Mandela at Sunset
Meldrum, Andrew
By Andrew Meldrum Illustration by Andrea Ventura Mandela at Sunset An awe-inspiring array of senior world leaders assembled on a Johannesburg stage on July 18, including Jimmy Carter, Desmond...
...As applause greeted his short speech, he walked from the podium with difficulty and sat down slowly, assisted by his wife, Graca Machel, and Carter...
...But he continues to exercise impressive authority through carefully timed appearances...
...He sees it as making up for when he neglected his family, during his activism and the twenty-seven years in prison," says Dangor...
...These days, Mandela is spending more time with his family...
...Mandela's first wife, Evelyn, died in 2004...
...She is the widow of Mozambique's first president, Samora Machel, who died in a suspicious plane crash at the South African border in 1986...
...The foundation has promoted several projects to encourage all South Africans to understand the history of the antiapartheid struggle...
...One of these projects is a series of comic books dramatizing Mandela's life...
...Mandela's words alone were enough to end rampant speculation from Mbeki's supporters that the president should extend his time in office...
...He forgave an implacable enemy...
...Another important, sustaining relationship for Mandela is with Zelda la Grange, the white, Afrikaner typist who became his secretary when he was president and who stayed with him after retirement to become his spokesperson...
...The defiant anti-apartheid lawyer who launched the ANC's armed, but principled, struggle against racial discrimination...
...They use his compelling life story to tell the history of the anti-apartheid struggle and the humanist values which Mandela seeks to perpetuate...
...By Andrew Meldrum Illustration by Andrea Ventura Mandela at Sunset An awe-inspiring array of senior world leaders assembled on a Johannesburg stage on July 18, including Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, and former Irish President Mary Robinson...
...We want people to appreciate that Mandela sacrificed his freedom for the principle of freedom for all...
...International news agencies are keenly aware of Mandela's mortality...
...Soon all the leaders, as well as scores of journalists, joined in a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" to mark Mandela's eighty-ninth year...
...In these later years, Mandela has found happiness with his third wife, Graca, whom he married on his eightieth birthday in 1998...
...The icon who emerged from prison without bitterness and who astutely negotiated to bring his country to democracy and led the way in forgiveness and reconciliation...
...Mandela has also implicitly rebuked Mbeki's confusing policies on AIDS with several high-profile statements, including the admission that his eldest son, Makgatho, died of AIDS in January 2005...
...Just by stepping down as president after one five-year term in 1999, Mandela made a huge mpact on South African history demonstrating that a leader should not seek to stay in the top office as long as possible...
...Also present were British airline mogul Richard Branson and rock star Peter Gabriel...
...His life is the stuff of legend...
...Typically, Mandela turned his personal grief into a public education message...
...All turned with rapt attention as a tall, frail, white-haired man shuffled onstage with a cane: Nelson Mandela...
...With a print run of one million, and distributed free through schools and newspapers, the comics reach out to South Africa's poor youth...
...The image of Mandela leaning heavily on la Grange as he walks has touched South Africa, an example of the racial reconciliation and love to which the leader has dedicated his life...
...Mandela sponsored star-studded rock concerts in Cape Town in 2003 and 2005 to raise awareness and money for his anti-AIDS campaign...
...invasion of Iraq...
...He reached out to all...
...Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because that is the only way to make it appear like a normal illness," said Mandela at the burial...
...Four years ago, on his eighty-fifth birthday, Mandela warned his successor, Thabo Mbeki, against seeking to change South Africa's constitution in order to be able to run for president for a third term...
...The stirring words were made all the more Andrew Meldrum is the author of "Where We Have Hope," a memoir of his twenty-three years as a journalist in Zimbabwe...
...And that is Mandela's personal vision, to encourage generosity, tolerance, and reconciliation...
...He found the generosity to speak with his oppressors...
...To see Mandela alert and engaged but feeble is to come to the inescapable realization that he is nearing the end of his life...
...Characteristically, Mandela used the occasion to unveil an innovative group called the Elders, which pledged to work to solve the world's most intractable problems...
...He established the well-funded and staffed Nelson Mandela Foundation, which is dedicated to the principles of reconciliation, rule of law, and human rights...
...The journey from rural South Africa to Johannesburg...
...The stirring speaker whose words inspired a nation...
...Three years ago, Mandela announced his retirement from public life, a step necessary because of his declining strength...
...poignant by the sight of the fragile Mandela, sporting one of the brightly patterned shirts that have become his hallmark...
...He has three surviving daughters, one from his first marriage and two from his second marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela...
...The esteemed statesman who spoke out against the U.S...
...Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair," Mandela said...
...It is a crucial message in South Africa as more than five million of the country's forty-five million people are estimated to be infected with HIV...
...Speaking in a soft voice, Mandela described his vision of what the group should do...
...In South Africa, Mandela achieved not just a solution for the black majority, but a solution for all South Africans," says Achmat Dangor, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation...
...He is currently a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University...
...He turned to confrontation as a last resort and, most importantly, he knew how to set aside confrontation to bring all sides to the negotiating table to find a resolution...
...Television networks have prepared tributes, hired expert commentators, and set up satellite dishes atop Johannesburg skyscrapers to broadcast the news when Mandela dies...
...I am trying to take my retirement seriously," he joked, "therefore, I will not be able to participate in the really exciting part of the work: analyzing problems and seeking answers, trying to shed light into some of the darkness that afflicts our world...
...The man imprisoned for twenty-seven years who was such a threat to apartheid that even his image and his words were banned...
...With projects such as the Elders and an annual lecture series, Mandela has sought to extend his support of liberal values, tolerance, dialogue, and peace beyond his lifetime...
...Last year, Mandela supported calls for a new inquest into Machel's death...
Vol. 71 • October 2007 • No. 10
