South Africa prepared Saturday a sweeping, emotional farewell for Nelson Mandela and a funeral to underline the anti-apartheid icon’s transcendent influence with a stellar gathering of world leaders and luminaries.
As Mandela’s family expressed their sense of grief and loss, government officials fleshed out details of the memorial events that will culminate in the prisoner-turned-president’s burial on December 15 in his boyhood home of Qunu.
Presidents and foreign heads of government, religious dignitaries and cultural figureheads are all expected to fly in and pay their respects to the man who transformed his country and became a global symbol of hope and freedom.
The scale of the event and the level of attention and emotion surrounding it has had observers searching for a precedent, with some going as far back as the funeral of India’s independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.
For a second straight day, thousands of ordinary South Africans, black and white and from all walks of life, paid personal tribute at the Johannesburg residence where Mandela died late Thursday, aged 95, surrounded by friends and family.
A large police barrier blocking the road was transformed into a multi-coloured bank of flowers, flags, photos and messages remembering the country’s first black leader, known affectionately as Madiba.
‘While mourning, also sing’
“We have lost our friend”
While some focused on his role in dismantling apartheid and forging the modern, multi-racial South African state, others recalled the common touch that was one of Mandela’s particular political gifts.
“I am here because we have lost our friend,” said domestic worker Temperance Luthuli.
On a nearby lawn, a makeshift shrine had been set up with candles burning on a square of blackened grass, surrounded by a horseshoe of flowers.
On the other side of the road, a hawker flogged yellow T-shirts with the slogan “Nelson Mandela, our hero has fallen – 1918-2013” for 200 rand ($20).
In an intimate ceremony in Qunu on Saturday, residents lit a metre-high candle, remembering Mandela as the “light of the universe”.
“The pillar of the family is gone,” Mandela family spokesman Temba Matanzima told journalists in Johannesburg.
“His presence was like a baobab tree that provided a comforting shade that served as protection and security for us,” he said — referring to the massive tree with its famously thick trunk.
Mandela’s body will lie in state for three days from Wednesday, with the coffin taken in a cortege through the streets of Pretoria each morning, giving as many people as possible the opportunity to say farewell.
‘While mourning, also sing’
Formal memorial events begin Sunday with South Africans invited to go to churches, mosques, synagogues and other places of worship.
“We should, while mourning, also sing at the top of our voices, dance and do whatever we want to do, to celebrate the life of this outstanding revolutionary,” said President Jacob Zuma.
On Tuesday around 80,000 people are expected to attend a memorial service in the Soweto sports stadium that hosted the final of the 2010 World Cup.
The organisational and security logistics for all the events are daunting, and the military cancelled leave for troops and reservists to help with crowd control.
US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will travel to South Africa together with former first couple George W. and Laura Bush.
Another former US leader, Bill Clinton, who was in office when Mandela became South Africa’s first black president, will also attend.
In a tribute shortly after the revered statesman’s death was made public, Obama mourned Mandela as a “profoundly good” man who “took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice”.
Family ‘overwhelmed’ by support
In Cape Town, a crowd of thousands from all races and ages gathered late Friday for a multi-faith celebration at the site where Mandela made his first public speech after nearly three decades in apartheid jail.
“Tonight we stand in solidarity as the people of Cape Town — black, white, coloured, Indian, all the religions together,” said mayor Patricia De Lille.
South Africa’s archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, a fellow Nobel peace prize winner, praised Mandela as an “incredible gift that God gave us”.
Mandela spent 27 years in apartheid prisons before being elected president in 1994 and unifying his country with a message of reconciliation after the end of white minority rule. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa’s last white president, F.W. de Klerk, in 1993.
Palestinians and Israelis, Beijing and the Dalai Lama, Washington and Tehran all paid heartfelt tribute to Mandela, describing him as one of the towering figures of the 20th century.
Even reclusive North Korea sent its condolences, praising Mandela’s “struggle against racism and for democracy”.
Flags flew at half-mast in numerous countries, including the United States, France and Britain, and at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Family ‘overwhelmed’ by support
Mandela had waged a long battle against a recurring lung infection and had been receiving treatment at home since September following a lengthy hospital stay.
His two youngest daughters were in London watching the premiere of his biopic “Long Walk to Freedom”, along with Britain’s Prince William, when they learned of his death.
Once considered a terrorist by the United States and Britain for his support of violence against the apartheid regime, at the time of his death Mandela was an almost unimpeachable moral icon.
Source: AFP
