope for a better future and some seemed insistent on continuing his legacy.
/Azad Essa/ Al Jazeera
What an amazing life. We will never think of South Africa without remembering Nelson Mandela, they are one and the same. Thanks for this and all of the previous posts, SG2, they are really well done.
Thank you so much, Liza! I couldn’t agree more about South Africa & Mandela are one and the same. *tears*
Mourners display outward grief after viewing Nelson Mandela’s casket.
De-lurking to say GRACIAS for this most beautiful, poignant & historic share. May solace be brought to the hearts of the grieving & blessings to the people of South Africa.
Hello, Aquagranny!
Thank you and AMEN!
Hi AG. Thanks for stopping in and helping 3 Chics celebrate Madiba’s Homegoing.
I love this…thank you so much
YVW!
IT’S ALL KINDS OF WONDERFUL
This gallery…Beautifully done, SG2. So poignant. It’s a moving tribute to Madiba, his family and his country. THANK YOU!
My pleasure. I cried as I was uploading the photos. My heart breaks.
RIP Nelson Mandela and God bless the South African people.