News, Events, Entertainment, Lifestyle,printing, upcoming artist, Inspiration and yes..sports
Translate
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Obama: Mandela 'belongs to the ages'
President Obama pays tribute to Nelson Mandela
Former U.S. presidents pay their respects
President Obama said Thursday that Nelson Mandela inspired millions of people across the world — including Obama himself — to work for freedom, justice, and democracy.
"He no longer belongs to us," an emotional Obama said at the White House. "He belongs to the ages." MORE: Transcript of Obama's remarks on Mandela
Obama described Mandela as "one of the most influential, courageous, and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth."
The president gave his eulogy less than an hour after the announcement of the South African leader's death.
Obama noted that he first became involved in politics at a protest against apartheid in South Africa. He said he has studied Mandela's writings throughout his career in government. "Like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set," said the nation's first African-American president. "And so long as I live I will do what I can to learn from him."
Nelson Mandela saw sport as way to connect S. Africans
It is hard to think of any person — political, cultural or otherwise — of the past 25 years who inspires such universal admiration as Nelson Mandela. We seldom associate him with sports. The index in his autobiography makes no mention of sports, even though he excelled as a boxer and a runner in college. Nor is there any reference to "soccer," the sport that the majority African population of South Africa claims as its own.
The only sport discussed in Anthony Sampson's authorized biography is rugby. Mandela never played it. He barely understood the rules — until, that is, 1995's defining moment when South Africa's rugby team won the rugby World Cup on its home pitch.
Perhaps you will recall the picture of Mandela, in a replica of Francois Pienaar's green and gold jersey, awarding the trophy after South Africa's Springboks won the tournament, one of the iconic sports photos of the past generation. If you remember the expression on Mandela's face, it is impossible to picture anyone happier.
If you're an optimist, South African democracy is well established and solid enough to withstand the trauma of Nelson Mandela's passing.
Mandela's African National Congress has won all four national elections since the advent of democracy in 1994 though its popularity has gradually eroded. Headed by President Jacob Zuma, the ANC still commands a two-thirds majority in parliament before elections in 2014.
The ANC rules in an alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party, of which Zuma was once a member. Communist and union officials contest elections under the ANC banner.
Zuma, South Africa's president since 2009, is a 71-year-old Zulu populist whose personal life is marked with controversy. He has four wives and 20 children. He was charged but not convicted of rape and corruption.
Recalling Nelson Mandela: 'Everyone was in awe of him'
The anti-apartheid leader's popularity was evident in a 1990 visit to the United States.
Detroit Magistrate Judge Margaret Baylor recalls coming face-to-face with Nelson Mandela while she was a volunteer for Trans Africa, an African-American foreign policy lobbying group.
The organization had raised money for the African National Congress, and she was to meet Mandela in Durban, South Africa.
"Mr. Mandela came in first. I could not speak," she said. "I was stuttering and sputtering.
"Everyone was in awe of him because of what he did and how he handled himself."
Mandela died Thursday in South Africa.
Baylor, like many Americans, had spent years in the movement to end apartheid, the system in which minority-white rule prevailed in South Africa. When Mandela was released after 27 years in prison for advocating violence to oust the government, Baylor, like many activists, were stunned when he reconciled with his captors.
"He was not mad. He was just going forward to the next thing. I knew that this was somebody unlike most others," Baylor said.
Mandela's fortitude and his eventual support for peaceful co-existence with whites earned him the respect of many. His popularity was evident when he visited the United States in June 1990.
Trudy Gallant-Stokes recalls how Tiger Stadium in Detroit hummed with excitement as thousands of people awaited his arrival. Gallant-Stokes, then a freelancer from Black Entertainment Television, said Mandela connected deeply to the crowd.
"He seemed to be speaking just human being to human being," she said. "He was so humble in spite of all he'd accomplished."
Former South African president Nelson Mandela leaves the Intercontinental Hotel on June 26, 2008, in London. File photo by Shaun Curry, AFP/Getty Images
A chance encounter in the hallway of Detroit's Renaissance Center stays with her. Gallant-Stokes was standing with her mother when Mandela passed by a few feet away.
"He just happened to turn and nod at us. That was our moment," she said.
Baylor's moment had come hours before in a hangar at the airport where Mandela had held a news conference. In thanking his hosts, he mentioned Baylor.
"I have a tape of him saying my name out of his lips," Baylor said. "I'm talking about this 22 years later, and I am excited about it all over again."
Mandela's visit changed Detroit, says former UAW leader Owen Bieber.
Mandela brought the city together at a time of racial tension, Bieber said. As police escorted Mandela from the airport, Bieber saw people standing outside their cars as the motorcade passed. He assumed they were angry at the stopped traffic.
"These people were waving to us. There were more whites than there were blacks," he said.
Bieber had seen firsthand the conditions in South Africa's black townships and prisons on a visit to the country in 1986. Bieber, then president of the UAW and a member of Secretary of State George Schultz's advisory commission on South Africa under President Reagan, had been working with South Africa's Metal and Allied Workers Union to free its leader Moses Mayekiso, who had been jailed following a riot with police.
Bieber says he found that South Africa's black residents lived in fear of arbitrary arrest and beatings. When he met Mandela in Detroit, he marveled at his calm demeanor and his lack of anger
"I remember putting my arm around him as he got off the plane in Detroit. It was like having my arm around a bag of bones. He was very gaunt," Bieber said
First Take: Mandela will always be father of his country
During extended visits to South Africa in each of the past four years, every person I met — no matter race or ethnicity — spoke reverentially of Nelson Mandela as the father of a new, better South Africa.
Thandwefika Radebe, a student at the University of Cape Town, described Mandela as a "servant leader" who put his country and people ahead of everything.
"Mandela taught me that you didn't have to be black or previously oppressed. You were South African by virtue of family roots that preceded apartheid and wanting the country to succeed," said Radebe, 20.
Upon his release from prison in 1990, Mandela was eloquent in calling for unity of white and black South Africans and forgiveness for the regime that segregated the two in the racist system known as apartheid.
But it was his actions more than his words that convinced South Africans that the man they call Madiba (a nickname from his Xhosa tribe) believed in what he said.
South Africa's first black president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has died, South Africa's president says.
Mr Mandela, 95, led South Africa's transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s, after 27 years in prison.
He had been receiving intense home-based medical care for a lung infection after three months in hospital.
In a statement on South African national TV, Mr Zuma said Mr Mandela had "departed" and was at peace.
